Former teacher at Boulder's Shambhala accused of sexually as

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Shambhala, the Boulder-born Buddhist organization, suppressed allegations of abuse, ex-members say: Director of Boulder Shambhala Center: “Our culture failed to support many of those who’ve been harmed”
by Jackson Barnett
The Denver Post
PUBLISHED: July 7, 2019 at 6:00 am | UPDATED: July 7, 2019 at 12:39 pm

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YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

Ariel Hall sits in her home in Spruce Head, Maine, on June 7, 2019. Hall formerly lived and worked at the Shambhala Mountain Center in the foothills west of Fort Collins. Hall said that when she sought help getting out of an abusive relationship with a fellow Shambhala member, the Buddhist organization’s leadership encouraged her to meditate and told her the abuse was “good material” to work with.

Ariel Hall loved her Tibetan meditation cushion, a maroon-and-saffron pillow that helped melt away the strains of daily life during visits to her local Shambhala center.

She began meditating as a curious New York University undergraduate, her intrigue eventually drawing her to Colorado, the birthplace and a present-day hub of her chosen strain of Buddhism.


Ariel Hall formerly lived at the Shambhala Mountain Center. She said her efforts to get help from leadership in extracting herself from an abusive relationship at the center fell on deaf ears.

But after Hall in 2008 moved to the Shambhala Mountain Center — the international Buddhist organization’s sweeping 600-acre meditation grounds in the foothills west of Fort Collins — she faced a challenge that going to her cushion couldn’t solve.

When Hall sought help extricating herself from a relationship with a fellow Shambhala member who had become abusive, she said her requests fell on deaf ears. Instead, Hall said she was told by the mountain center’s leadership that she should take it “to the cushion” — the abuse was “good material” to work with.

“When I was hearing over and over again to meditate, what I heard was, ‘This situation is not wrong, you are wrong,’” she said. “It was victim-blaming.”

Hall’s experience wasn’t unique.

Shambhala, the Boulder-born Buddhist and mindfulness community, for decades suppressed allegations of abuse — from child molestation to clerical abuse — through internal processes that often failed to deliver justice for victims, The Denver Post found through dozens of interviews with current and former members and a review of hundreds of pages of internal documents, police records and private communications.

That suppression came in the form of worshipful vows students said they were told to maintain to the very teachers that alleged abused them; in explicit and implicit commands not to report abuse; and through a cultish reverence that served to protect Shambhala’s king-like leaders, according to interviews and third-party reviews commissioned by Shambhala itself.

“The problem is that we thought we had a way of doing things that was better, more compassionate, more grounded than the conventional way,” said Craig Morman, a former Rusung, or safety commander, at the Shambhala Mountain Center. “It was arrogant and reckless.”

Shambhala International, now based in Nova Scotia, Canada, has been mired in controversy over sexual and clerical abuse for the last year, with its leader — Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, who has deep ties to Boulder — having stepped back from his duties after being accused of sexual misconduct. Some of those allegations were corroborated by third-party investigations commissioned by Shambhala.

“It is a very painful time for our community. There is broad agreement that our culture failed to support many of those who’ve been harmed since Shambhala’s founding 45 years ago,” Melanie Klein, director of the Boulder Shambhala Center, said in an email to The Post.


Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, left, the leader of Boulder-born Shambhala International, presents the Living Peace Award to the Dalai Lama at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Red Feather Lakes, west of Fort Collins, in 2006.

“Keep it in the Buddhist community”

Detectives in Colorado have been investigating sexual assault allegations with ties to Shambhala for months — and records from a recent arrest detail an apparent effort to shield a suspect from prosecution by addressing the allegations within the Shambhala community.

Last year, Larimer County sheriff’s detectives opened an investigation into what a Boulder police report describes as sexual assaults at the Shambhala Mountain Center. Larimer sheriff’s officials declined to elaborate, but last week confirmed their probe remains ongoing.

POLICE SEEK ADDITIONAL VICTIMS

Boulder police said they believe there are more victims in both the William Karelis and Michael Smith cases, and asked that they — or anyone victimized by “any other member or former member of the Boulder Shambhala” — call Detective Ross Richart at 303-441-1833. There is no statute of limitations in Colorado on sex crimes involving children under 15.

The first arrest came in February, when former Boulder Shambhala meditation instructor William Lloyd Karelis, 71, was booked on suspicion of sexually assaulting a young girl he mentored in the early 2000s. Karelis has denied the allegations through his attorney.

After the arrest, Shambhala officials acknowledged they had initiated mediation with Karelis — ultimately revoking his credentials — after women alleged he had behaved inappropriately with them. But Shambhala leadership denied prior knowledge of the sexual assault allegation.

Late last month, Boulder police arrested a second former Shambhala member, Michael Smith, 54, on suspicion of sexually assaulting a teenage girl he met through the Buddhist community in the late 1990s. Those allegations originally had been reported to Boulder police in 1998 after the victim informed one of her mother’s friends about what she said happened — but Smith wasn’t named as a suspect or arrested.

The girl’s parents told police they met with Smith, members of the Shambhala community and therapists at the time, and Smith agreed to go into therapy and have no contact with the victim or other children “in exchange for (the girl’s parents) not providing his name to the police department,” according to Smith’s arrest affidavit.


William Karelis enters the courtroom at the Boulder County Jail on Feb. 1, 2019. Photo by Paul Aiken, Daily Camera file.


Michael Smith appears in court on June 28, 2019. Photo by Cliff Grassmick, Daily Camera file. Both men are former members of the Boulder Shambhala Center who were arrested this year on suspicion of sexually assaulting children they met through the Buddhist organization in a pair of unrelated, decades-old cases.

Dozens of pages of investigative reports released by Boulder police last week further suggest an effort was made by Shambhala members in 1998 to deal with the allegations against Smith as an internal matter.

One former Shambhala member who knew the victim’s family told investigators that “everyone wanted to keep it in the Buddhist community” rather than go to police. A woman identified as Smith’s girlfriend at the time told police a spiritual teacher advised the girl’s parents “not to send Mike to jail and not to press charges, but to deal with it in a way that would teach Mike a lesson.”

SEXUAL ASSAULT, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE RESOURCES IN COLORADO

Denver Sexual Assault Hotline: thebluebench.org. Call the hotline at 303-322-7273 for free, 24-hour help.

National Domestic Violence Hotline: thehotline.org. Call the hotline at 1-800-799-7233 for free, 24-hour help.

Violence Free Colorado: Use this map to locate resources by county in Colorado. The website also has resources like a guide to helping someone you know who is being abused.

SafeHouse Denver: safe-house-denver.org. Reach local professionals by calling the 24-hour crisis and information line at 303-318-9989.

Moving to End Sexual Assault (MESA): movingtoendsexualassault.org. Call the 24-hour hotline at 303-443-7300.

Steve Louth, Smith’s attorney, told Boulder’s Daily Camera newspaper that Smith admitted to “unlawful behavior” at the time as part of a restorative justice agreement and subsequently completed an extensive sex-offender treatment program.

That restorative justice program was facilitated by a Shambhala member named Dennis Southward, according to Boulder police reports. Southward, in an interview with detectives last month, characterized the 13-year-old victim as someone “who was exploring her own sexuality,” according to a report.

The Shambhala Interim Board released a statement saying it had not been aware of the allegations against Smith, but since his arrest, “concerns arose related to the handling of this case internally by Shambhala leaders in the 1990s.”

The organization’s governing board said it will hire a third-party investigator to review how the allegations against Smith were handled. Furthermore, Shambhala said it has suspended Southward “from all leadership positions” pending that investigation.

“The views expressed by Mr. Southward in the (Boulder Police Department’s) incident case report do not represent the opinion of the Shambhala organization nor its leadership,” the board said.

In an interview with The Post, Southward said the handling of the allegations against Smith in 1998 “was not a Shambhala issue,” insisting he was the only member of the Buddhist organization involved in the discussions with the girl’s family. The Boulder investigators’ reports, however, refer to other Shambhala members and teachers being part of those talks.


The Great Stupa of Dharmakaya is seen at the Shambhala Mountain Center near Red Feather Lakes in the Larimer County foothills in this undated photograph.

“Loose” attitude around sex

The Shambhala Mountain Center, where Hall said her abuse was left largely unaddressed, faces allegations that its own leadership neglected reports of harm, interviews with former students show.

