The Dzongsar Tibetan Hospital complex is one of the living guardians of Sowa Rigpa (གསོ་བ་རིག་པ།), the Tibetan “Science of Healing”, and carries forward a lineage whose roots go back centuries. Its inheritance is traced through the medical wisdom transmitted from master to disciple, beginning with Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo (འཇམ་དབྱངས་མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་དབང་པོ།), regarded as the founder-master of the Dzongsar Tibetan Medical Lineage and one of the closest disciples of Choedak Gyaltso (ཆོས་གྲགས་རྒྱལ་མཚོ།). Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo mastered both the theory and the practice of Tibetan medicine on the basis of the classical medical texts written by the two Yuthog Yonten Gonpos and their successors. The lineage then continued through Shuchu Kunga Gyaltsen (ཤུག་ཆུ་ཀུན་དགའ་རྒྱལ་མཚན།), the second lineage master and disciple of Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo; Nyira Kanga Singge (གནས་ར་ཀུན་དགའ་སེང་གེ), the third lineage master, who served as imperial physician to the Dege king and founded the Dzongsar Tibetan Medical School; and Tsering Phuntsok (ཚེ་རིང་ཕུན་ཚོགས།), the fourth lineage master, who was the personal physician of Choekyi Lodro (ཆོས་ཀྱི་བློ་གྲོས།), the second Khyentse Rinpoche. The fifth lineage master is Lodrö Phuntsok (བློ་གྲོས་ཕུན་ཚོགས།), the present principal of Dzongsar Tibetan Hospital, main disciple of Tsering Phuntsok and also disciple of Troru Tsenam (ཁྲོ་རུ་ཚེ་རྣམ།), former president and professor of the Tibetan Traditional Medical College.
Lodrö Phuntsok, more than 50 years ago established the hospital, and since then, two of his core principles has remained unchanged: to devotedly preserve and transmit the Tibetan “Science of Healing” and to provide free clinical services to those who cannot afford them. Born in 1947 and now almost eighty years old, he has never stopped working, both as a physician and as a pillar of the wider community. His life has been devoted not only to the preservation of Tibetan medicine, but also to the preservation of Tibetan culture more broadly. As his son, Jamyang Putsok (འཇམ་དབྱངས་ཕུན་ཚོགས།), “Karpu” (སྐལ་བུ།) for the community, says, there has never been a single day without seeing his father at work; in his words, “Even during Tibetan New Year, my father would not take a single day off”. His sincerity, courage, and extraordinary discipline are remembered by everyone around him. He never raised his children with speeches about money or success, but always with the conviction that Tibetan medicine, this science of healing, is not only for Tibetans, but something that belongs to the whole world.
Indeed, his role in the community extends far beyond the hospital itself: he was also the former chairperson of the Dzongsar Monastery Management Committee and led local villagers for thirty-two years in the reconstruction of Dzongsar Monastery, while also founding the Base of Dzongsar Handicrafts (རྫོང་སར་ལག་ཤེས་ལྟེ་གནས།) and inspiring his son, Karpu, to found the handicraft company Door to Tibetan Arts (བོད་བཟོ་ཀུན་ཁྱབ།), realities born with the intention of applying modern management concepts to the sustainable development of Tibetan cultural business and favor local employment. In many ways, he was among the pioneers who encouraged the rebuilding of workshops and factories in Menshod, offering both practical support and a wider vision to the community.
The hospital itself was founded in 1975, beginning as a very small place and gradually growing into a complex of more than seven acres of land. Today, it serves people from more than one hundred administrative villages and has become a cornerstone not only for health care, but also for the training of physicians from neighboring Tibetan areas. The hospital is much more than a clinic: it includes a training center, a research center, a library, a museum, a factory, and a broader educational and charitable network. In this sense, Dzongsar Tibetan Hospital is a “community place” where an entire knowledge system is preserved, practiced, and passed on.
At the heart of the Sowa Rigpa knowledge is the rGyud-bzhi (རྒྱུད་བཞི།), The Four Medical Tantras, the foundational text of Tibetan medicine, traditionally attributed to Senior Yuthog Yonten Gonpo (གཡུ་ཐོག་རྙིང་མ་ཡོན་ཏན་མགོན་པོ།) in the 8th century, and later enriched and systematized by Junior Yuthog Yonten Gonpo (གཡུ་ཐོག་གསར་མ་ཡོན་ཏན་མགོན་པོ།) and his disciples in the 12th century. This treaty forms the backbone of the hospital’s educational and medical work. The hospital’s training section includes a classroom, student dormitory rooms, and a dining hall, where a team of 4 full-time physicians, assisted by short-term doctors, teach the Dzongsar curriculum to around 160 current students coming from different provinces even from main land China and graduated students exceeds current number of students. Their education brings together local botanical knowledge, clinical practice, textual study, and oral transmission. The services developed by the hospital can be understood in three broad dimensions: the consultation and technical support of Tibetan medicine, the oral transmission and preservation of medical texts, and charitable medical services for remote Tibetan areas.
