Fermer, ‘Gong dkar rDo rje gdan pa’, 2009

Mathias Fermer. The Life and Works of Gong dkar rDo rje gdan pa Kun dga’ rnam rgyal (1432-1496) (གོང་དཀར་རྡོ་རྗེ་གདན་པ་ཀུན་དགའ་རྣམ་རྒྱལ་༼༡༤༣༢-༡༤༩༦༽གྱི་ལོ་རྒྱུས་དང་གསུང་རྩོམ་།). M.A. Thesis, Department of Indian and Tibetan Studies, University of Hamburg, 2009. 415 pp.

From the Preface:

Gong dkar Kun dga’ rnam rgyal, alias Gong dkar rDo rje gdan pa or Grwa lnga rgyal po (1432-1496), was one of the great scholar-saints who lived in the religiously highly productive period of the fifteenth century. Today, his religious tradition, which had mainly flourished near its original home in the southern part of Central Tibet (dBus), is commonly referred to as the rDzong tradition (rDzong lugs), a lesser known subsect within the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism. […]

PART I of this thesis gives a rough overview of the religious and political circumstances of Kun dga’ rnam rgyal’s time (chapter 1) and introduces the noble family lineage into which he was born (chapter 2). In PART II, I summarize this master’s life, beginning with an overview of previous modern research (chapter 3), followed by an account of his eventful life (chapter 4) and a discussion on the practice tradition that emerged from him (chapter 5). The next chapter is dedicated to Kun dga’ rnam rgyal’s writings, which will be provided in a composite catalogue of his works and a descriptive catalogue of those texts that have been available to me (chapter 6). PART III consists of the edition (chapter 7) and the translation (chapter 8 ) of the eleventh chapter of his main biography. The translated text gives an impression of how he was perceived as a religious teacher and provides a detailed list of his disciples. In addition, the final section contains several appendices.

Mr. Fermer’s thesis is an impressive piece of work; it won the 2009 Peter Lindegger Preis for graduate students of Tibetan Studies. Plans are, or were, in place to publish the thesis as a monograph. (Here I should disclose my own interest: I receive a mention in the Acknowledgements.)
Moreover, an e-text of the biography is available at Hamburg’s promising Sakya Resource Centre (sakya-resource.de/).