Dorje Yudon

Dorje Yudon (rdo rje g.yu sgron) was born in 1912 to the aristocratic family of Surkhang (zur khang). She was born in a village called Drak (grags), fifty miles southeast of Lhasa, in a house called Kunzang Choling (kun bzang chos gling) that her great-great-grandfather had built in about 1870. Her parents were Surkhang Wangchen Tseten (zur khang dbang chen tshe brtan, 1891-1953) and Lhagyari Tseten Chozom (lha rgya ri chos 'zoms). Her mother had left Lhasa in response to the Chinese invasion of 1910, when theThirteenth Dalai Lama, Tubten Gyatso (tA la'i bla ma 13 thub bstan rgya mtsho. 1876-1933) had fled to India and the Third Tsemonling Hutuktu, Ngawang Lobzang Tenpai Gyeltsen (tshe smon gling 03 ngag dbang blo bzang bstan pa'i rgyal mtshan, 1864-1919) was appointed Regent. Her mother's brother, Lhagyari Namgyel Wangchuk (lha rgya ri rnam rgyal dbang phyug, d.1912), in fact died in Lhasa, killed by Chinese canon fire during a battle.

The family of Dorje Yudon's father, the Surkhangs, were from the midrak (mi drag) rank of aristocracy, one of four ranks then in use in Lhasa: yabzhi (yab gzhis), depon (sde dpon), midrak and gerpa (sger pa). During the time of the Seventh Dalai Lama, Kelzang Gyatso (tA la'i bla ma 07 bskal bzang rgya mtsho, 1708-1757), some ancestors of the Surkhang family moved from Ladakh to Lhasa and the Dalai Lama gave them an estate. One explanation for the family's name is that when they came to Lhasa, they lived near the corner of the Jokhang (jo khang) and people began to call them 'corner house' Surkhang. Dorje Yudon's mother was from the family of Lhagyari (lha rgya ri), descended from the royal lineage of Songtsen Gampo (srong brtsan sgam po, 617-698).

Wangchen Tseten and Tseten Chozom divorced when Dorje Yudon was still a young girl (the divorce was sanctioned by the Dalai Lama, as was the custom in those days), and Wangchen Tseten moved out of the Surkhang house to set up another household. He was reassigned as Depon (mda' dpon), fourth rank general, and sent to Kham. He later became Governor General of Eastern Tibet (mdo smad spyi khyab) in 1936.

In 1919, when Dorje Yudon was around seven years old, she started to attend the Kyiraes School (skyid ras) in Lhasa with her older siblings. The subjects taught were handwriting and reading, grammar and mathematics. She left the school when she was twelve. When she reached eighteen years of age, her family sent her to Treshong (bkra gshong), in Nyemo (snye mo) district, to be the head of the Treshong estate. The Treshongs were a family connected to the Surkhang. The last surviving Treshong, Tsewang Topgyal (bkra gshong tshe dbang stob rgyal) had no heir and wished to pass on his estate to one of the Surkhang children. The arrangement was that when Dorje Yudon married, her husband would forsake his surname and take on the name of Treshong.

On one of her visits back to Lhasa, Yuthok Tashi Dhondup (g.yu thog bkra shis don grub, 1906-1984) a general in the Tibetan army, began to court her. They fell in love and Tashi Dhondup's older brother Rimshi Yuthok Tsering Wangdu (rim bzhi g.yu thog tshe ring dbang 'dus) formally requested permission for Dorje Yudon to be married to his younger brother. However, Rimshi Yuthok refused to allow his brother to take the Treshong name, and insisted that Dorje Yudon enter the Yuthok House (g.yu thog gzims shag) as a bride. On December 19, 1933, Dorje Yudon married Tashi Dhondup and moved to Yuthok House.

The Yuthok and the Surkhang families had already become closely related, as Dorje Yudon's two older brothers Surkhang Wangchen Gelek (zur khang dbang chen bde legs, d. 1977) and Surkhang Lhawang Topgyal (zur khang lha dbang stob rgyal) were both married to Rimshi Yuthok's daughter Dekyi Lhaze (bde skyid lha mdzes) a few months before. In Dorje Yudon's place, her younger sister Lhawang Dolma (lha dbang sgrol ma) took over the Treshong estate.

