For 1,300 years, Tibet's chief oracle has been consulted by the nations leaders on virtually every key decision of state. Although on sacred occasions the oracle would appear before up to 80,000 people in Lhasa, the inner workings of his monastery, the nature of possession and, in particular, the experiences of those closely involved have been kept strictly secret. As part of Tibet's entry to the world, however, the Dalai Lama agreed to have some details of Nechung Monastery and the story of its most important resident, the kuden, revealed.

On January 5, 1930, Lobsang Jigme, twelfth medium of Tibet's State Oracle was born to a family of middle-class shopkeepers in Lhasa. His father died when he was still young, leading his mother to give her only child to the monkhood. The family had cousins in both the Je College of Sera Monastery, Tibet's second-largest cloister, and the small but eminent monastery, called Namgyal Dratsang, belonging to the Dalai Lama and housed in the Potala. To decide which to approach, his mother sought a mo or divination from a renowned lama, named Demo Rinpoche.

On the basis of his prognostication, Demo Rinpoche stated that the child should be sent to neither monastery. Rather, the lama related, he had very important work to do at Nechung Monastery and, hence, should go there. He added that the boy must be treated carefully and always kept clean meaning that things should be done with decorum in his presence. On receiving this advice, Lobsang Jigme's mother thought that perhaps her son was an incarnate lama who had, as yet, to be recognized. His sensitive, introspective nature seemed a further indication of his special nature. Securing a place at Nechung monastery, she sent him from home at the age of seven, and the young boy took up life as a getsul, or novice monk.

Nechung Dorje Drayangling The Immutable Island of Melodious Sound as Nechung Monastery was formally called, lay four miles west of Lhasa, in a large grove of juniper and fruit trees just below Drepung Monastery. Since the seventeenth century, its 115 monks had been supported by the Tibetan government who held them responsible for keeping intact a daily link with Tibet's main spirit Protector, Pehar Gyalpo. Believed to inhabit the spirit world invisible to humans. Pehar Gyalpo and his principal emissary to Tibet, Dorje Darkden, were contacted through eight hours of ritual conducted in four sessions a day, beginning at six in the morning and ending at ten-thirty at night.

To learn the invocations, Lobsang Jigme was required to memorize five hundred pages of tantric liturgy far less than the hundreds of books memorized by some scholars training for the Doctor of Divinity degree, but, due to the premium put on its correct incantation in ritual, a demanding task. In conjunction with recitation, he was instructed in the monastery's unique style of chanting, the playing of religious instruments, the fashioning of elaborately sculptured offerings and cham or religious dance.

Most complex were the intricate visualizations which each monk had to generate during prayers. It was by virtue of their own powers of meditation as well as the visualized offerings of blood, meat and alcohol that the Protector, it was believed, was actually summoned, imagination being the link to a higher, more refined level of reality. Lobsang Jigme soon learned that advanced practitioners whose psychic channels had been opened by years of meditation, would see Dorje Drakden, garbed in the robes of a stately monk, during daily prayers. The rest however, received their only glimpses of the Renowned Immutable One during the five official trances held each month.

Through private trances often occurred at the request of the Dalai Lama, on the second day of each lunar month, without fail, Drepung's abbot would arrive soon after sunrise for their monthly audience with the Protector. While the medium underwent trance before the two-storey-high statue of Hayagriva, a ferocious, multi-armed, multi-headed tutelary deity, poised at the rear of the monastery's hall, the monks would seek advice on a wide range of issues affecting Drepung's vast estates. During the next week, four government departments Cabinet, Office of the Lord Chamberlain, and two offices of the Treasury would submit formal requests to the monastery for their own sessions with the Protector. Meticulous records of each prophecy delivered at these meanings were kept by Nechung Monastery's secretary, who recorded predictions on nine two-foot-long black, red-rimmed boards, oiled and dusted with limestone powder.

Using an inkless bamboo pen, he wrote in the shorthand necessary to keep up with the oracles often rapid speech. At the conclusion of each trance, Lobsang Jigme watched as the tablets were taken to the temples eastern wing, where they were copied for the records of the department in attendance, as well as for his monastery's own archives. The latter were kept in large, wood-framed books, wrapped in brocade and stored in tall, brilliantly decorated yellow cupboards. Beside them lay scrolls of golden silk upon which Nechung Monastery's regulations had been personally composed by the Fifth Dalai Lama.