Karuna Thompson, a former Shambhala Mountain Center staff member, said she tried to report what she and others believed to be a sexual relationship between a middle-aged staffer and an underage girl in the late 1990s. When Thompson and a fellow staff member tried to alert leaders to the potential sexual activity, she recalled feeling treated like she was the problem.

“Ultimately we were made to feel like a nuisance,” Thompson said.

In the start-up days of Shambhala there was a “loose” attitude around sex, said Jim Becker, who was a student of founder Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche in the 1970s. While Becker said he did not directly witness physically abusive sexual relationships, he said he often saw older men approach young women for sex.

“It was like rock stars with the groupies,” Becker said of the scene at the Shambhala Mountain Center, then known as the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center.

Thompson described the Shambhala scene in the 1970s and 1980s as a collision of free love and Trungpa’s “crazy wisdom” philosophy. Trungpa, who died in 1987, preached pushing boundaries in life, in love and in all ways of seeing the world. Thompson said she saw the age gap between men, women and even girls engaging in sexual activity as one of those collapsing boundaries.

“Every young girl I knew had something happen,” Thompson said.

Becker recalled seeing the community ostracize young women who didn’t want to sleep with Trungpa. Thompson also recalled similar pressure for young women and girls to have sex with Trungpa and the men in his court, she said.

Leslie Hays, who in 1985 became one of Trungpa’s multiple “spiritual wives,” known as Sangyum, said Trungpa physically struck her and was emotionally abusive during their relationship. Their “marriage” — complete with its own Shambhala-issued marriage certificate, which The Post reviewed — began when Hays was 24 and Trungpa was 45. Trungpa’s first wife, Diana Mukpo, married Trungpa in Scotland in 1970 when she was 16 years old.

“He could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and people would still think he is the king,” Hays said about Trungpa, echoing then-candidate Donald Trump’s famous line.


Leslie Hays stands in her mother’s home in Princeton, Minnesota, on June 11, 2019. In 1985, Hays said, she became one of Shambhala founder Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s several “spiritual wives.” Hays said Trungpa was emotionally abusive during their relationship. Their marriage began when Hays was 24 and Trungpa was 45. He died in 1987.

Liz Craig, another woman who spent time at the mountain center, said she often was approached by older men for sexual relationships when she was a teenager growing up in Colorado’s Shambhala communities in the 1980s. Many of the older men she entered into relationships with were in the inner circle close to Trungpa. Reporting the underage sex was out of the question for Craig, even when she said the men became physically violent. Shambhala felt to her like its own universe with its own rules, she said.

No one interviewed by The Post said they reported information to the police about underage sex in the early days of Shambhala.

For Becker, Hays and Craig, Shambhala’s reverence for its leaders made it feel like a cult. “People would be ostracized who didn’t toe the party line,” Becker said of his time in Shambhala in the 1970s.

Addressing misconduct often fell through the cracks due to ignorance of how to properly deal with abuse, interviews show. Those tasked with handling abuse were volunteers, a lack of expertise that the Interim Board has acknowledged was part of the problem.

Several current and former Shambhala leaders, including Mipham, could not be reached or declined to be interviewed.

In a written response to questions emailed by The Post, Shambhala’s Interim Board acknowledged failures in properly addressing harm. Specifically, the board stated that Shambhala’s Care and Conduct processes — the organization’s overarching policy to address conflicts with officeholders — did not do enough.

“Many issues have contributed to Shambhala’s Care and Conduct challenges over the years,” the board said, “including: a policy that did not apply to all members of the community; failure to enact the policy in certain situations; members’ discomfort with the reporting procedures; and lack of proper training for leaders in implementing the procedures.

“We fully acknowledge that all of these issues have contributed to the situation we find ourselves in as a community, and we strive to do better.”

No faith in the system

Pam Rubin, a former Shambhala student, said she was kissed without her consent by a high-ranking teacher during a retreat in Vermont in 2005. After it became public, representatives of Shambhala asked her to attend a Care and Conduct meeting.

As a professional counselor who works with trauma victims, she saw the dangers in participating. She said the format — which brings alleged victims and those accused together — is potentially re-traumatizing without adequate support.

“That process is part of the problem,” Rubin said. “There is no way in hell I was going to get involved in that.”

In 2002, Shambhala International’s Board of Directors created the overarching policy of “Care and Conduct.” It was designed to use Shambhala’s contemplative teachings to address complaints against officeholders — such as meditation instructors or center employees — using Shambhala philosophies.

In a document that outlines the policy, the then-board explicitly stated that the process was not made in the mold of traditional justice or arbitration systems, but instead an arbitration “informed by the profound view of basic goodness.”

Despite being the new system to internally address harm, Care and Conduct was not widely adopted or even understood, according to a report prepared for Shambhala by An Olive Branch, an organization that consults with religious groups on preventing abuse. Claims of misconduct often fell into the hands of people at centers and were not properly passed up the chain to the International Care and Conduct Panel in Halifax, Nova Scotia, the report said.

In the wake of the allegations against the 56-year-old Mipham, Shambhala appointed a process team of nearly 100 members to restructure how the Buddhist organization handles abuse, including Care and Conduct. The board plans to raise funds to hire full-time professionals for handling misconduct, the board said in its statement to The Post.

While Care and Conduct has been seen as ineffective, there was a noticeable gap in who it even covered. Mipham, Shambhala’s spiritual leader, was not required to sign a 2015 pledge to abide by updated Care and Conduct policies that included a pledge to not have sexual relationships with students, An Olive Branch found.


Shambhala leader Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche, right, and other Buddhist monks stand amid smoke from burning juniper as they await the arrival of the Dalai Lama at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Larimer County in 2006.

A protected leader

Mipham stepped aside in July 2018, acknowledging he had caused “harm” in past relationships. Since then, he has issued few statements and remains in retreat in India at his wife’s family monastery. His future remains largely uncertain.

A third-party investigation commissioned by Shambhala found what it characterized as two credible allegations of sexual misconduct against Mipham.

In one of those cases, Mipham drunkenly kissed Julia Howell in 2011, the investigation found. The report concluded the encounter qualified as “sexual misconduct.” (The report only labeled Howell as “Claimant No. 1,” but Howell confirmed that was her in interviews with The Post.)

Friends of Howell who were close to Mipham reached out to her after the incident, telling her to keep her stringent vows to Mipham and not to speak about it.

The third-party report found there may have been “some degree of collusion to set a particular narrative” about the misconduct by witnesses to the event who were close to Mipham. “There may have also been an attempt to discredit (Howell),” the report states.


The Boulder Shambhala Center is pictured in 2016.

“This is a (expletive) cult. What happens when you stand up to authority? You get pushed out,” Howell said in an interview.

While Mipham had systemic cover for his behavior from his position as Shambhala’s leader, those close to him had social protection as well.

Juliana McCarthy told The Post that when she was the victim of a domestic-violence incident initiated by a member of Boulder’s Buddhist community, she was explicitly told by two members of Mipham’s court not to report it to Boulder police.

Slow to no reform

Even though many at the upper levels of the Shambhala Mountain Center and Shambhala International, and those close to Mipham, were repeatedly told about problems in the organization, little effective reform was implemented, internal communications and interviews with those who tried to warn Shambhala show.

Rubin, the counselor who said she was forcibly kissed in 2005, sent reports to Shambhala about its handling of her and other instances of alleged sexual misconduct. The response from Shambhala to the red flags Rubin tried to raise did not lead to the reform she’d hoped for, she said. She had to “pull teeth on every level” to be heard.

“They have this knowledge and they are not doing anything about it,” she said.

During retreats to implement structural change at the Shambhala Mountain Center, Morman — the former Rusung, or safety commander — said he saw senior teachers filibuster basic conversation over reforms with soliloquies on Buddhist philosophy. Change was stopped before it could even start, he said.

“Until I started getting involved with running stuff, I didn’t realize how bad it was,” Morman said.

Others who raised questions felt that adherence to Shambhala teachers stifled them. Vows and oaths that students took to their teachers bound them into roles of devotion and obedience. Trungpa and Mipham each commanded great power over their students through these vows.


Leslie Hays, who said she was one of late Shambhala founder Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche’s several “spiritual wives,” visits the woods near her mother’s home in Princeton, Minnesota, on June 11, 2019.

Hays, one of Trungpa’s several Sangyum, or wives, said the vows she took bound her spiritual husband’s abuse inside of her. The times she said that he hit her with his walking stick and required her to carry and prepare cocaine lines for him were cemented inside of her for decades out of fear of being sent to “vajra hell,” the fate for those who break their stringent vows, she said.

