Khedrup Gelek Pelzang

Khedrup Gelek Pelzang (1385-1438) better known as Khedrup Je, the 1st Panchen Lama, was one of the main disciples of Lama Tsongkhapa (founder of the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism).
Before becoming Tsongkhapa's foremost disciple,Hilton, Isabel. (1999). The Search for the Panchen Lama. Viking. Reprint: Penguin Books. (2000), p. 58. ISBN 0-14-024670-3. Khedrup Je had been a learned Sakyapa scholar. He is considered to be a reincarnation of Manjushri, the Buddha of Wisdom. He wrote an important text on Kalachakra initiation which is still used by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, as the basis of his public initiations into the Kalachakra. Altogether, there are nine volumes of his collected works, containing fifty-eight treatises.Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. (1999) Kālachakra Tantra Rite of Initiation: For the Stage of Generation. Translated by Jeffrey Hopkins. Enlarged edition, pp. 139-144. Wisdom Publications, Boston. ISBN 0-86171-151-3. 
Khedrup was posthumously decided to have been a previous incarnation of Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen (1570-1662), and is considered to be the First Panchen Lama and, like all the Panchen Lamas, was an incarnation of Amitabha Buddha. 
Traditionally, there were considered to be four Indian and three Tibetan incarnations before Khedrup, starting with Subhuti, one of the original disciples of Gautama Buddha.Stein, R. A. Tibetan Civilization, (1972) p. 84. Stanford University Press, Stanford, California. ISBN 0-8047-0806-1 (cloth); ISBN 0-0847-0901-7.Das, Sarat Chandra. Contributions on the Religion and History of Tibet (1970), pp. 81-103. Manjushri Publishing House, New Delhi. First published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, Vol. LI (1882)
Khedrup Je was unanimously chosen as Ganden Monastery's third abbot (after Tsongkhapa and Gyaltsab Je) by its monks, and also became the Ganden Tripa, the leader of the Gelug tradition.
Khedrub Je was a prolific writer (for example on Kalachakra), and founded Baiju Monastery in Gyantse District in Tibet in 1418. He also wrote many prayer books.
==Footnotes==
==Further reading==
* The Great Seal of Voidness: The Root Text for the Ge-lug/Ka-gyu Tradition of Mahamudra. The Main Path All Buddhas Have Travelled (dGe-ldan bkah-brgyud rin-po-chehi phyag-chen rtza-ba rg yal-bahi gzhung-lam). (1975) Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey et al. Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. Dharamsala, H.P., India. 
Panchen Lama 01