The library is an especially precious part of this work. It preserves ancient Tibetan medical scriptures and rare woodblock prints, many of which are valuable not only for medicine but also for the preservation of old Tibetan intellectual culture as such. Among them are more than twenty volumes
(མཁྱེན་བརྩེ་བཀའ་བབ) compiled by the first reincarnation of Dzongsar Khyentse about Buddhism and Tibetan medicine, as well as volumes by the second reincarnation of Dzongsar Khyentse and by the students of the early lineage masters. Particularly important is the collection around the Four Medical Tantras, whose intellectual roots stretch back over a thousand years. The hospital also supports a private publishing and research effort through the Lodrö Research Institute of Tibetan Medicine (བློ་གྲོས་བོད་སྨན་ཞིབ་འཇུག་ཁང་།), where students and scholars can come to study. Among the preserved and compiled texts are also writings dealing with what today we would call mental health, showing that Tibetan medicine has long reflected not only on the body, but also on the mind and its suffering.
This knowledge is not kept only for specialists. One of the hospital’s wider aims is to make these medical teachings accessible to the public and to share them with the broader community. This same spirit also informs its midwife training project, through which rural women in remote areas receive instruction on pregnancy preparation, health care, common illnesses during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum recovery. In this way, the hospital acts as the center of a much larger network whose purpose is clear: to improve health care in remote areas and to respond concretely to the medical needs of rural communities. Over the years, many small clinics have been established in surrounding areas, and more are still under construction.
Another important part of the Dzongsar Tibetan Hospital complex is its museum, which has recently received official recognition as a museum. It offers a rare opportunity to enter the material culture of Tibetan medicine. At its entrance stands a particularly moving historical object: an old offering box. From around 1980 to 2000, the hospital did not demand payment for medicine. If patients wished to contribute, they could simply place an offering in the box. This small object silently tells the story of a medical institution devoted to service before profit.
The museum also preserves many old instruments once used by Tibetan physicians, including tools for bone adjustment and other practical treatments. Traditionally, there were specific methods for repairing broken bones: Deh (དེབ།), covering the injury to support healing; Zjoh (སྒྱོགས།), tying and stabilizing the broken parts with wooden supports; and Chin (ཆིངས།), using threads and ropes to secure the injured area.
The museum further displays many of the ingredients used in Tibetan medicine and in the making of related products, most of them local to the Tibetan Plateau. This links directly to another key branch of the hospital’s activity: its production factory, where Tibetan medicines, incense, and more recently skin-care products are made according to traditional formulas and techniques, using herbs, plants, minerals, and natural ingredients that often grow above 4,000 meters. Even the storage of the medicines follows traditional methods, at an altitude of around 3,600 meters, in conditions considered appropriate to their nature. Tibetan Buddhism also plays a practical role in this process, since medicines are usually consecrated through blessings and the chanting of sutras before they are prescribed. This is not seen merely as a ritual addition, but as part of the medicine’s full efficacy.
One of the most beautiful ways in which the hospital explains Tibetan medicine is through its collection of medical thangkas, visual teaching tools that translate complex theory into symbolic and accessible form. If one wants a broad overview of Tibetan medicine, a particular triptych of thangkas is almost unmissable. Across these three paintings, nearly the entire theoretical structure of Tibetan medicine is represented. Each thangka is organized around a tree, from whose trunk and branches different concepts unfold.
The first tree presents the conditions of health and disease. On one side, it shows the healthy body and its formation; on the other, it depicts illness and the roots of disease. In this framework, disease arises from different imbalances, often connected to the elements and to the body’s internal conditions.
The second tree concerns diagnosis: once a person is ill, the physician must understand the source of the illness. Here the branches show the methods of observation, touch, and inquiry. The doctor looks at the urine, the tongue, the face, and the expression; touches the body to assess pulse, skin, and temperature; and asks about the beginning of the illness and the patient’s overall condition.
The third tree concerns treatment. It shows the four main ways of healing in Tibetan medicine: first through food, then through behaviour, then through medicine, and finally, if necessary, through more direct interventions such as bloodletting or burning.