“Shambala is particularly fraught with these oaths and pledges of allegiance,” Hays said.

The report by An Olive Branch noted that Mipham’s role as both spiritual and administrative ruler was a position ripe for abuse. Now that Mipham is in India with his remaining Kusung and wife’s family, it is unclear who will fill the large void he has left.

Mipham has sent emails through his secretary David Brown — who declined to be interviewed — that allowed students to release their vows with him. But he remains legally entangled with Shambhala and his name is still attached to its image, and his proxy entities are still listed throughout Shambhala’s governing documents.

“I just see all these people trying to keep something going, but in my perspective, it ended with my father passing,” said Gesar Mukpo, Mipham’s half-brother and son of Trungpa. “It is a sad state of affairs.”

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Part 1 of 3

Tibetan Buddhism Enters the 21st Century: Trouble in Shangri-la
by Stuart Lachs
July 12, 2019

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

What convinces masses are not facts,
not even invented facts,
but only the consistency of the illusion.1

Buddhism in the 21st century is fairly well established, both in the United States of America and in Europe. This is true for the surviving branches of Buddhism: Theravada, Zen or Chan, and Vajrayana or Tibetan Buddhism.Recently both Zen and Tibetan Buddhist groups in the West have been rocked by scandals involving prominent, well established teachers with titles such as Zen master, Roshi, Rinpoche, Lama, Sakyong, and so on—who are understood by their followers and even by non-followers, to be enlightened beings. Importantly, it is the institutions—that is, the leading authorities representing these traditions—who present these leaders as enlightened beings, and this is also how they have presented themselves to a believing public.

In Zen Buddhism, the “enlightened teacher” has enormous control over the student.2 The teacher in the Zen tradition is certified as enlightened by his or her enlightened teacher, in an unbroken lineage reaching back to the historical Buddha.

This idea of an unbroken lineage of enlightened teachers is a well-constructed myth.3 Yet at the same time Zen practice, which can have great benefits, depends on the student’s unquestioning confidence and trust in the teacher. The dark side to imputing attainment to people who do not really have it has resulted in the steady stream of abuse cases in Zen Buddhist communities, sometimes around extravagant garnering of wealth, but almost always involving sexual abuse.

Stuart Lachs (b. 1940) is an independent scholar and long-time Ch’an/Zen practitioner. He is convinced that critical thinking is Buddhist and Buddhism is critical thinking. In the early 1990’s, Lachs was introduced to an academic view of the history of Zen that contrasted with the history promulgated by the Zen institution. He became interested in the scholarly view as a way to explain the disparity he witnessed between how the Zen institution claimed its leaders (Zen masters/roshi) behaved and what he saw first hand. Looking through both the lens of academic history and the lens of the sociology of religion and institutions demonstrates how Zen developed over time, responding to historical settings and necessities. The institution that grew up around Zen functions to a large extent—as do most institutions—to promote and protect itself, empower its leaders and enable that power to function. Since the mid-1960’s, however, Zen has suffered from repeated scandals—scandals that hurt its practitioners, caused others to leave and marred its reputation. Lachs’ writings helps his readers understand how the conceptions and mythology of enlightened Zen masters beyond the understanding of ordinary people, Dharma transmission and unbroken lineage and their supporting structures impact Zen students’ lives and practice. This article is Lachs’ first excursion outside Ch’an/Zen and into Tibetan Buddhism.

This article is about similar abuses in Tibetan Buddhism, which, like Zen, offers a path to enlightenment.4 For followers of Tibetan Buddhism in the West at least, the day-to-day results have been the same as that of the Zen sect of Buddhism. In the Tibetan case, students’ absolute submission to the teacher has led to some teachers amassing extravagant wealth, and almost always to wild sexual abuse, arguably even more extreme than in Zen Buddhist communities.

Throughout this paper some people will be identified as a tulku(Wyl., sprul sku).5 Tulkus are persons who have been identified as the emanation or reincarnation of a highly respected deceased master. No matter whether the lineages reach back many centuries or are very recent, this tulku system is an important means by which the teachings of various schools of Tibetan Buddhism continue.6 The present day Dalai Lama is the fourteenth Dalai Lama of a lineage that began in 1391. It should be noted that lama (Wyl., bla ma, the Tibetan equivalent of the Sanskrit guru) is a title for a Tibetan teacher of the Dharma that is different from that of a tulku. Not all lamas are tulkus but most tulkus are lamas. Similarly, not all monks are lamas.7 When a master dies he leaves some clues on where or how to find his reincarnation. Finding the reincarnated master or tulku can be an elaborate affair, especially in the case of an important master. Usually a group of respected lamas come together to look for clues for finding the young reincarnated master.

The Karmapa, the head of the Kagyü school, is especially known for recognizing tulkus and even masters from other lineages approach the Karmapa requesting him to discover tulkus. For instance, the fifteenth Karmapa who lived into the twentieth century, recognized about 1,000 tulkus during his life.8 In December 5-8, 1989, the fourth Tulku Conference was held in India. This event was attended by over 350 tulkus from the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism and from the Bön religion, and this conference was hardly attended by all tulkus.9 These numbers show that a tulku is not an extremely rare being.10

This paper will look at some of the recent scandals in the Tibetan traditions and examine how they mirror each other through institutional self-definitions, imputed attainments, and institutional guarantees of authority and orthodoxy. Unquestioned authority is at the core of all these scandals. I will discuss five representatives of these sanctified lineages, mentioning also a number of other high lamas as they relate to these teachers. We will see how the authenticating process along with the samaya—in Tibetan damtsik (Wyl., dam tshig)—vows pledged by their disciples empowers these teachers as enlightened beings, who are viewed almost as superhuman by their followers, and how this process prevents virtually any critical thought about the teacher’s actions.11 This paper will thereby show how hierarchy, vows, secrecy and face-saving strategies indulged abuse.

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble.
Its what you know for sure that just ain’t so.12

What Are We Talking About?

Three “scandals” involving sex, alcohol, drugs, money and some combination of these elements, have rocked the world of Tibetan Buddhism in the West over the past three years, though these scandals had their origins as long as forty years ago. The teachers, involved with titles that translate as “Earth Protector,”—in Tibetan Sakyong (Wyl., sa skyong)— “Emperor,” “Moon of Dharma,” “Excellent Intellect,” “Radiant Holder of the Teachings, (Ösel Tendzin (Wyl., ‘od gsal bstan ‘dzin) in Tibetan),” and so on, were chosen and sustained by esteemed Tibetan Buddhist leaders. This paper examines in substantial but not exhaustive detail scandals involving Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche—Rinpoche (Wyl., rin po che) means “Precious One”—the head of the Shambhala International organization, Lama Norlha Rinpoche, the main representative on the eastern half of America of the famous meditation master Kalu Rinpoche, and finally Sogyal Rinpoche, the author of the well known book The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.13

However, to better understand the Sakyong Mipham case, it is important to understand his position in the context of the Shambhala organization founded by his father, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. This is important because abusive patterns that were born under Trungpa’s leadership of Shambhala continued through a succession of their lineage leaders and senior students. To this day these patterns of abuse have continued to affect their satellite centers around the world. Hence this paper will look at five scandals: the three already mentioned, but first the scandals of Chögyam Trungpa and then of his immediate heir, the American Thomas Rich, better known as Ösel Tendzin. While looking at these five teachers we will naturally look at other highly regarded Tibetan Buddhist leaders as they relate to these five.

Chögyam Trungpa

Chögyam Trungpa (b. 1939 d. 1987) was eleventh in the line of Trungpa tulkus, important figures in the Kagyü lineage, one of the four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Among his main teachers was Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, as well as other respected Tibetan teachers. He was deeply trained in the Kagyu tradition and received his khenpo (Wyl. mkhan po) degree, a high degree of Buddhist scholarship in Tibetan monasteries. Trungpa was also trained in the Nyingma tradition, the oldest of the four schools of Tibetan Buddhism. In 1958 Trungpa fled his home monastery and went into hiding after it was occupied by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Trungpa began an arduous escape from Tibet in April, 1959 arriving in India in January, 1960. Trungpa was head of the Surmang group of monasteries at the time he left. In a word, Trungpa was an important tulku and had highly respected orthodox teachers of Tibetan Buddhism; by the rules of Tibetan Buddhism, he was the real thing.

