The school was set up in 1993, at the behest of Geshe Lharampa Nagri Choszed (1920–1998), a native of Tibet, who came to Phuktal in 1959 after the Chinese invasion of Tibet. Nagri Choszed brought with him a high level of Buddhist philosophical education and training, to which the isolated Phuktal monks had had virtually no access for several centuries. He restored the ancient tradition of learning and scholarship at Phuktal and instructed the monks in philosophy, traditional ritual systems, and moral discipline. He also sent out many monks to for the purpose of advance learning at other institutions, who returned to Phuktal and began to teach.