(TibetanReview.net, Feb19’26) – Tenzin Choegyal, known by his religious persona of Ngari Rinpoche and the youngest brother of the Dalai Lama, passed away at his Kashmir Cottage residence in Dharamshala, India, on Feb 17 afternoon, aged 80. The religious ceremony of his cremation was carried out on Feb 19.
Born in Tibet’s capital Lhasa in 1946, Ngri Rinpoche travelled with the Dalai Lama on many of his tours, including the 1954-1955 visit to China, the 1956 visit to India and post-1959 travels in many other countries.
Named as Tenzin Choegyal by the current Dalai Lama and recognized as the 16th reincarnation of the Ngari Rinpoche at four, he was enthroned at the monastery founded by the first Ngari Rinpoche near Lhasa. He studied at this monastery and latter at the Drepung monastic university. Lhasa.
As the Ngari Rinpoche, he was responsible for several monasteries in Tibet as well as Ladakh. He shunned overly ritualistic practices and monastic protocols, which he felt created a needless barrier between the lama on one side and the monastic and wider lay community on the other side.
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He was 12 when he fled Tibet in 1959 in the entourage of the Dalai Lama after the Chinese army began bombarding the Potala palace while carrying out a massacre of Tibetans staging largely peaceful protests against the occupation foreign power’s repressive policies.
In India, he was enrolled in the St. Joseph’s School in Darjeeling, a boarding school, for his first formal modern education and subsequently studied in the United States.
Following his return from the US, he taught at the Tibetan Children’s Village school and eventually married Rinchen Khando. She was the head of the Tibetan Women’s Association and later the founder of the Tibetan Nuns Project. She also served as a minister in the Tibetan government in exile.
Ngari Rinpoche served for many years in the Office of HH the Dalai Lama as well as in the exile government, including in its Department of Religion and Culture, Department of Security and Department of Home.
He briefly joined the Tibetan paramilitary force in India – the Special Frontier Force – and was elected to the Tibetan Parliament in Exile as well. He was active in the Tibetan Youth Congress during its formative years, including as its President from 1974 to 1976.
Apart from his elder brother, the Dalai Lama, Ngari Rinpoche is survived by his elder sister Jetsun Pema and her family and by his wife Rinchen Khando Choegyal, their daughter Tenzin Choezom and son Tenzin Lodoe and their family.