In 1963 he studied comparative religion at Oxford University. In 1967 along with Akong Rinpoche, also a tulku, they took over a meditation center in Scotland that became Samye Ling, the first Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Europe.14 Shortly after the move to Scotland, while drunk and speeding, Trungpa had a car accident that left him partially paralyzed on the left side. This along with other experiences led Trungpa to give up his monastic vows and to continue teaching as a layman. He smoked, drank heavily and openly slept with his female students. He was also known for keeping students waiting for hours for a teaching often arriving with drink in hand. In 1970 he married Diana J. Mukpo, a wealthy 16-year-old English student. He had a break with Akong Rinpoche disagreeing over the way to teach Tibetan Buddhism. Akong favoring a more ordered approach as opposed to Trungpa’s so called “Crazy Wisdom” wilder way. Trungpa left Scotland and in 1970 moved to the USA.

Trungpa was extremely charismatic and had a unique way of presenting Tibetan Buddhism that appealed to his Western students. He was bright, witty, and openly hard drinking which originally appealed mostly to the counter culture and artists, writers, and theater people. For example, poet Allen Ginsberg, the Chilean biologist/philosopher Francisco Varela, and poets/activist Diane di Prima and Anne Waldman were students of his.15 Another author/journalist student of Trungpa was John Steinbeck IV and his wife Nancy. Steinbeck was the son of John Steinbeck, the Nobel Prize winner who wrote Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Unlike many of Trungpa’s followers, John Steinbeck IV and Nancy were able to recognize and face some of the problems generated by Trungpa and his Crazy Wisdom teachings. I will use them as an important source when it comes to Trungpa’s life and teaching in the U.S.A. I refer to them as Steinbeck, and quote their book, The Other Side of Eden in different places in this paper.16

Originally, Trungpa’s meditation centers were known as Dharmadhatus. Now they are known as Shambhala Meditation Centers, including major centers in Colorado, Vermont, and Nova Scotia which hold intensive meditation retreats. In 1974 Trungpa founded Naropa Institute which later became Naropa University, the first accredited Buddhist university in North America. Trungpa had a string of well-known people teaching at Naropa. He was one of the first to introduce the esoteric Vajrayana teaching to western lay students. As with other Vajrayana teachers, Trungpa too warned of terrible consequences for leaving the path or in disclosing secrets of the practice.17 We shall see more examples of this later in the paper.

Trungpa’s original romance with and acceptance by the American poetry world was shattered by two events. In the early 1970’s a poetry reading took place at the University of Colorado featuring Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Robert Bly with Trungpa acting as the master of ceremonies as a benefit to help Trungpa’s Meditation Center. Trungpa was loaded on saki and kept interrupting the poets with loud noises, some imitating the sound of farts, and yodeling and then hitting a loud gong at the end. Trungpa apologized at the end of the evening—not for his behavior but for the poets: ‘I’m sure they didn’t mean what they said.’ Snyder and Bly kept their distance from Shambhala after this event.18

The second event that more deeply soured the poetry community and many others on Trungpa and Shambhala was known as the “Great Naropa Poetry Wars” or the “Merwin Affair.” The well-known poet W.S. Merwin and his girl friend, the Hawaiian poet Dana Naone, were not advanced students of Trungpa. However, they were permitted by Trungpa to attend the 1975 three-month long seminary limited for advanced students. Trungpa organized a Halloween party that in usual Shambhala fashion of the time was quite a drunken affair. Merwin and Naone did not want to take part but on Trungpa’s orders they were physically forced out of their room amid much violence and brought before Trungpa who ordered his Vajra guards to strip them naked, which they did.19

Shambhala under Trungpa’s leadership was known for wild parties, heavy drinking, and promiscuous sex. He also popularized the idea of “Crazy Wisdom,” the idea among others, that unenlightened people often do not understand the words and actions of enlightened people. Being a representative of the “Crazy Wisdom” lineage meant that all his outrageous behavior was presented as teaching.20 Trungpa seemed to have a taste for married women and implied that extramarital affairs were a direct path to enlightenment.21 Trungpa encouraged his students to cultivate detachment toward our children.22 Nancy Steinbeck said that her meditation instructor ‘once accused me of hiding behind my kids when I refused to leave them with baby-sitters and do volunteer work.’23

In spite of his brilliance and creativity which attracted many devotees and no doubt helped many of his students, his involvement with pharmaceuticals soon blossomed into full-fledged addiction that clouded his judgment.24 The Steinbeck’s added that unfortunately, Trungpa presented himself as an authority on areas over which he had no expertise, such as child rearing and family dynamics.25 His students followed his words leading to many mistakes, ‘too many broken hearts, far too much abuse would all trickle down like toxic rain on the heads of those children we so blithely left at home.’26 In this paper unfortunately the reader will see examples of what this means.

Trungpa used the title Vidyadhara Trungpa Rinpoche which indicates that he was someone who constantly abides in the state of pure awareness.27 This also meant that he was beyond the understanding of his students and ordinary mortals. He claimed that because ‘he had Vajra nature [a yogically transformed and stabilized psychophysiology], he was immune to the normal physiological effects of alcohol,’ said one student. The students bought his story. It never occurred to anyone that he was an alcoholic because that was a disease that happened to ordinary mortals.28 Though it was well known that he was addicted to alcohol, much less well known even to today was his $40,000-a-year cocaine habit [that was in mid 1980 dollars] and, ‘the ultimate irony, an addiction to the sleeping pill Seconal. Sleeping pills for the guru who advertised himself as a wake-up call to enlightenment.’29

Steinbeck goes on to describe the effects of Trungpa’s years of excessive alcohol and drug use. ‘In his last year, he’d become so deluded, he would summon his attendants and tell them he wanted to visit the Queen of Bhutan. They would put him in his Mercedes and drive around the block several times. As they led him back to the house, they laughingly asked how his visit went. “Wonderful,” he’d reply. “She was delightful.” And they called that magic. “He’s so powerful,” they’d whisper.”‘30 The Steinbecks referred to Trungpa’s close students serving him as enablers. They claimed that supplying him with drugs and alcohol was a measure of their devotion, while sneering at those of us who objected.31 “Whatever the teacher demands, all that I will give,” was their vow. They believed that to break that samaya (vow), to refuse to administer to the guru the poison that was killing him, would literally send them to hell.32 It should be noted here that Trungpa’s disciples expressing their devotion to him by supplying him with alcohol and presumably cocaine as he desired, was in keeping with the view of samaya, as represented by three well known Rimpoches: Kalu, Dilgo Khyentse, and Dzongsar Khyentse, as we shall see shortly.

The Steinbecks add another disturbing picture to Trungpa’s supposed Vajra nature and his claimed ability to transcend the effects of excessive alcohol and drug consumption: ‘After his death, a Buddhist teenager asked me, “Did you know that some guys used to pimp for Rinpoche? They’d find him new women to sleep with.” (…) While everyone was busy honoring Rinpoche’s courage for being so blatant about his massive indulgences, his henchmen constantly skimmed the various centers for new blood. Women were trained as “consorts.” That meant they knew what to do when he threw up, shit in the bed, snorted coke till dawn, turned his attention to other women, and maybe even got in the mood for a threesome. Our little band of recovering Buddhists began to ask people if they thought this flagrant behavior constituted religious or sexual abuse. The standard answer you get from the male good old boys who buy into the system because it means their coffers will also be full to feed their own addictions, is that they never, in all their pimping, heard any woman complain plain about sleeping with Rinpoche. (I use that term loosely, because for years he was alcoholically impotent and would devise little sexual games using a dildo known as “Mr Happy” or insisting women masturbate in front of him.)’33

He would finally die ‘of the most acute alcoholism and drug addiction I had ever seen’ and I knew, wrote Nancy Steinbeck, ‘because by then I was working in a silk-sheet rehab center in La Jolla, California.34 ‘I saw a picture of him taken a few days before his death. He was bone-thin; his eyes had the haunted look of a madman.’35

Victoria Fitch, a member of Trungpa’s household staff with years of experience as a nursing attendant gives a more detailed description of Trunga’s final decline and death. She also describes how his true condition was kept secret from almost all of Trungpa’s students and that whatever claims he made, Trungpa was dying just like countless other alcoholics. Fitch wrote, ‘When Trungpa Rinpoche lay dying in 1986 at the age of 47, only an inner circle knew the symptoms of his final illness. Few could bear to acknowledge that their beloved and brilliant teacher was dying of terminal alcoholism, even when he lay incontinent in his bedroom, belly distended and skin discolored, hallucinating and suffering from varicose veins, gastritis and esophageal varices, a swelling of veins in the esophagus caused almost exclusively by cirrhosis of the liver.’