Dorje Yudon became mistress of a big household. Like the Surkhang House, Yuthok House was damaged in the battles of 1910-1912, and had since been renovated. The family kept about nineteen servants including treasurer, steward, secretary, manservants, maidservants, cook, sweeper, groom, gardener and manager. She lost her first child in his infancy, but went on to have three other children; two sons, named Gyalten Wangchuk (rgyal bstan dbang phyug) and Dondol Wangchuk (bdud 'dul dbang phyug) and a daughter named Thupten Choden (thub bstan chos sgron). She also became stepmother to the children that her husband and his older brother had from a previous marriage. Tashi Dhondup and Rimshi Yuthok had been married to Chime Yudon ('chi med g.yu sgron), from the Langdun (C1, glang mdun) family and niece of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama.

Tashi Dhondup had been Commander of the Bodyguard Unit of the Dalai Lama with the title of General or Depon (sku gsung mda' dpon). But in 1937, the Regent, the Fifth Reting Tubten Jampel Yeshe Gyeltsen (rwa sgreng 05 thub bstan 'jam dpal ye shes rgyal mtshan, 1912-1947) effectively demoted him by changing his rank from Commander to Theji (tha’i ji). Although Theji was nominally a higher rank than Depon, it was an inactive position. However, in 1942, Tashi Dhondup was again promoted and appointed Governor General of Eastern Tibet, the Domey Chikyab (mdo smad spyi khyab). After he left for Chamdo, Dorje Yudon stayed behind for Lhasa for another year to settle the family's financial affairs. She engaged in some trading ventures – such as buying highly sought after white and blue cotton yarn from Kalimpong to sell in Lhasa and Yunnan.

When she heard that her husband was having an affair in Chamdo, she hastened her departure from Lhasa. It was late 1944 when she left Lhasa with a traveling party of fourteen people including her two sons, two maidservants, a cook, five servants and two stewards. At the time there were three routes from Lhasa to Chamdo: the Janglam (jang lam), the Janglam Barma (jang lam bar ma) and the Zhunglam (zhung lam). They took the Janglam route, which would take them past Nakchu where Dorje Yudon's brother Lhawang Topgyal was serving as the general of Drapchi Gyajong (gra phyi rgya jong) garrison with five hundred soldiers under his command.

When she arrived in Chamdo her husband requested a separation. He had a mistress by the name of Demo Yungdrung (de mo g.yung drung), the wife of another official, as well as relationships with other women. She returned to Lhasa but did not remain there long. In 1946, she traveled to Kalimpong to enroll her sons in St. Joseph's Convent School. In Kalimpong, she stayed with the Pangdatsangs (spang mda tshang), a trading family from Kham who now had one of the richest family firms in Tibet. She stayed first at the house of Rapga Pangdatsang (rab dga' spang mda’ tshang rab dga’, b.1901) and his wife Jomo Tsedron (jo mo tshe sgron) and then the house of Yarphel Pangdatsang (spang mda’ tshang yar 'phel, 1900s-1972/73). Yarphel, a civil servant in the Tibetan government, was in Lhasa at the time and his wife Sonam (bsod nams) hosted Dorje Yudon.

Leaving her children in Kalimpong and returning to Tibet, Dorje Yudon began a love affair with Tsepon Wangchuk Deden Shakabpa (zhwa sgab pa dbang phyug bde ldan, b.1908), a married man, that lasted several months. The affair ended in 1947 when Shakabpa left with Surkhang Lhawang Topgyal, Dorje Yudon's brother, and others for Europe and the United States as leader of the Tibetan Trade Delegation.

When Tashi Dhondup's term in Chamdo was up, he returned to Lhasa and brought with him, Rigcho (rigs chos), the daughter of his former mistress Demo Yungdrung. Tashi Dhondup and Dorje Yudon now decided to formally divorce, and they divided equally the Yuthok family's eighteen estates. Tashi Dhondup and Dorje Yudon drew up an agreement, signed it with witnesses and then submitted it to the government; when the regent signed his approval, their divorce was finalized. Dorje Yudon moved out of Yuthok House to a new house on the ground of her husband's estate near Yuthok Bridge on the eastern outskirts of Lhasa. Tashi Dhondup lived with Rigcho as his new wife.

