Ngawang Samten was born in the Central Tibetan town of Dokhar on 7 July 1956 but grew up in India since the age of three when his parents migrated to there in the wake of the 1959 Tibetan uprising. His early schooling was at Chandragiri, in Odisha, after which he did higher education at the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, (the present day Central University for Tibetan Studies CUTS), from where he passed the "Shastri" and "Acharya" grades. He also pursued his monastic education at Ganden Shartse Monastery, Mundgod, Karnataka, and secured the Geshe degrees of "Dhorampa" and Lharampa, the latter one, a doctoral degree equivalent to a PhD. He started his career as a research assistant at his alma mater, CUTS, and rose to the position of the head of the Research Department. During this period, he was involved in the translation of ancient Buddhist texts into Sanskrit. His post graduate research on the philosophy of Nagarjuna was later published by him as a critical edition of "Ratnavali" (Precious Garland), with his own commentary.