‘Rinpoche was certainly not an ordinary Joe, but he sure died like every alcoholic I’ve ever seen who drank uninterruptedly. The denial was bone-deep.’ she continued. ‘I watched his alcoholic dementia explained as his being in the realm of the dakinis [khandroma (Wyl., mkha’ ‘gro ma) in Tibetan], that is as guardians of the teachings, visualized in female form.’36

An example of the level of wishful thinking and of denial of the effects of years of alcohol and drug abuse on Trungpa among his disciples comes from Walter Fordham, the head of Trungpa’s Household, who claimed ‘it was safe to say that his level of awareness in the environment was unaffected by his alcohol.’37

According to Steinbeck, ‘comments from other lamas about Rinpoche [Trungpa] began to seep in. They finally admitted that for years they had feared for his sanity and thought he had been acting irresponsibly, but no one had spoken out.’ 38 The Dalai Lama in 1989 told Steinbeck privately ‘that he would never trust a guru who claimed, as Rinpoche had, that he could turn alcohol into an elixir.’39 It seems, at least in this case, for some lamas and for the Dalai Lama, that protecting the status quo of Tibetan Buddhism was more important than the harm caused to real people.

One has to wonder if the Dalai Lama or other lamas had publicly shared their own concerns about turning alcohol into an elixir, or many other concerns they may have had about Trungpa and Shambhala, if many people including Trungpa himself, would have been spared much suffering? One also has to wonder if these concerns about Trunga and Shambhala had been shared if the abuse that has been passed from the leadership, generation to generation and that seems to have infected many Shambhala centers could have been avoided. But raising concerns about Trungpa’s actions and sanity would have raised questions about the unquestionable authority of the tulku system and of the authority of high lamas endorsing the next generation of orthodox leaders.

Trungpa’s cremation ceremony took place in May of 1987 attended by roughly three thousand people. Looking back in what seems like a sanitized version of Trungpa’s decline and death, but also acting as a smoke screen of things to come, Trungpa Rinpoche’s son Gesar Mukpo, half-brother of the new head of the Shambhala organization, that is, Sakyong Mipham, stated: ‘My dad … was a drinking madman! How much of a madman are you? How brave are you to really do things? He was a warrior. A warrior with the pen. A warrior with the word. A warrior with the drinking. If you don’t like his drinking, he was a fool, he’s dead. If you don’t mind the drinking thing and think he may have had incredible enlightened wisdom, then you are an eligible candidate for his teachings.’40 We see here the holding up of alcohol abuse as the way to practice. Mukpo is daring Trungpa’s followers to be madmen, which he equates with bravery, warriorship, and a chance for attaining enlightened wisdom. At the time, May 2000, it was not widely known that the Sakyong himself, had alcohol and women abuse problems.

Before taking a closer look at the Sakyong, we first need to look at an intermediate step.

Ösel Tendzin

On August 22, 1976, Vidyadhara the Venerable Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche formally empowered Thomas Rich from Passaic, New Jersey—named Ösel Tendzin by Trungpa—as his Vajra Regent, his dharma heir, successor, and lineage holder in the Karma Kagyü and Nyingma traditions of Tibetan Buddhism. Trungpa Rinpoche bestowed upon him the rather ornate string of names “Karma, Moon of Dharma, Excellent Intellect, Radiant Holder of the Teachings, Victorious in All Directions.”41 Thomas Rich was the first Western Dharma student to be a title holder in these lineages. The Sixteenth Gyalwa Karmapa, the revered head of the Karma Kagyü lineage, during his 1977 visit to the United States, confirmed Trungpa Rinpoche’s appointment of Thomas Rich, that is, the Vajra Regent as a lineage holder. At the time of Trungpa Rinpoche’s death, August, 1987, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, head of the Nyingma lineage, reconfirmed Thomas Rich as Trungpa Rinpoche’s lineage holder and empowered him with the highest Maha Ati Abhisheka, giving him the name “Lord of Yogins, Coemergent Accomplishment Vajra.”42

Almost like magic, by the words of high lamas, the former Thomas Rich from Passaic, New Jersey was transformed into a lineage holder in both the Kagyü and Nyingma lineages of Tibetan Buddhism, became the leader of Shambhala, the largest sect of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, while being sanctified by the most revered teachers of these sects, capped with a string of exalted sounding names indicating his great spiritual attainment. By any measure of judging, he was crowned by highly respected teachers of Tibetan Buddhism. He too in a word, by the rules of Tibetan Buddhism, like his teacher Trungpa, was the real thing!

The Best Laid Plans of Tulkus and Men

When Trungpa XI died in Vermont in April 1987, everyone expected the Regent to hold his position until what was expected to be a relatively swift rebirth and reassumption of the Trungpa throne. During the interregnum between the death of Trungpa XI and the birth of Trungpa XII, the “Regent” would hold power and occupy the position of head of Vajradhatu. Trungpa chose his regent badly – a bisexual first known as “Narayana” upon whom he bestowed the nom-de-buddha of “Osel Tendzin.” That Trungpa XI was infatuated with Tendzin is clear, and it may have blinded his judgment, because a review of Trungpa’s poems dedicated to the Regent suggests that by a naïve admiration of the Regent’s rapacity, he stoked the flames of a dangerous madness that destroyed all of their plans. Certainly there were plans.

In his second book of poetry, First Thought, Best Thought, Trungpa XI dedicated many poems to Tendzin, many overtly sexual and encouraging a cowboy style of governing the sangha. In the Epilogue to a republication of “Born In Tibet” in 1978, Trunpga XI included photographs of himself and the Regent suitable for worship, and laid out his thinking: “My approach to administration and the community in general has been to give more and more responsibility to people but to hold the nerve centre in my control, and I am teaching Osel Tendzin to do likewise.”

In 1977, Trungpa XI published Garuda V, Transcending Hesitation, in the same format as Garuda IV, quoted above. Again this publication was the vehicle for announcing important ecclesiastical news. On page 101 of the book appears the following “PROCLAMATION” concerning the elevation of Osel Tendzin:

“By the power and with the blessings of the three jewels, the glorious and authentic root gurus of the Practicing lineage of Kagyu and the Ancient Lineage of Nyingma, the herukas and dakinis, Dharmapalas and lokapalas, I hereby empower and declare Karma Cho-kyi Dawa Legpai Lodro Osel Tendzin Chogle Namgyel, Thomas F. Rich, as DORJE GYALTSAP, VAJRA REGENT to act on my behalf in propagating buddhadharma and the vision of the three yanas throughout the world, and to implement, as a Director of the First Class, the purpose and intentions of Vajradhatu as well as those of the Nalanda Foundation. Proclaimed and sealed at the seat of Vajradhatu in Boulder, Colorado, in America by Vajracarya the Venerable Karma Ngawang Cho-kyi Gyamtso Kunga Sangpo, Trungpa Tulku XI, this 250th year of the Parinirvana, on the 27th day of the Fire Dragon Year of the 16th Rapjung, August 22, 1976. [signed] Trungpa XI [Trungpa Seal]”

The importance of this document cannot be overemphasized, as it makes absolutely clear that Trungpa XI had decided not to establish a hereditary lineage of succession, which has become so common with other lineages, and flies in the face of the ancient traditions of the Kagyu lineage as a pure meritocracy, based on “practice,” which is to say, achievement. However we may judge in retrospect, this proclamation was Trungpa XI's resounding endorsement of a native-born American citizen, unrelated to him by blood or even nationality, and it was understood as such by the Vajradhatu faithful and the spiritual community at large.

This proclamation was written to serve as an authoritative corporate document. It recites the legal name of the Gyaltsap, Thomas F. Rich, and pointedly names him as the only person authorized to hold Trungpa XI's position as the Director of the First Class in the Vajradhatu corporation. There is no mention of Shambhala International, or of the Sakyong. This document was Trungpa XI's spiritual will, and if there were any doubt of that, the inscription added by H.H. the Sixteenth Karmapa would eliminate it. Appended to the top of the document, with the Karmapa's seal, is the following text: “As set forth below, the supreme Vidyadhara Trungpa Trulku Chogyi Gyatso has appointed his chief disciple, Osel Tendzin, as his Gyaltsap. This I fully acknowledge & rejoice in. Accordingly, let everyone offer to him due respect. Written by the glorious Karmapa, the 8th day of the 12th month of the Fire Dragon Year.” The “Gyaltsap,” according to the Appendix to Born In Tibet, is simply “The Regent Abbot,” second only to the “Trindzin,” who is “The Supreme Abbot.” If Trungpa XI had intended any changes to this document, for example, appointing a new successor, he would have made it absolutely clear, and published the identity of his new Gyaltsap, with equal solemnity and public exposure. No such document exists.

