He was born as Jampal Namdol Chökyi Gyaltsen on the tenth day of the eleventh month of Water Monkey year (6 January 1933) near the
Jokhang Temple in Lhasa, Tibet. Six months after his birth, his parents separated and his mother left him in the care of his uncle who was a bodyguard of the
13th Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama died in December 1933, and
Reting Rinpoche became Regent of Tibet until a new Dalai Lama was discovered and crowned. In 1936, because of the inability of the Mongolian lamas to proclaim the discovery of the ninth Khutughtu, Reting Rinpoche recognised Jampal Namdol Chökyi Gyaltsen, then aged four, as the reincarnation of the Jetsundamba Khutughtu, after the boy passed three sets of tests. Due to the complex political situation, his existence was kept a secret. At the age of seven, he entered the
Drepung Monastery, but because his identity was kept secret, he could not enter the
Khalkha Mitsen, but had to follow the life of a common monk. At age 25, he renounced his monastic vows and became a householder, took a wife and had two children. When the
fourteenth Dalai Lama escaped from Tibet in 1959, Jampal Namdol did also, fearing that his identity would be revealed and he would be killed or used by the
Communists for propaganda. lineage among the
Khalkha Mongols with photo of the
14th Dalai Lama.
Gandantegchinlen Monastery, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia In exile in India, he worked at various jobs, including in the Tibetan language section of
All India Radio, and at
Tibet House in New Delhi. His first wife died, and he remarried. In 1975, his family (now including seven children) moved to
Karnataka. In 1984, Jampal Namdol visited Lhasa, and in 1990 the Dalai Lama issued a statement revealing the identity of the ninth Khutughtu. In 1991 the Dalai Lama performed an installation ceremony in
Madhya Pradesh and in 1992 an enthronement ceremony in
Dharmshala for the ninth Jebtsundamba Khutughtu. In July 1999, while visiting Mongolia on a tourist visa, Jampal Namdol took part in an enthronement ceremony at the
Gandantegchinlen Khiid Monastery in
Ulaanbaatar. He continued to live in exile in India. Now he was considered the leader of Mongolian Buddhists. Then he returned to Mongolia. In November 2011 he was enthroned as the head of Buddhists of Mongolia. The 14th Dalai Lama appointed the 9th Jebtsundamba to develop the
Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. Rinpoche died on 1 March 2012, in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, after a prolonged illness. On 23 November 2016, during a visit to Mongolia, the Dalai Lama announced his belief that the
10th Jebtsundamba Khutughtu had been reborn in Mongolia and that a process for identifying him had begun. He was found and was anointed on 8 March 2023 by Dalai Lama in India. ==See also==