True Life Story

Many lamas and scholars in the past took great interest in writing their own autobiography or the biographies of their teachers and masters. Known as namthar or liberation, these hagiographies contain accounts of the scholarship, the spiritual stature and power, the influence and great deeds of the subject. While telling the story of mainly the religious qualities and attainments, the hagiographies also contain a great deal of socio-cultural, political and economic information about the time and milieu of the subject. However, it is for the spiritual value of the subject's life as a role model for other beings in pursuit of enlightenment that the hagiogrpahies were written and also read in the Bhutanese communities.