The Regent Flames Out

In the poem entitled You Might Be Tired of the Seat That You Deserve (For the Vajra Regent at Midsummer's Day), Trungpa XI counseled the new Gyaltsap on the right way to do his job:

Dearly loved comrade,
If you do not hold the seat,
Others may take it away;
If you do not sit on a rock,
It becomes mushy clay;
If you don't have patience to sit on a rock or seat,
They give you away;
If you are not diligent in holding the throne,
Some opportunist will snatch it away;
If you are tired of your seat,
Some interior decorator will rearrange it;
If you don't have a throne,
You cannot speak or proclaim from it,
So the audience will dissipate;
If you don't have a government seat to sit on,
Your wisdom and command seal will be snatched by others;
If you run around, thinking that you have a seat to come back to,
It will be washed away by the turbulent river,
Like a presidential platform;
You can never proclaim your command.
Either it will be disassembled by the cockroaches
Or the frivolous multitude will take it away as souvenirs.
It may be hard to sit on the seat,
But one must endure it.
Do sit on your seat,
Whether it is hard or soft.
Once you sit on your seat,
The sitting itself becomes truly command and message,
Then, undoubtedly, multitudes of people will respect and obey it
As the vajra throne of Bodhgaya where Buddha taught.
Truth becomes exertion.
The message of hard fact proclaims itself,
So you don't have to emphasize harder truth.
Offering your seat in order to please others will not give authentic
reward
They will take the attitude that you are a pleasant seat-offerer.
So, my son, please don't move around;
Assume your seat, and sit, and be.
If you be that way, truth prevails;
Command is heard throughout the land.
So sit and hold your seat.
Then you will enjoy, because others will admire you.
This is hard to do, but easy to accomplish.

Had the Regent performed his job properly, keeping his own nerve centres under control, he would have lived until the 12th Trungpa tulku had been born, identified, and enthroned as the new lineage-holder. But the Regent failed in his mission, dying of AIDS in 1990, leaving his highly literate crew of disciples unusually silent concerning his habit of engaging in unprotected sex with a wide circle of people. The Regent apparently suffered from a bad case of Tantra-Induced Delusional Syndrome (TIDS), that caused him to believe his toxic emissions would bless his students, not kill them.

Two of the Regent’s blessing-recipients died relatively quickly, a young man who was Tendzin’s lover, and his girlfriend, who didn’t realize that dating a Buddhist could be lethal. Call it the collateral damage from the quest for enlightenment – or one more casualty of Colorado’s notoriously slack prosecution in high-profile homicides. The Regent never saw the inside of a courtroom, despite having committed, before the eyes of witnesses, multiple toxic assaults on the bodies of people who loved and trusted him. But it’s all water under the bridge of innumerable lifetimes, right?

-- Born in Tibet, Again: The Exile of the 12th Trungpa Tulku, by Charles Carreon

Ten years later, in April 1987, Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin assumed leadership of the Vajradhatu community, following the death of his well-known teacher, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche. The same total deference that Trungpa commanded and was given from his American students was transferred to his Dharma heir, Ösel Tendzin.43 ‘His meals were occasions for frenzies of linen-pressing, silver-polishing, hair­breadth calibrations in table settings, and exact choreographies of servers,’ said television producer Deborah Mendelsohn, who helped host Tendzin when he gave two meditation retreats in Los Angeles, but has since left the community. ‘When he traveled, a handbook went with him to guide his hosts through the particulars of caring for him, including instructions on how and in what order to offer his towel, underpants and robe after he stepped from the shower.’44

Less than two years later in December 1988, Vajradhatu administrators told their members that the Vajra Regent, Ösel Tendzin had been infected with the AIDS virus for nearly three years. Members of the Vajradhatu board of directors conceded that, except for some months of celibacy, he had neither protected his many sexual partners, many of them students, both male and female, as well as male prostitutes, nor did he tell them the truth about his infection with AIDS. The Regent had a penchant for straight young men.45 One of the Regent’s sexual partners, the twenty-year old son of long-term students, was infected, as was a young woman who had later made love to the young man. The young man would later die from AIDS.46

Two members of the Vajradhatu board of directors had known of his infection for more than two years, yet chose to do nothing. Trungpa Rinpoche had also discussed it with him before his death. The Regent added that he came away from that conversation with Trungpa feeling he could “change the karma.” ‘Thinking that I had some extraordinary means of protection,’ Tendzin reportedly told a stunned community meeting organized in Berkeley in mid-December, ‘I went ahead with my business as if something would take care of it for me.’47 Board members had reluctantly informed the sangha (community of practitioners) only after trying for three months to persuade the Regent to act on his own. When asked why he did not realize he could infect someone else with AIDS, he replied: ‘It happened. I don’t expect anybody to try to conceive of it.’48

In spite of their supposed pure wisdom, beyond the understanding of ordinary people, it seems that both Chögyam Trungpa and his chosen heir, the Regent Ösel Tendzin suffered from a similar denial of human limitation, as well as ignorance of their own addictive behavior. There is an irony here as Trungpa described Shambhala practitioners as “warriors” not afraid to face the world, not afraid to face reality, not afraid to acknowledge that people are basically good. Yet both Trungpa and Tendzin did not face their own physical limitations and their addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex, and power and the affects this would have on their disciples who looked to them as wise and compassionate teachers setting an example of enlightened living. It seemed like these teachers and their devotees did not trust their own eyes and ears, but only their imaginations. It is not unrealistic to say that Trungpa and Ösel Tendzin and many of their followers were living in a self created factory of dreams.

The highest-ranking Buddhist to have spoken publicly on Ösel Tendzin’s issue was Kalu Rinpoche (b. 1905 d. 1989), of the Kagyü lineage, a highly respected meditation master known for his compassion and wisdom. He spoke at a meeting of about 100 Buddhists in Los Angeles on December 22, 1988. According to a tape of the meeting recorded by a church member, Kalu Rinpoche, speaking in Tibetan with an English interpreter, said: ‘As all of you know, the Vajra regent has contracted AIDS. And people worry very much about the fact that he might have passed this on to many, many people.’ Yet he then asked members to show compassion for the regent.49 However, there was no mention of compassion for people the Regent infected or may have infected or were realistically worried about becoming infected because of having had sex with him or one of his partners. Not only no compassion, but also that worries of the students’ questioning Ösel Tendzin’s behavior could be detrimental to themselves because this questioning was breaking their samaya vows.

One student asked about repairing their samaya vows broken by the student’s questioning, if even only to herself, the sexual behavior of the Regent.50 These vows are taken very seriously. We already saw Trungpa’s close disciples because of their samaya vows proudly supplying him with alcohol and cocaine as he rushed to early death from abusing his body with just these very substances. So, the samaya vow idea is very complicit in the entire set up of unquestioned hierarchy, abuse, obedience, and secrecy.

