Gruber describes the search and identification of the new reincarnation of the Drikung Kyabgön Chetsang, his early childhood in the Lhasa mansion of his aristocratic family, his enthronement at four years of age and his subsequent life in the main Drikung monasteries.
He paints a vivid tableau of the transition of traditional Tibetan culture during the troubled years of Chinese Communist occupation, when his family members fled the country in the wake of Chinese oppression together with the Dalai Lama and many high-ranking Lamas, aristocrats and common people. The young Chetsang Rinpoche was compelled to remain behind in Tibet upon orders of the Drikung officials and thus had to endure many hardships in the ensuing years.
The author’s account of Drikung Kyabgön Chetsang’s experiences during the precarious and desperate period of the Cultural Revolution is brilliant yet disconcerting, replete with many lesser-known aspects of the state of civil society.
http://www.drikung.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=274
