Thang Tong Gyalpo
[6] Thangtong Gyalpo was born at Ölpa Lhartse in upper Tsang (modern Ngamring County) in 1385 CE (wood ox year, sixth cycle).
[7] Thangtong Gyalpo is best known for his founding of lhamo or Tibetan opera as well as the numerous iron suspension bridges he built to ease travel and pilgrimage though the Himalayas.
[8][9] Thangtong Gyalpo also founded Gonchen Monastery, a large Sakya vihara and printing centre in the town of Derge, Kham (modern Sichuan, China).
[10] Thangtong Gyalpo opened the route through the land of the Kongpo aborigines (the Lhoba people), where he obtained iron for his bridges and rights of passage for Tibetan pilgrims to visit the holy places in Tsari to the southeast of Dakpo near the Indian border.
Plays traditionally have an altar erected in the middle of the stage surrounded by trees, where the "god of drama", Thangtong Gyalpo, is worshiped as an elderly man with a white beard.
[8][9] One of his iron chain suspension bridges, Chushul Chakzam, about 65 kilometres (40 mi) from Lhasa on the Yarlung Tsangpo River still existed in 1948, though it was in need of repairs and no longer used, the crossing being made by ferry.
[5] Part of the impetus for his intensive travel throughout the region was to meet and study with various Vajrayana tulkus, teachers, lineage holders, and yogis and yoginis.
[21]During a profound visionary experience, the dakini Niguma herself bestowed upon him the four initiations, specific instructions concerning the esoteric significance of her Vajra Lines, and an extraordinary technique for transference of consciousness through meditation on the white and red forms of Khecarī.
Tangtong's mastery of these practices is said to have given him the ability to instantly emanate many forms, to know what other people were thinking, and to perform the transference of consciousness from afar for the benefit of another person.
In a grove of juniper trees at a place called Sinpo Dzong (Demon Fort), he was approached again by the dakini Niguma, this time in the form of a fifteen-year-old shepherd girl.
[5] Thang Tong Gyalpo is known for writing an Avalokiteśvara sādhanā entitled For the Benefit of All Beings as Vast as the Skies, which is practiced in dharma centers today.
Contemporary social media has included postings containing prayers to Thang Tong Gyalpo to relieve suffering from earthquakes natural disasters as well.
According to his biography, while performing rituals of Vajrakilaya there, he had a vision of the assembly of the Eight Classes of Heruka (Wylie: sgrub pa bka' brgyad) meditational deities with Vajrakumara as the central figure.
It is said that a nine-headed nāga spirit, who was the guardian of the sacred place of Paro Taktsang, declared "your religious inheritance was concealed here by Ogyen Rinpoche, please make your discovery and reveal it".
On the nose of this snake the Drubthob constructed Jangtsa Dumtseg Lhakhang, a stupa-shaped temple and pronounced that all diseases caused by evil spirits residing under the ground were suppressed and that the valley would be free from leprosy.
At Tamchogang, at the foot of the Phurdo mountains, he established Tamchog Lhakhang temple and made sacred representations of the Buddha's body, speech and mind.
This temple, which located opposite the road from Paro about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) before Chudzom, is still maintained by the descendants of Drubtob Thang Tong Gyalpo.
From there he travelled to Drawang Tengchin where a rich man named Olag presented him three hundred and forty coins and turquoises and requested him to extract water.
At Changlungkha Rawakha, Nyal Phagmodrong, Tachogang, Wundul Dronkar, Silung, Bagdrong, Binangkhachey, Daglha, Gyirling and Nyishar, he conducted a lot of religious activities by providing image, scripture, stupa, iron bridges and established meditation centres.