Kalu instructed that the Regent Ösel Tendzin was their Lama, that they should follow him, that they in fact needed to repair their “broken vows” to the Regent. He instructed that this can be accomplished by first confessing to him and second by making a promise to themselves and to the Regent that they would not develop this kind of attitude in the future. He added to rely on Ösel Tendzin and to accomplish as much virtue as possible. ‘You should do whatever you can to be helpful to the Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin to bring him joy. In these ways you can clear away any broken samaya completely.’51

Kalu also forbid any public talk of the Regent’s AIDS problem at his Centers and told Shambhala members not to discuss it as ‘it was neither helping anyone and was only disrupting their meditation and the harmony of the sangha.’52 Kalu also forbade Lama Ken McCleod, a senior student of his, to speak publicly of Ösel Tendzin, which he obeyed.53

Knowing what we now know, it is not surprising that Kalu demanded secrecy. In 1996, June Campbell’s book, Traveler in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism was published. Campbell in her twenties, as a Tibetan studies scholar, spent many years as a student of Kalu Rinpoche and acted as a translator for him. She also wrote that she was a secret consort of his along with at least one other woman, a teenage Tibetan girl. Campbell said Kalu’s sexual life was kept secret aside from one other person though the relationship lasted for years.54 She wrote, ‘it was plainly emphasized that any indiscretion in maintaining silence over our affair might lead to madness, trouble, or even death.’55 Though Kalu lived many years not as a monk after escaping Tibet, according to Campbell, ‘he was afraid of the consequences of revealing his secret life.’56 Several western scholars seemed to be completely ignorant of the hidden life existing within the lama system; in 1993 Kalu was described as a monk. When the biography of this high lama was written there was no mention of Campbell’s name or even references to a metaphorical consort. According to Campbell, ‘the Tibetan system was for all intents and purposes a secret society.’57

However, in terms of keeping secrecy the reincarnated tulku Kalu (b. September 17, 1990) appears to be very different from his former incarnations. During the question and answer period after a talk he gave in 2011 in Vancouver (Canada), the young Kalu was asked about sexual abuse in Tibetan monasteries. Kalu replied that he was sensitive to it because he himself was a victim of sexual abuse. When the interviewer, Joseph Hooper brought up the concept of “inappropriate touching,” the young Kalu laughed edgily. ‘This was hard-core sex, he says, including penetration. Most of the time, they just came alone,’ Kalu said. Kalu continued, ‘They just banged the door harder, and I had to open it. I knew what was going to happen, and after that you become more used to it.’ It wasn’t until Kalu returned to the monastery after his three-year retreat that he realized how wrong this practice was. Kalu said that by then the cycle had begun again on a younger generation of victims. Kalu’s claims of sexual abuse mirror those of Lodoe Senge, an ex-monk and 23-year-old tulku who now lives in Queens, New York.58

After his three year retreat the young Kalu wanted to change his tutor which resulted in an argument with the current tutor: ‘The older monk left in a rage and returned with a foot-long knife. Kalu barricaded himself in his new tutor’s room, but, he says, the enraged monk broke down the door, screaming, “I don’t give a shit about you, your reincarnation. I can kill you right now and we can recognize another boy, another Kalu Rinpoche!” Kalu took refuge in the bathroom, but the tutor broke that door, too. Kalu recalls, “You think, ‘Okay, this is the end, this is it.'” Fortunately, other monks heard the commotion and rushed to restrain the tutor. In the aftermath of the attack, Kalu says, his mother and several of his sisters (Kalu’s father had died when he was a boy) sided with the tutor, making him so distraught that he fled the monastery and embarked on a six-month drug-and-alcohol-fueled bender in Bangkok.’ 59 The reincarnated Kalu was exceedingly brave to expose some of the hidden underbelly of Tibetan Buddhist monastic life while struggling to make sense of his life. Interestingly, here as in other sexual abuse cases, often the family turns away from the victims.

This story related by the young reincarnated Kalu raises a few questions. Was no older monk looking out or watching over and guiding the young Kalu? If there was, was it just accepted practice that young tulkus or monks to be would be sexually abused? On what grounds was his tutor picked who so easily was ready to kill Kalu for rejecting him as his tutor? Was there no consequence for the tutor attempting to kill Kalu which also was known by at least a few older monks? As Kalu mentioned after coming out of his retreat, ‘the cycle had continued on a younger generation of victims,’ so it seems that the sexual abuse of young boys by older monks was quite open and seemingly common and accepted practice. It appears there are some deep problems that are internally well known in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries but hidden from the public.

However, it was not only the older Kalu who instructed secrecy. When the editor Rick Fields of the Vajradhatu Sun, the official paper of the organization, prepared a short article describing the bare bones of the Ösel Tendzin crisis, he was forbidden to print it. ‘There have been ongoing discussions, both within community meetings and among many individuals, about the underlying issues that permitted the current situation to occur,’ read the banned article. ‘Those issues include the abuse of power and the betrayal of trust, the proper relationship between teachers with spiritual authority and students, particularly in the West, and the relationship between devotion and critical intelligence on the spiritual path.’ In March, Fields again attempted to run his article but this time he was fired by the Vajra Regent. When the board of directors refused to support him, he formally resigned.60

With all these major problems in the Shambhala lineage, the Steinbecks had hoped the Dalai Lama or other lineage heads would speak out, but they too maintained silence and offered no consequences to renegade lamas. The Dalai Lama told the Steinbecks, ‘The student has to take the responsibility of examining the behavior of the teacher very carefully, over a long period. You cannot be hasty about these things.’ In a sense, Steinbeck wrote, ‘the Dalai Lama was blaming the student, which so commonly happens in blaming the victim in any abusive situation?’61

Steinbeck continued, ‘by deliberately ignoring the situation, in what appears to be a fearful political ploy, these titular deities, these so-called God Kings are adding to the confusion instead of delineating clear moral guidelines. Their concern about the truth leaking out, which might drain their monastic coffers, flies in the face of all the teachings and vows they give concerning “right action.”‘62

At the suggestion of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, Ösel Tendzin went into private retreat in California but, like the older Kalu Rinpoche, he too urged Vajradhatu students to respect the Regent’s authority as their lama.63 On October 17, 1989 Dilgo wrote, ‘Those who are experiencing difficulties following the Regent now should realize that it is necessary to do so…’64 It is necessary, he explained, because Trungpa appointed him and the Karmapa confirmed it. How Ösel Tendzin lived and interacted with people for the previous ten years did not matter at all. At any rate on August 25, 1990 the Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin passed away.

After the death of Ösel Tendzin, Dilgo Khyentse Rimpoche and the lineage holders of the Kagyü lineage were all in agreement that the Sawang Ösel Rangdröl Mukpo, Chögyam Trungpa’s oldest son, should become the lineage holder of Vajradhatu.65

Sakyong Mipham

Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (b. November 15, 1962) was the head of the Shambhala organization, a global network of over 200 meditation and retreat centers along with extensive real estate holdings. Sakyong; a compound word consisting of sa, “earth,” and skyong, “to protect,” that translates as “earth protector,” “king,” “emperor,” or “governor” is considered a Dharma king and lineage holder of the Shambhala lineage. Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche is regarded as a chögyel (Wyl., chos rgyal, in Sanskrit dharmaraja) or “king of Dharma”, who combines the spiritual and worldly paths. The Sakyong according to the Shambhala view is the earthly embodiment or emanation of enlightened awareness. Though the title Sakyong is associated with the lineage of Shambhala implying an ancient lineage, the first Sakyong was Trungpa, the present Sakyong’s father and founder of the Shambhala organization.

Sakyong Wangmo (“Earth Protector Lady”) is the wife and partner of the Sakyong or Earth Protector, and mother of their three children. In this capacity, according to the Shambhala website, the Sakyong Wangmo offers strength and delight in home life, which allows the Sakyong the ground from which he can radiate his teachings out to the world. Again, according to the website, this example of family, based on the principles of enlightened society is a profound offering to the larger society. Sakyong Wangmo was empowered by Penor Rinpoche, who was the head of the Nyingma school from 1993 to his retirement in 2001.66 She comes from an old and distinguished Tibetan family. Her father is the supreme head of the Ripa lineage of Nyingma Vajrayana Buddhism and a living Tertön, or treasure-finder.67 She too by the rules of Tibetan Buddhism, is the real thing.

Lama Tsultrim Allione, a well-known western woman teacher of Tibetan Buddhism said about the Shambhala organization that, ‘the level of institutionalized hierarchy is quite extraordinary,’ with the Sakyong functioning ‘sort of like a divine king.’ His inner circle, with its ministers and attendants, is called the [Kalapa] “court”.68 He has a personal flag that local centers can buy for $350, to fly when he visits.

We saw earlier how Ösel Tendzin also was waited on hand and foot as if he were a divine king with his meals and bathing carefully orchestrated. One might say that Ösel Tendzin and Trungpa in thinking they had transcended all human limitations actually thought of themselves as divine kings of the universe.

