Buddhist scholar, historian, social worker and founder of the Loden Foundation and Shejun
Lopen Karma Phuntsho (Dzongkha: ཀརྨ་ཕུན་ཚོགས) is a former monk and Bhutanese scholar who specialises in Buddhism, Tibetan & Himalayan Studies and Bhutan, and has published a number of works including eight books, translations, book reviews and articles on Buddhism, Bhutan and Tibetan Studies. His The History of Bhutan has been called "the first book to offer a comprehensive history of Bhutan in English" and received Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award in 2015.
He was born in Ura, in the Bumthang district of central Bhutan. He was born as the third child of the Tothchukpo House to his mother who is a scion of Gaden Lam family which traces its origin to Phajo Drukgom Zhigpo, the priest who brought Drukpa Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism to western Bhutan. Karma learnt basic Chokey alphabets and prayers from his father, who is an incarnate priest and farmer from the Tsakaling Choje family, a religious nobility which claims descent from Bhutan's foremost spiritual saint Pema Lingpa and Tarshong Chukpo, house of Ura. He attended Ura Primary School until Class III. Because the school did not have Class IV and he was too small to travel, his parents begged the headmaster to keep him in Ura and repeat. The following year, he travelled to Jakar School with a few friends. The headmaster at the new school mistakenly put Karma again in Class III. Karma today humorously claims that he is perhaps the only person who studied in Class III for three years and received first prizes thrice. Karma spent most of his school winter breaks helping the family cow herder in the neighbouring district of Lhuntse. [citation needed]
In 1997, partly he says because young Bhutanese educated in English looked down on monks even though they were very learned,[3] he joined Balliol CollegeOxford and read for an M.St. in Sanskrit and Classical Indian Religions under Richard Gombrich and Michael Aris, with additional supervision by David Seyfort Ruegg. In 2003, he received a D.Phil.inBuddhist Studies from Oxford University.[4] He worked as a post-doctoral researcher in CNRS, Paris and as a research associate in the Department of Social Anthropology, Cambridge University. He was also the Spalding Fellow in Comparative Religions at Clare Hall and ran The Historical Study and Documentation of the Pad Gling Traditions in Bhutan project subsequently he spent years creating a digital archive of rare Bhutanese manuscripts. Dr. Phuntsho is the first Bhutanese to receive a D.Phil. from Oxford and the first Bhutanese to become an OxbridgeFellow.
In Bhutan he has founded the Loden Foundation, a charity to promote education and entrepreneurship in Bhutan as well as the Shejun Agency for Bhutan's Cultural Documentation and Research, which later was merged with the Loden Foundation.
Karma Phuntsho (2005). Mipham's Dialectics and Debates on Emptiness: To Be, Not to Be or Neither. Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism. London: RoutledgeCurzon. ISBN0-415-35252-5.
Karma Phuntsho (1997). ཚད་མའི་བསྟན་བཅོས་རིགས་པའི་ཐེམ་སྐས། [Steps to Valid Reasoning: A Treatise on Logic and Epistemology (textbook)] (in Tibetan). Byallakuppe: Ngagyur Nyingma Institute.
Karma Phuntsho (2007). "Ju Mi pham rNam rgyal rGya mtsho: His Position in the Tibetan Religious Hierarchy and a Synoptic Survey of His Contributions". In Prats, Ramon N. (ed.). The Pandita and the Siddha: Tibetan Studies in Honour of E. Gene Smith. New Delhi: Amnye Machen Institute. ISBN978-81-86227-37-4.
Karma Phuntsho (1996). རྫོགས་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་བཅིང་གྲོལ་གྱི་གཞི། [The Ground for Bondage and Liberation in the rDzogs chen Tradition] (in Tibetan). Byallakuppe: Ngagyur Nyingma Institute.
Karma Phuntsho (1996). དཔལ་ལྡན་ཟླ་བའི་རང་མཚན་གྱི་གྲུབ་པ་འགོག་པའི་སུན་འབྱིན་རྣམ་གསུམ། [The Three Apagogic Arguments of Candrakīrti against the Proponents of Individually Characterized Existence] (in Tibetan). Byallakuppe: Ngagyur Nyingma Institute.
Karma Phuntsho (1995). [A Concise Presentation on the Tenets and Two Truths] (in Tibetan). Byallakuppe: Ngagyur Nyingma Institute.
