Khamgar

Khamgar is identifiable with Khampa Gar, the Drukpa Kagyu monastery in the Lhatok country of Chamdo. It became the seat of the Khamtrul incarnation line. Its history should be distinguished from the earlier seats of that lineage elsewhere in Kham and from the much later monastery established in India.

The Fourth Khamtrul Chokyi Nyima, who lived from 1730 to 1779, founded the Chamdo monastery in the eighteenth century. The lineage's institutional history dates the foundation of Palphuntsok Choekhor Ling at Garnyak to 1746, a few kilometres from the earlier seat associated with the Third Khamtrul. The Fourth Khamtrul also organised a retreat community of thirteen practitioners, remembered as togdens. Their disciplines included the Six Yogas of Naropa and Mahamudra, central practices of the Kagyu tradition. Thus the locality's distinctive early modern importance lay in a particular monastic lineage and its sustained contemplative training. Teaching, retreat and relationships with affiliated religious communities connected this mountain establishment with a wider network across eastern Tibet.