Elsewhere heavy steel swords were displayed, tied in knots and given as a blessing by Dorje Drakden. The monastery's true spiritual riches, though, consisted of a number of sacred vessels through which the Protector, without the use of a medium, was believed to communicate directly. These hallowed objects had been preserved since the dawn of Buddhism in Tibet.

From his fellow monks Lobsang Jigme soon heard tales of the oracles miraculous abilities. Throughout Tibet's history, he was told, the Choekyong had intervened to protect those following the path of religion from harm. In recent years, he had manifested the week-long vision in the sacred lake of Lhamo Lhatso that had revealed the birthplace of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. When the young ruler had reached his majority and was about to assume temporal power, the Protector had exposed an assassination attempt on his life by directly challenging its mastermind, the Regent, during a trance.

At the end of his reign, the oracle had bid the Dalai Lama farewell by facing him as he walked away at the conclusion of a public trance held in Norbulingka an act performed only at final parting, which, though puzzling at the time, became clear four months later when Tibet's ruler died unexpectedly. All these accounts showed Lobsang Jigme how intimate the connection was between his monastery and the government of Tibet. None, however, is illustrated the establishments vital role as clearly as the ceremonies undertaken during Tibetan New Year, the first of which brought the entire world of spirit protectors into direct contact with the affairs of men.

As a state institution, Nechung Monastery stood at the apex of a nationwide system comprised of thousands of mediums and their respective spirits. The network through which the human and spirit worlds were connected, was re-enfranchised annually, in the so-called Lhatrel or God Tax. Once a year, Tibet's 120 district governors collected offerings from the mediums in their region on behalf of their spirits. Forwarded to Nechung Monastery, they were given, on the third day of the New Year, in a colossal tsog or offering ritual, to Pehar Gyalpo.

After the rite, Nechung's monks moved to the center of Lhasa for the oracles appearance in Tibet's most spectacular celebration, the three-week-long Monlam Chenmo or Great Prayer Festival. At this time, over 20,000 monks, joined by thousands of pilgrims from all across the country, crowded into the capital. The Nechung medium was required to undergo trance on at least ten separate occasions. In the most dramatic event, following days of parades, athletic meetings and religious convocations, he marched in a regal procession south of the city to a field below the Potala, where, wielding his bow, sword and trident before a bonfire, he ritually dispersed the negative spirits of the old year.

As Lobsang Jigme grew older, his indoctrination as Nechung monk would have progressed normally if it were not for the sudden onslaught of a strange illness around the time of his tenth birthday. In the middle of the night, he would quickly rise, don his robes and proceed, sleepwalking, out of his room. During the next year he began to show signs of irrationality during the day as well. One moment he would be conversing with the other young monks; the next, he would look into space and speak in a disjointed manner. When the fit passed, he claimed no recollection of it. But at the same time his ravings seemed to impart a logic of their own. Often he described animals eagles, elephants and monkeys in particular. On one occasion, he told of a huge throne being built by five people. In the future, he concluded he would sit on that throne.

As no external cause of Lobsang Jigme's illness could be found, the doctors of Mendzekhang and Chokpori were unable to cure it. Their diagnosis, though, was clear. As opposed to mental illness, this was a case of spirit possession. The physicians suggested that Lobsang Jigme make a pilgrimage to Sharbumpa stupa in Phenbo, north of Lhasa. The stupa contained relics of a great lama named Geshe Sharbum, and was famous for alleviating possession.

Given a fifteen-day furlough to undertake his cure. Lobsang Jigme was warned by his superiors that Nechung Monastery's were strictly enforced; return on the appointed day was mandatory. Because of this, his stay in Sharbumpa was rigorous. To complete the number of prayers required for deriving curative benefit, he had to spend the entire day, breaking only for meals, walking around the stupa. With considerable effort, he completed the full course on time, but he experienced no relief; his affliction returned with him to the monastery. Two years later, at the age of twelve, Lobsang Jigme once more went on pilgrimage this time to a stupa east of Ganden Monastery. Again he performed the prescribed number of circumambulations, and again there was no result.

By the age of fourteen, Lobsang Jigme's madness had increased to the point where he could no longer attend Nechung Monastery's daily rites. Frequently confined to bed, he lay numb and unresponsive between fits. At such times friends brought him meals, but he took no notice of them. Sleepwalking ruled his nights; during the day he experienced seizures and hallucinations and he often ran a high fever. Despite his troubles, though, he managed to complete his memorization and passed his exams.

