His Holiness the Dalai Lama graces photo exhibition on Ngawang Lobsang Dorjee at Delhi

[Source:tibet.net]

New Delhi: A photo exhibition chronicling the life of Ngawang Lobsang Dorjee (Agvan Dorjiev in Russian) was showcased at the ongoing ‘Dialogues between Russian and Buddhist Scholars’ at Taj Hotel, New Delhi on August 7 and 8, 2017. The exhibition titled, ‘Remembering Ngawang Lobsang Dorjee’ with rare photographs and textual description highlights the numerous contributions of Ngawang Dorjee in the annals of Tibetan history.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama, while attending the conference, graced the photo exhibition on August 7, 2017 and looked attentively through the photo exhibits guided by Mr. Tashi Phuntsok, the Director of Tibet Museum.

The two-day photo exhibition held on the sidelines of ‘Dialogues between Russian and Buddhist Scholars’ was a joint collaboration between The Tibet Museum of the Department of Information and International Relations, Central Tibetan Administration and The Office of Tibet, Moscow, Russisa.

Participants of the conference, consisting of Russian Scientists, Buddhist scholars, Monks and observers viewed the photo exhibits and a Russian observer at the conference after having gone through the exhibition expressed his astonishment at learning that Tibet and Russia shared such unique political and cultural relationship and that he was ignorant of it prior to witnessing the photo exhibition on Ngawang Dorjee.

Ngawang Lobsang Dorjee, also called Agvan Dorjiev (1854–1938), was a Russian-born monk of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, referred by his scholarly title as Tsenyi Khempo. He was one of the seven dialectical instructors or Tsanzhabs to the great 13th Dalai Lama and was pivotal in building communications between Lhasa and the Russian Czar. He is also remembered for building the Buddhist temple of St. Petersburg in 1909 with major financial contribution from the 13th Dalai Lama and also for signing the Tibet-Mongolia Treaty in 1913.