Another remarkable thangka in the museum depicts the formation of the body during pregnancy, showing different stages of fetal development. Here you can find animals, why? Visual explanatory function: at one stage the fetus resembles two fishes, at another a turtle, and later a boar, each animal symbolically evoking a phase of growth.
The museum also preserves a mandala that plays a role in the moment of prescribing medicine. Before certain medicines are given, they are consecrated, and, as said, this is understood not simply as a religious gesture, but as an integral part of Tibetan healing itself. On the same floor of the museum, the complex also includes a prayer and mental healing hall, where mental suffering is approached through specifically Tibetan methods. According to the “Tibetan view”, many forms of suffering originate in the mind itself, and therefore cannot be fully resolved by physical medicine alone. Karpu and the hospital team have been working for years on a project dedicated to mental health, one that draws on Tibetan meditation, yoga, breath practices, and philosophical training as methods for restoring inner balance. This project is being developed with particular attention to the needs of the present, especially in urban contexts where mental health issues are increasing dramatically. As Karpu explains, in Tibetan medicine many mental disorders are connected to the poisons of ignorance, greed, and anger, and therefore the treatment must engage the mind itself. Meditation, when understood properly, is not only about sitting for a long time, but about learning the core method: how to work with thoughts, reactions, resentment, fear, and attachment. In this perspective, healing is inseparable from wisdom. These methods are seen as practical tools that can help people in a profound and sustainable way. This vision is one of the most forward-looking aspects of the hospital today, and it is also where the younger generation is beginning to take an important role.
Among this younger generation is Woeser Dorje (འོད་གསལ་རྡོ་རྗེ།), one of the youngest inheritors of the Dzongsar medical wisdom tradition. At only 29 years old, he represents a living bridge between the depth of Sowa Rigpa knowledge and its contemporary applications. He began studying Tibetan medicine at the age of 16, entering a path that is long, and demanding, both in terms of scholarship and practice. In this tradition, medicine cannot be approached in isolation: before becoming a physician, one must build a strong foundation in the five major sciences of Tibetan culture, beginning with Tibetan language at a high level in order to read and understand the original texts, and continuing with Buddhist philosophy and Tsema Ripa (ཚད་མ་རིག་པ།), a form of philosophical logic intended to cultivate the wisdom necessary to understand the nature of things and to arrive at the “right answer”. As Woeser Dorje says, even one of these subjects could take a lifetime to fully study, but, as doctors, we need to have a strong foundation of them, because you cannot really understand Tibetan medicine without Tibetan Buddhism or Tsema Ripa, they are interdependent. Within this framework, Woeser Dorje became a physician and a Tibetan yoga master. Indeed, Tibetan yoga is a branch of Tibetan medicine. As shown in the three-trees thangkas, in the classical structure of Tibetan healing, once a disease has been understood, treatment proceeds through food, behaviour, medicine, and, if necessary, more direct interventions. Yoga belongs to this second dimension: the healing of the body and mind through behaviour, breath, movement, and inner balance. For this reason, Woeser’s role is especially meaningful today. He has already gained experience in teaching Tibetan yoga in China, where there is growing interest in its benefits for physical well-being, emotional balance, and mental health. Although it may appear similar to other yoga traditions, Tibetan yoga has its own distinct methods, philosophy, and therapeutic purpose, and within the Dzongsar Hospital’s vision it is becoming an increasingly important part of how traditional Tibetan medicine can respond to the needs of the present.
As said, what makes this place especially powerful is that its work does not remain enclosed within the hospital walls. The Dzongsar Tibetan Hospital complex is deeply woven into the life of Menshod. Its advice, support, and vision have helped shape not only medicine, but also the revival of local craftsmanship and community-based development. The encouragement given to centers such as Dzaken Tsang Pottery Center and to figures like Dawa Drolma (Khyenle Arts Center) is part of this broader role, and these are only two examples of many others. We can say that the same sincerity that built the hospital also radiated outward into the life of the village. In Karpu’s words, his father had an extraordinary ability to choose the right path and the right method in whatever he did, because he was deeply rooted in the logic and inner truth of Buddhist philosophy. People support his work so strongly because they feel that what he built was done with a sincere heart.
This legacy is what the next generation now carries forward. Thinking about the future, Karpu’s strongest focus is the development of Tibetan approaches to mental healing, which he sees as one of the most urgent needs of our time. In a world increasingly marked by stress, disconnection, and emotional suffering, he sees in Tibetan medicine, Tibetan yoga, and Buddhist-derived methods of mental cultivation not a path for the future. The future of Dzongsar Tibetan Hospital, then, is both the preservation of an ancient science and its courageous application to the needs of the present world: founded in lineage, grounded in compassion, and still alive to keep healing.
