Tenzin Choedrak
Tenzin Chodrag ( Tib: bstan 'dzin chos grags, also: Tenzin Chödrak, Tenzin Choedrak; * 1922, † April 6, 2001 in Dharamsala ) was a Tibetan doctor and author.
Life
Youth and Education
Tenzin Chodrag grew up in poverty as an orphan raised by his father and stepmother. He had the desire to be a doctor at a young age.
The first years he spent in a monastery were hard. When a breach of discipline or non-fulfillment of tasks they asked the novices were often beaten.
Since he did not give up his goal to become a doctor, to Tenzin Chodrag made as a teenager on the way to Lhasa there a way to see the 13th Dalai Lama in 1916, founded by monastic school of medicine " Mentsikhang " ( Tib. sman khang rtsis ) to be included. For financial reasons, his plan failed, although at first, but with the support of relatives, he succeeded finally the financial resources for inclusion in the Mentsikhang find.
Also, the time of its formation in Mentsikhang from 1940 was characterized by high demands on discipline and perseverance. For the great demand for medicinal plants of the Mentsikhang needed the monks themselves were responsible. Be particularly difficult in this case proved to be the procurement of those plants that are only found in the higher altitudes of the highlands of Tibet. For the ill-equipped monks insisted on such expeditions the risk of getting hurt to gather frostbite to go blind or to be altitude sickness.
1944 Tenzin Chodrag Menzin was and could now produce drugs in the presence of a doctor himself. Between 1950 and 1952 he learned the traditional methods for detoxification of mercury and was educated in the production of the " jewel pills " used in Tibetan medicine. Also, he was allowed to start at this time, even with the treatment of patients before 1952 he earned his degree.
When the mother of the 14th Dalai Lama Dekyi Tshering ( 1900-1981 ) was ill Chodrag Tenzin, who earned a reputation as a physician was called in to help and was able to treat them with success. In 1956 he was one of four personal physicians of the Dalai Lama and was given the title " Lhamenpa " ( Tib. sman lha pa).
Captivity and exile
After the 14th Dalai Lama fled Tibet in the wake of the 1959 uprising in India Tenzin Chodrag was arrested. As a person from the immediate environment of the now designated as counter-revolutionary feudal Dalai Lama he was, who had to have hardly heard at this time something of Mao Zedong, regarded with particular suspicion. He was tortured, should admit his mistake in " class struggle sessions " ( Thamzing ) and be re-educated through labor.
Between 1959 and 1976, Tenzin Chodrag political prisoners of the People's Republic of China. Initially, he was taken to the Laogai Jiuzhen north of Lanzhou, later moved back to Lhasa in the prison Drapchi. It was not until 13 years after his arrest in 1972, he was sentenced as an intellectual of the upper class with the former Tibetan government in conjunction stood formally to 17 years in prison and in prison Sangyib, also in Lhasa, imprisoned, where he worked in a quarry under the most difficult conditions. A year later, he was consulted by a Chinese prison doctor, who was informed of his medical skills, because of a personal suffering. He was able to help him and was consequently assigned to work in the prison hospital.
After his release in 1976 practiced Tenzin Chodrag again as a doctor and got a little salary for his work in the prison hospital. From Tibetan side this he was suspected of collaborating with the Chinese, on the Chinese side, however, he was still an enemy of the people.
Through the mediation of Lobsang Samten ( b. 1932 ) - an older brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, who was at that time on the basis of diplomatic relations between the Tibetan government in exile and the Chinese government in Tibet - received Tenzin Chodrag 1979 permission Dharamsala to visit allowed. In 1980 he was again personal physician of the 14th Dalai Lama and did not return to Tibet.
In 1961, founded by the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Mentsikhang in Dharamsala Chodrag Chief Medical Officer, as well as manager and later consultant to the Department of Pharmacy was. In 1984 he spoke at the international conference on Tibetan medicine in Venice. In 1987 he traveled to New York, Washington DC, Phoenix and San Francisco to explore the possibilities of a program for the scientific investigation of the effect of Tibetan medicine in the treatment of cancer, hepatitis, arthritis and AIDS. Further journeys to France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Russia, Mongolia, Japan, Mexico, the U.S. and South Asia followed. After the Chernobyl disaster, he was also consulted for the treatment of radiation sickness.
On April 6, 2001 Tenzin Chodrag died.