He renounced his vows and married, but could not escape denunciation, and during the Cultural Revolution he worked as a labourer in the fields.
After his exoneration, he returned to Beijing, remarried, and worked at the Central Nationalities Institute, where he wrote Snyan ngag la 'jug tshul tshig rgyan rig pa'i sgo 'byed ("Opening the door to the study of ornamentation for writing poetry", 1982).
In the mid 1980s he returned to Lhasa and taught history at Tibet University, promoting the cause of bilingual education.
Official attitudes hardened against Tibet and at the time of his death in Los Angeles, USA, he was out of favour with authorities.
He is remembered for the monumental reference work, Dung dkar tshig mdzod ("Dungkar's Encyclopedia" or "Dungkar Tibetological Great Dictionary", or "White Conch Encyclopedia"), last reprinted in 2002, and for Bod-kyi Chos Srid Zung-'brel Skor Bshad-pa ("The Merging of Religious and Secular Rule in Tibet", 1981/3), a religious history emphasizing politics and sociology, translated into English in 1991 by Chen Guansheng.