Mr. Kalsang Yeshi

Mr. Kalsang Yeshi, former Minister to His Holiness the Dalai Lama, was born in Lhasa in 1941. He spent his early childhood in Kham and was in Chamdo with his family when the PLA attacked in 1950. After the Tibetan army was defeated, he moved back to Lhasa. He attended school and entered Drepung Monastery in Nyare Khamtsen of Loseling College in 1956, where he was admitted with the rank of Dratsang Choeze. He studied there for three years before fleeing in 1959 following Chinese shelling. Eventually, he made his way to the border with Bhutan.

From 1963 to 1965, Mr. Yeshi was posted at the Tibetan school in Mussoorie and later in Mainpat, Madhya Pradesh. In 1969, he entered the Institute for Higher Tibetan Studies in Varanasi and obtained his Acharya degree in 1972. He moved to the US in 1973, where he studied English and taught Tibetan at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia. Returning to India in 1979, he was elected Tibetan People’s Deputy representing the Gelukpa School and began working in the Department of Religious and Cultural Affairs in 1983. He organized the first Monlam or Great Prayer Festival in Bodh Gaya in 1985 and established the Norbulingka Institute in 1991, serving as its Director. In 1989, he was appointed Kalon for Religion and Culture and served as Prime Minister twice before resigning in 1997 due to health problems.