1st Panchen Lama-great short bio

[Vajraprotector]

Dear Vajraprotector,

I am afraid that there are some inaccuracies with the information you have presented here. The title Panchen Lama was first bestowed by his great student, the Great Fifth Dalai Lama to his Guru Panchen Lama Chokyi Gyeltsen and not Panchen Lobsang Yeshe, who is a later incarnation.

Thank you for pointing it out. I took the info from an article entitled, The Panchen Lama Enumerationsfrom The Tibetan Buddhist Resource Center (TBRC) at http://blog.tbrc.org/?p=1070

The source cited for this info was by Dungkar Rinpoche, dung dkar tshig mdzod chen mo page 1258. The actual text was not available. I'll check up on other sources and update on this thread.

[Vajraprotector]

Hi Big Uncle,

I have seen a few website citing that it was the 4th Panchen Lama who was given the title Panchen by the 5th Dalai Lama, but there's no actual source of Tibetan literature quoted.  I will refer to what has been posted by TK (the 1st post on this thread) then as it has listed good original sources in Tibetan.

Chokyi Gyaltsen was declared the 4th Panchen Lama and three previous lamas were posthumously identifyied as the first through third.

On one site, it has reference about the connection between the title given by Bodong Choklay Namgyel to the 1st Dalai Lama and eventually "transferred" to the Panchen Lama. 

Gyalwa Gendun Drup  (The 1st Dalai Lama) also received the name Panchen from an erudite Tibetan contemporary, Bodong Choklay Namgyel, when he answered all of the latter's questions. Panchen means "great scholar," from the Sanskrit word Pandita, meaning "scholar," and the Tibetan word Chen Po, meaning "great." The successive abbots of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery were all called "Panchen."

Then, in the 17th century, the Fifth Dalai Lama gave Tashi Lhunpo Monastery to his teacher, Losang Chokyi Gyeltsen (1567-1662), the 15th abbot of the Monastery. As Abbot of the Monastery, he was called Panchen, but he came to receive the distinctive title "Panchen Lama" when the Fifth Dalai Lama announced at his teacher's death that his teacher would reappear as a recognisable child successor. Since that time it has become convention for the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama to be involved in the recognition of each other's successor.

From: http://www.friendsoftibet.org/sofar/calcutta/hands.html