One day Lobsang Jigme was taken on a short stroll around the monastic complex by his closest companion, a young monk named Kesang. Reaching a familiar tree in front of the monastery where they normally practiced playing short horns, the two young men decided to rest. They lay down on the grass and looking into the sky, began to doze off. Suddenly, Lobsang Jigme leapt up screaming. Burying his head in Kesang's lap, he pleaded to be covered with his sen or outer robe. Kesang asked what had happened, but at first Lobsang Jigme couldn't speak. Finally, he begged his friend to take him away from the tree, adding that he never wanted to see it again. Kesang shepherded his charge to the rear of Nechung Monastery, where their dormitories were. Once there, Lobsang Jigme told him what had occurred. He had been gazing into the top branches of the tree when two scorpions the size of yaks had appeared in the sky above. Their pincers were interlocked, and they seemed to be playing with one another. Then, without warning, they disengaged and one of them fell directly onto him. At that moment, he had screamed and buried his head in Kesang's lap.

Soon thereafter Lobsang Jigme began dreaming of scorpions coming into this mouth. Dogs appeared, scorpions in their mouths as well. His ravings became so intense that once more the monastery granted a brief leave of absence. Initially, he went to his mother's house in Lhasa. There, he lay in bed all day, staring blankly over adjacent rooftops. As he watched he saw elephant faces appeared at the window, followed by those of monkeys. His mother and the others in the household didn't know how to care for him. The fits had become so bad, in fact, that they wanted him to move on: his presence was disrupting the family business.

With Lobsang Jigme having reached a desperate state, his mother sought advice from Kyabje Motroke Rinpoche, a great lama of the Gomang College of Drepung Monastery. She asked him if a certain technique, known as tsagak, should be applied to her son to block his psychic channels, thereby stopping the unwanted possessions. Motroke Rinpoche performed a divination and announced that under no circumstances should the procedure be followed. If it was, he said, the young man would die. He then assured her that the contrary to all appearance, the seizures were a positive sign. Lobsang Jigme had the seed for accomplishment, he said, and in time everybody would know what this meant. No longer able to stay at home, the young monk left in the company of Kesang's uncle and rode thirty miles east to Ganden Monastery, where he arrived in September of 1944.

Built across a 14,000-foot-high crescent-shaped ridge surrounded by a sea of peaks, Ganden was among the most beautiful monasteries in Tibet. Its scores of buildings and shrines, framed on all sides by spectacular vistas, dazzled pilgrims from across Central Asia who came to worship at the golden tomb of Je Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa sect, housed in a maroon temple in its midst. Here, Lobsang Jigme hoped to stay unnoticed in the quarters of Samling Rinpoche, an incarnate lama in his thirties who during the annual Monlam celebrations had frequently rented a room in his mother's house.

Despite Ganden's refreshing views, Lobsang Jigme's condition worsened after only a week. He now sensed that something very much like the trances he had often witnessed was occurring to him. Unlike the hallucinatory fits of the past five years, an episode would begin with a numbing, vibratory sensation pervading his body. His breath would shorten and begin to catch, uncontrollably, but then, thankfully, the symptoms would recede.

In a few days time, the new sensation no longer disappeared. He now started to experience genuine trance on a daily basis. Light days brought only one trance; more often, though, he would undergo as many as two trances in the morning and three in the afternoon. Moreover, the trances soon became violent: the moment they struck he would shout and thrash wildly about with tremendous force. On their conclusion after ten minutes or so, he experienced intense pain but would have no memory of what had taken place. As Lobsang Jigme and his companions soon found out, he was at this time being forcibly prepared through lesser spirits for possession by a higher force. The process, known as tsalam jangpa or clearing the channels, was being undertaken in progressive stages of intensity. At the start, relatively weak spirits took possession, the trances being proportionately light. In the second stage, however, the seven Tsemars or Blazing Brothers of Samye took him turn by turn, one after another. As the Tsemars were among the most powerful spirits, the trances became violent and Lobsang Jigme experienced tremendous sickness and pain in their aftermath.

As if Lobsang Jigme's troubles were not bad enough, further difficulties now befell him. The uproar coming from Samling Rinpoche's room provoked Ganden's authorities to inform those caring for him that the young monk from Nechung was no longer welcome. Despite the boys condition, they insisted he return to his own monastery. Three times he attempted to leave, but each time he reached the gate of Ganden a particular severe fit overtook him; choking and writhing about a few seconds, he would fall unconscious onto the ground, whereupon Samling Rinpoche and Kesang's uncle, who were accompanying him, had to carry to youth back to the hostel. But it was not only Lobsang Jigme who experienced such suffering. With the worsening of his illness a message had been sent to the young men's mother. Distraught, she again decided to contact the high lamas for help. Setting out for Ganden, she hoped to obtain their advice and then take her son back home. She made it as far as the Kyichu River on Lhasas southern limits.

