Kumbum Monastery - Current Situation

Current Situation

Before 1958, Kumbum had 3,600 monks. At present, there are 400, as the monastery was affected by the PRC policies from the late 1950s. Of these, 300 are at the Debate College and the rest are distributed evenly among the other three colleges. Traditionally, the majority of the Kumbum monks have been Tibetans from Amdo, as at Labrang Monastery. The rest have been Mongolian Mongols (phyi-sog), Inner Mongolian Mongols (smad-sog, nang-sog), Upper Mongols (stod-sog) from the Amdo region east of Kumbum and Yellow Yugurs (yu-gur) from Gansu.

Kumbum is still a major pilgrimage for Tantric believers and scholars, visited by many thousands of people a year. The Arjia Rinpoches are traditionally given the position of abbot of Kumbum. The current Arjia Rinpoche defected to the United States in 1998. He is currently developing an exile campus of Kumbum Monastery in Bloomington, Indiana, known as Kumbum Chamtse Ling or Kumbum West.

The Kumbum monastery is still very much a repository of Tibetan culture and art, including various sculptures, statues and religious artifacts. It certainly is a repository of the Western respect for Tibet, as so many wayfarers from the West apart from David-Néel (P. Pelliot, E. Maillart, P. Fleming, E. Huc, André Migot) have spent time there.