Editing Geshe Sherab Gyatso (section)

== Biography ==

Sherab Gyatso was born in Amdo in 1884 and came to Lhasa from Labrang monastery in 1905, becoming a monk of Klu 'bum House at Drepung's Gomang College, where he later taught the young [[Gendun Chompel|Gendün Chömpel]]; their famous public shouting matches there became the origin of GC's "madman" epithet.<ref>Lopez, Donald S., Jr. (2006). ''The Madman's Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chopel''. University of Chicago Press, pp. 297, 318.</ref> The 13th Dalai Lama personally entrusted him with a twelve-year project (1921–1933) editing a new edition of the ''bka' 'gyur'', the canonical Buddhist scriptures.<ref>Lopez (2006), ''Madman's Middle Way'', p. 297.</ref> In 1934, in a conversation recorded in Rahul Sankrityayan's own diary, Sherab Gyatso became the first among the Gelugpa hierarchy to welcome Mao Zedong's early successes and to express a wish for a program of reform in Tibet, a sympathy Sankrityayan links to the Chinese Communist Party's own declarations on national-minority rights, including the 1931 Jiangxi Soviet constitution's guarantee of self-determination for Mongolians, Tibetans, and other minority peoples.<ref>Stoddard, Heather (1986). "Tibet from Buddhism to Communism". ''Government and Opposition'' 21, no. 1, pp. 84–85.</ref>

He left Lhasa permanently around 1936–1937 and accepted a Kuomintang invitation to reside in China, where he served as president of the Association for the Promotion of Tibetan Culture in Chungking, as an executive director of the China Association for the Promotion of Border Culture, and, in 1942, as one of three Tibetan delegates from Chinese-controlled ethnic-Tibetan areas at the Kuomintang's Third People's Political Council.<ref>Goldstein, Melvyn C. (1989). ''A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State''. University of California Press, p. 523.</ref> He is also reported, though the attribution is shared uncertainly with the lay political figure Rapga Pandatsang in some sources, to have translated Sun Yat-sen's ''Three Principles of the People'' into Tibetan.<ref>Stoddard (1986), "Tibet from Buddhism to Communism", p. 86; cf. Goldstein (1989), ''Demise of the Lamaist State'', pp. 450–451.</ref> In April 1944 the Kuomintang sent him to Lhasa with an entourage of about fifty people and substantial money and goods intended for distribution to monasteries, as part of a Nationalist strategy of cultivating pro-Chinese sympathy among the monastic establishment; the Kashag, suspicious of Chinese propaganda, tried to admit him without his entourage or goods, and he refused to enter on those terms, so the visit fell through.<ref>Goldstein (1989), ''Demise of the Lamaist State'', pp. 523–524.</ref> He served as Kuomintang vice-chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission from 1947 to 1949.<ref>Lopez (2006), ''Madman's Middle Way'', pp. 297–298.</ref>

After the Chinese Communist victory, Sherab Gyatso transferred his allegiance to the new government: the Chinese Communist Party's early Tibetan-language "liberation" broadcasts of 1949–1950 were delivered in part by him, promising that Communist rule would not alter Tibet's existing social and religious system, and he was grouped by the Party alongside other religious figures, including Geda Trulku and the Panchen Lama's circle, in a deliberate strategy of separating popular support for Buddhism from popular support for the Lhasa government.<ref>Goldstein (1989), ''Demise of the Lamaist State'', pp. 640–641, 683.</ref> Goldstein's own analytical judgment on this group of religious collaborators applies directly to him: their motivations blended political expediency, genuine belief in the Communists' stated minority policy, and disenchantment with the traditional Lhasa system, and none of them appears to have anticipated the Party's eventual dismantling of the monastic system itself after 1959.<ref>Goldstein (1989), ''Demise of the Lamaist State'', pp. 686–687.</ref> He subsequently became vice-governor of the newly formed Qinghai Province and head of the Chinese Buddhist Association, touring Sweden, Burma, Ceylon, Nepal, and Cambodia in that capacity while continuing to broadcast appeals for Tibetan acceptance of Communist rule.<ref>Stoddard (1986), "Tibet from Buddhism to Communism", p. 86.</ref> In the mid-1950s, Mao Zedong himself referred to him as "Representative Sherab Gyatso" in remarks on monastery finances, relaying his observation that peasants in Qinghai's new agricultural cooperatives had become too busy to bring alms to the monasteries.<ref>Goldstein, Melvyn C. (2014). ''A History of Modern Tibet, Volume 3: The Storm Clouds Descend, 1955–1957''. University of California Press, p. 130.</ref>

At the 1st National People's Congress session on 30 June 1956, Sherab Gyatso delivered his most substantial personal statement on record, stating plainly that reform was inevitable and that socialism could not be achieved without the collectivization of agriculture and animal husbandry, while proposing a four-point program to prevent collectivization from destroying Buddhist institutional life: continued income or stipends for monks and monasteries after collectivization; continued funding mechanisms for religious ceremonies; a practical, not merely nominal, guarantee of freedom of religion, including alms-giving; and non-discrimination against those who chose not to join collectives in order to continue religious observance.<ref>Shakya, Tsering (1999). ''The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947''. Pimlico, p. 176.</ref> He was killed by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution in 1968.<ref>Shakya (1999), ''Dragon in the Land of Snows'', p. 176 n.; cf. Lopez (2006), ''Madman's Middle Way'', p. 298.</ref> Near the end of his life, in his late seventies, he also wrote one of the two major contemporary polemical refutations of his former student Gendün Chömpel's final and most controversial philosophical work, a 246-page response longer than GC's own text, which Donald Lopez characterizes as patronizing in tone but markedly less harsh than the other main refutation.<ref>Lopez (2006), ''Madman's Middle Way'', pp. 297–299.</ref>