There, just before setting foot in the coracle to cross to the far shore, she herself suffered an attack. Collapsing on the bank, her right arm, right leg and stomach gripped by intense pain, she had to be carried home on a stretcher. Every effort to alter the young monks situation now seemed forcibly blocked. The reason for all this appeared shortly thereafter.

In the course of one of Lobsang Jigme's heavier trances, the spirit in possession gave the following message, heard by Samling Rinpoche and all those close by: On the fourth day of sixth month, as the sun rises above the Wangpo Ri Mountain, the Choekyong Dorje Drakden will take possession. The news of Tibet's chief protector entering an unknown monk's body was almost unbelievable, yet the fourth was the following day and Wangpo Ri, the highest mountain in the area, was plainly visible through the window in Lobsang Jigme's room. Samling Rinpoche and Lobsang Jigme's teacher, who had come to Ganden, made a point of being by the young mans side early the next morning.

Entering the room, they found that he had been up before dawn reciting prayers. Already, he felt poorly. Then, as a faint light from the window began to replace the tranquil glow of butter lamps within, both men noticed a ball of yellow and red string, normally used to tie incense bundles, lying on the floor. For days they had been burning incense and reciting prayers whenever Lobsang Jigme went into trance; it seemed to be the only thing that helped. On seeing the string on the floor, Lobsang Jigme's teacher leaned over from his seat to pick it up, wanting to keep the room clean. As he took the string in his hand, it suddenly turned into a live scorpion.

Starting, he flung it to the floor and at that instant, Lobsang Jigme, who had been sitting quietly on his bed, leapt in trance, his face and body attenuated. Simultaneously, the suns first rays struck the bare rock summit of Wangpo Ri. A short while later, Lobsang Jigme collapsed, the trance ending as abruptly as it had begun. After laying him on the bed, the two men looked for the scorpion. Though it was a small monk's cell, they could find neither it nor the ball of string.

Following this incident, Samling Rinpoche began to piece together the facts. He concluded that, indeed, Lobsang Jigme was taken into the employ of Tibet's main protector. Three factors supported the conclusion. To begin with, it had been specifically announced who the possessing entity would be. Though the message could have been misinformation from a malignant spirit, the intensity of the trance indicated the presence of an extremely powerful being. Second, the appearance of the scorpion was a familiar sign of Dorje Drakden. But the third factor was considered most significant. At that time, the current medium of Nechung Oracle, a middle-aged monk named Lobsang Namgyal, had suffered a stroke and was thought to be close to death. It seemed clear that Dorje Drakden was preparing his successor.

The truth came a few weeks later. After prayers and breakfast one morning toward the end of July, Samling Rinpoche, Lobsang Jigme and his teacher decided to take a devotional walk through Ganden's many shrines. At the heart of the monastery stood the temple containing Tsongkhapa's tomb - one of the holiest sites in Tibet. The tomb lay within a chapel, the walls of which were lined with silver reliquaries containing the remains of successive Ganden Tripas who, as holders of Tsongkhapa's Throne, had governed the Gelugpa sect for five and half centuries. At their centre was pitched a Mongolian yurt given as an offering after Tsongkhapa's death by Sunde, Emperor of China. Tsongkhapa's tomb lay at the rear of the yurt, behind a three-foot-high golden statue of a saint.

The small party arrived at the chapel and entered the yurt at ten o'clock, well after morning prayers before the tomb had been concluded. Lobsang Jigme had been at ease throughout the devotional walk, and neither of his companions were paying close attention to him. As they passed the red-lacquered walnut pillars supporting the yurt, and began to prostrate before the image, the young man was struck by an extremely potent seizure. His companions tried to restrain Lobsang Jigme but were immediately thrown to the floor. From there they looked on in amazement as the young man's body, now fully possessed, performed the unique honorific dance of Dorje Drakden before the tomb of Tsongkhapa. When the trance ended five minutes later, the boy collapsed and the two men quickly dragged his prone figure to a side chapel in the corner of the room.