In 1948, Tashi Dhondup, now Dorje Yudon's ex-husband, set out for India to send their daughter Thupten Choden to school there. After some months, Dorje Yudon went to Kalimpong again and stayed once more with Rapga and Tsedon Pangdatsang. The Tibetan Trade Delegation was now on its way back to Tibet, which meant that her brother and Shakabpa were in Kalimpong.

Dorje Yudon then became romantically involved with both Shakabpa and her ex-husband. As her personal life was becoming quite chaotic, she left Kalimpong for a pilgrimage in Bodh Gaya. In Gaya, she decided to become a nun and became ordained by Pema Choling Rinpoche (pad ma chos gling rin po che), a lama from Shang Pema Choling Monastery (shang pad ma chos gling) in Tibet who was in the Tibetan monastery in Bodh Gaya at the time. However once she returned to Kalimpong, she renounced her vows and again became involved with Tashi Dhondup.

She eventually returned to Lhasa, and became more involved in religion. In 1957 she sponsored a full teaching of the Lamrim (lam rim) at Shide Gonpa (bzhi sde) by her teacher the Third Trijang, Lobzang Yeshe Tendzin Gyatso (khri byang 03 blo bzang ye shes bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, 1901-1981). Trijang Rinpoche also taught his most famous work, the commentary on Lamrim called Namdol Lakchang (rnam grol lag bcangs), or Liberation in the Palm of the Hand. This was based on notes taken during his teacher Pabongkha Dechen Nyingpo's (pha bong kha bde chen snying po, 1878-1941) Lamrim teachings at Chubzang Hermitage (chu bzang ri khrod) in 1921. Trijang Rinpoche's teachings lasted for a month and four days and were attended by two thousand monks and fifty lamas.

In 1950, the young Fourteenth Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso (tA la'i bla ma 14 bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, b.1935) had been installed as head of state. In May 1951, the Seventeen Point Agreement, which ended Tibet's independence, was signed in Beijing. In September 1951, the People's Liberation Army marched into Lhasa. The rest of the 1950s was a period of uneasy coexistence between Tibetans and Chinese. The Surkhang family sent Dorje Yudon’s youngest brother Wangchuk Dorje (dbang phyug rdo rje) to India to make preparations in Kalimpong in case the family should need to make its escape. The Chinese wanted Dorje Yudon to take on the position of administrative secretary in their main office but she refused on the pretext of her poor eyesight. In March 1959, as the popular revolt was taking place in Lhasa, Dorje Yudon escaped from Lhasa with her daughter, her mother, her brother Lhawang Topgyal and other family members.

Along the way, they got the news that the Dalai Lama had also escaped with his family, his tutors and other senior officials, including Dorje Yudon's older brother Kalon Surkhang Wangchen Gelek who was in the cabinet at the time. When they arrived in Tsona near the Indian border, the Dalai Lama's entourage was already there. The Dalai Lama requested Lhawang Topgyal to join his party because there was no one in the entourage who could speak English.

After arriving in India, Dorje Yudon stayed in Kalimpong for a month and then moved to Mussourie. Her elder brother Wangchen Gelek stayed in Mussourie at Kildare House with his brother and their wife Dekyi Lhaze. The Dalai Lama and his government were based in Mussourie although they would later move to Dharamsala.

Dorje Yudon was able to support herself by selling her jewels. She settled in the Kullu Valley in Himachal Pradesh. Here she became acquainted with the Raja Mata Parik of Nalagarh and spent a couple of years with the Raja Mata in her palace in Nalagarh. But eventually she decided that she wanted to move to the United States. Her brothers had received appointments at the Sino-Soviet Institute at the University of Washington and her son Gyalten Wangchuk and her niece Choden Dolkar were also in Seattle. Choden Dolkar, in fact, later married the noted American anthropologist Melvyn Goldstein.

Through Freda Bedi at Dalhousie, Dorje Yudon became connected with Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Ranney who sponsored her to come to the US in 1965. She lived for some years with her daughter Thupten Choden in New York City and even worked as a tutor in the South Asian Studies Department at the University of Pennsylvania. She began her autobiography during this time. The book was published by Snow Lion Publications in 1990. Dorje Yudon Yuthok died in Seattle in May, 1998.

Source: https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies/view/Dorje-Yudon/TBRC_P9029