For half an hour after regaining consciousness, Lobsang Jigme was too nauseated to move; his head, shoulders and chest all ached intensely. His last memory had been standing before the golden tomb and beginning to pray. Then he had begun to feel as if thousands of insects were crawling over him. In the midst of the tingling vibration a stronger, more painful sensation appeared, as if his funny bone were being pressed throughout his body. His breathing began to accelerate, his head started to pound, his heart heaved in his chest, he felt congested, as if he had run too fast up a steep hill, and abruptly the room started to recede from his vision. The sound of the monks praying beside him grew fainter and then all combined to overwhelm him, and he blacked out. Though he realized the sensations must have occurred in a few moments, they seemed to take an unbearably long time.

While walking back to their quarters, Samling Rinpoche told Lobsang Jigme what had happened afterwards. They all agreed that the event had to be kept strictly secret; an unknown adolescent monk could hardly claim, on the basis of one or two experiences witnessed by a few friends, to have been chosen as the new receiving body for the state oracle of Tibet.

Dorje Drakden's possessions, nonetheless, continued. Confining himself to a room for fear of being possessed in public, Lobsang Jigme felt himself entering a new stage, becoming stronger and stronger. like a horse, as he described it, filling with hot blood. At the beginning and end of each trance, he experienced severe pain. Though the trances themselves lasted only two to five minutes, he would invariably shout in agony at the top of his voice something which the authorities of Ganden, despite the peculiarities of the case, could not permit. Forced finally to leave Ganden, the young monk could neither return to his own monastery nor to his mother's house. His illness had made him an outcast. Through friends, he eventually found a family in Lamo, east of Ganden, who agreed to take him in. Able to depart without interference, he stayed in Lamo for a further month and a half, where he suffered, as before, not just from the newly developed trances but also from the ceaseless round of hallucinations, fits and sleepwalking that had consumed his life for six years.

At this time, Lobsang Jigme's mother received a message from Nechung Monastery. Though regretting his illness, the note nevertheless demanded his immediate return on penalty of being stuck from the monastery's rolls. The other monks were contemplating of Lobsang Jigme's long absence, the letter said; despite the severity of his condition there could be no exceptions to the rules. His mother replied that her son had been sick for so long, with no cure in sight, that even if his name were to be struck, it couldn't be helped; he was not yet able to return. The monastic officials then softened their stance and tried to effect a compromise. Through his mother they informed Lobsang Jigme that for the time being his name would not be eliminated from the roster; still, he would have to return soon. Convinced that his days as Nechung monk were over and with no place to turn for help, Lobsang Jigme decided to retire to a cave and live in isolation from the world. He was just turning sixteen.

Aware of the young man's plans, Samling Rinpoche came to his aid. He offered to lead him through a three-month meditation retreat at Legpai Lodru, the cave of a great hermit, above Sera Monastery, hoping that by reciting mantras and conducting purification rites some of the negative influences affecting the youth could be dispelled. Accompanied by Kesang's uncle, they went to the cave and commenced the retreat. At the start, Lobsang Jigme was in such depressed state over the impasse his illness had brought him to that he could barely follow Samling Rinpoche's instructions. Though he managed to fulfill the daily quotas of recitation, there was still no discernible change in his condition. Then, one morning in the middle of the retreat, he woke feeling well for the first time in years.

The next day, he felt well again and the next. Remarkably, all signs of the illness had left at once. A messenger now arrived bearing the startling information that Lobsang Namgyal, the Nechung kuden, had died. The day of the mediums death had been the very day on which Lobsang Jigme's illness disappeared. Furthermore, the messenger informed Lobsang Jigme, he had been dispatched by the abbot of Nechung Monastery, Nechung Rinpoche, to summon him back. None other than Taktra Rinpoche, then Regent of Tibet, had ordered him to present himself at the Norbulingka. With a single message, it seemed, Lobsang Jigme's fate had completely reversed itself.

As all those associated with Lobsang Jigme would soon learn, the Regent had consulted Shinjachen, through the Gadong medium, shortly after the Nechung kuden's death. Asking where a new medium for Dorje Drakden could be found, he had been told that the candidate was a monk from Nechung Monastery itself. The oracle went on to say that the prospective kuden was still very young a child of fifteen, born in the Year of the Iron Horse; his name, Lobsang Jigme.

The news was greeted with a mixture of amazement and relief by Nechung Monasterys superiors. Ironically, among the eleven mediums who spanned the three hundred years of the monastery's existence, no kuden had risen from the ranks of its own monks; all had been chosen from elsewhere.