The present scandal arose when it was disclosed that the Sakyong had an alcohol abuse problem coupled with sexually forcing himself on young female students. At this time, it also came out that the Shambahla organization has had a long history of sexual abuse even of children by leaders of different Shambhala communities.69

In spite of all the high sounding aims and titles, very troubling events occurring for years at Shambhala were to be dramatically exposed on the internet with the publishing of the Buddhist Project Sunshine in March 2018. Project Sunshine was started by Andrea M. Winn who is a second generation Shambhalian, that is, she grew up in this community. She states,

‘I was sexually abused as a child by multiple perpetrators in our community. When I was a young adult, I spoke up about the community’s sexual abuse problem and was demonized by my local Shambhala Center, ostracized and forced to leave. The shocking truth is that almost all of the young people in my age group were sexually harassed and/or sexually abused. I don’t know the statistics on the generations of children after mine. What I do know is that many of us have left the community, and for those who have stayed, their voices have been unheard. Beyond child sexual abuse, women continue to be abused in relationships with community leaders and by their sanghas.’70

Though Winn does not mention it, one is compelled to ask what the parents of these young people were doing or not doing or thinking, as they had to know this was going on. Was this part of the Shambhala culture and a reflection of Trungpa’s ideas on promiscuous sex, child rearing and family dynamics mentioned earlier by the Steinbecks? Winn continues, ‘I felt awful on a very deep level. Don’t get me wrong. In so many ways I have created a good life for myself. But there has been a deep sick feeling inside of me for all these decades. Shambhala looked wonderful on the outside, and there is no doubt in my mind about the spiritual blessings in these practices. At the same time there has been this incomprehensible sickness.’71

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Part 2 of 3

As is often the case, the devil is in the details as we shall also see shortly when we look at Sogyal. There are many first-person accounts related about the Sakyong, but lets just look at three cases to get a deeper sense of what was happening.

A second generation Shambhalian, or “dharma brat,” wanted to contribute her story at the last minute after she saw the Sakyong’s “apology” letter: ‘I was sexually assaulted by the Sakyong in the kitchen of the Halifax Kalapa Court after his wife, the Sakyong Wangmo, retired for the night with her first daughter, following the celebration of her first birthday in August, 2011. This experience was traumatic for me. It took place one year after we welcomed Jetsun Drukmo [the Sakyong’s wife] home on that very lawn. It also marked the one year anniversary of meeting my then partner, who stood in the same room as me that night and watched, did nothing, turned the other way. As time went on, the community’s formal responses and members’ processes of relating to this disclosure and fact have overall exacerbated my confusion and suffering and eroded my mind and body’s health. The responses and denials continue to trigger me and prevent me from moving on from that harm and I believe are preventing the community from its own “healing”.’72

Another young woman reported, ‘Over many years I had several sexual encounters with the Sakyong that left me feeling ashamed, demoralized and worthless. Like many young women in the sangha, I was deeply devoted to the Sakyong and did whatever I could to serve him and be close to him. I witnessed the steady stream of attractive women that were invited into his quarters.’73 On another occasion she mentioned being invited to his suite at a dinner party where the Sakyong was encouraging everyone to drink a lot. He then insisted that we take off our clothes. He led one woman into his bedroom while the rest of us danced. After a while his kusung(attendant) came out to get me to come to the Sakyong’s bedroom. I went into the room and discovered the Sakyong and the woman on his bed having sex. He said to me “She won’t come. Do something to help.” I stood there stunned and he said “Play with her tits. Do something.”‘74

Another woman mentions the steady stream of pretty young women invited to the Sakyong’s suite, and his groping her and attempting to have sex with her when he was completely intoxicated, the Sakyong would ‘pull me into a dark corner. He kissed me and groped me while aggressively encouraging me to come to bed with him.’ Most of the time, another woman who had been invited to the party was already present so she refused.75

Buddhist Project Sunshine went viral being written about by the print media and Buddhist websites, while the members at centers around the world having had no idea of the troubling behavior of their leader and guru, were shocked by the allegations. Shambhala is a very large organization so most members were only exposed to the Sakyong in formal gatherings or through his writing. Now they were being shown a man out of control, perhaps alcoholic and selfishly abusing scores of young women for roughly two dozen years. They demanded a response.

On June 25, 2018 the Sakyong sent the Shambhala community an open letter of Apology.76 He begins with,

‘To the Shambhala Community:

I write to you with great sadness, tenderness, and a mind of self-reflection. It is my wish for you to know that in my past there have been times when I have engaged in relationships with women in the Shambhala community. I have recently learned that some of these women have shared experiences of feeling harmed as a result of these relationships. I am now making a public apology.’

Though he writes as if he is making an open and honest admission of past abuse, he is only admitting to what has already been made public knowledge by the publication of Buddhist Project Sunshine on the internet and even making it into the New York Times.77 Even that admission seems like a whitewash of what is described in the accounts of the Buddhist Project Sunshine. It is not difficult to imagine that without Project Sunshine there would be no ‘honest admission of past abuse.’

The Sakyong’s statement ‘I have recently learned that some of these women have shared experiences of feeling harmed as a result of these relationships’ is less than honest too as he had known that many women felt harmed by his casually using them for sex and then “ghosting” them when he moved onto some one new or if they questioned him about the nature of the relationship. These relationships go back to the early 1990’s or earlier—that is, over 25 years ago.

Later in the letter he writes, ‘I am now entering a period of self-reflection and listening.’ One wonders what he was doing or thought he was doing since August 1990, when he was made the lineage holder of the Vajradhatu organization with the death of Ösel Tendzin. One also wonders what the powerful samaya vows between guru and his students imply when by his own admission the Sakyong was not listening or barely listening to his students and was not “self reflecting” on his own behavior. If the Sakyong admits that he was flawed, this also raises the question of how and why he was given so much power and authority by the most senior lamas. Besides, one might wonder why he had been given so much material resources to maintain his family, himself, and the expenses to run the Kalapa Court?

It should be clear, that Andrea Winn with the Buddhist Project Sunshine was not trying to destroy Shambhala but rather, to expose the sickness and harm that she and many others have experienced. She wanted to save Shambhala by injecting openness and transparency into the organization and holding its leaders responsible for their actions. She also wanted to create a place where those abused could receive support, healing, community and where they could feel safe to talk out.

However revealing Buddhist Project Sunshine was of problems with the Sakyong, an even more revealing document appeared some months later on February 6, 2019: A thirty-five page long open letter signed by six long serving of the closest kusung (Wyl., sku srung, ‘body protectors,’ ‘attendants’) of the Sakyong.78 In it each signer describes his or her experiences of verbal, physical and sexual abuse in vivid detail. Recollections include female students being ‘pushed to rationalize [sex] as a generous offering to their revered teacher,’ stories of Mr Mukpo, as the Sakyong is addressed in the letter, hitting his attendants and forcibly biting people; students crying in a circle in their underwear, a culture of fear, and this is just the first of the six reports.

The six authors of the above-mentioned document write of being told to obscure the line between Mr Mukpo’s spiritual teachings and his abusive behavior, believing that the teacher’s behavior was beyond our understanding. They were asked, they say, to regard such abusive activity as the guru’s method of waking us up. In essence, they learned to discredit their own experience.

Ben Medrano, one of the signers writes, ‘I was amazed by the opulence, frequency, and duration of his [Sakyong’s] luxury vacations.’ Medrano was also amazed that Sakyong’s and his wife’s toiletry and cosmetic budget rivaled his annual salary as a resident physician. On one occasion he writes, ‘I recall a sober midday call demanding me to push for the unfeasible purchase of an Audi A8. I vividly remember his infuriated words being: “I want my FUCKING Audi!”‘

Allya F. Canepa, another long serving kusung, writes of being called to the Sakyong’s room and being a kusung, she dutifully kneeled by the side of his bed, waiting to see what the Sakyong wanted. She reports: ‘I was surprised when he put his hand down my shirt and fondled my breasts and said, “please I just want to sleep,” firmly directing my head to his cock. I obliged and shook it off.’79

Canepa added, ‘in the Vajrayana we are taught that all body fluids, or pieces of clothing, tufts of hair, or leftover food from the guru’s plate are blessings gifted directly from the body of enlightenment.’ Canepa also writes of ‘seeing hundreds of women go in and out of Mr. Mukpo’s bedroom and often consoling them afterward.’80

It should be clear that the abusive situation with the Sakyong was not just between two consenting adults, as some of his apologists claim, but rather between a so called “tantric master” with the title “earth protector” presented as a “king of truth” being the sole authority, and a disciple, with the sex act promising to give spiritual benefit.

The reader might want to question how the idealized presentation of the past and the words of endorsement of the Sakyong from the highest lamas effected their view of the Sakyong and the whole organization supporting his role? They may want to ask on what the endorsements of high lamas was based, and what it means? Were the students blind followers or were they led down that path through their samaya vows? The Sakyong, by his own admission, hardly seemed like the real life model of the “king of truth”—who according to the Shambhala view is the earthly embodiment or emanation of enlightened awareness. Yet another question has to do with the legality of the funding of the Kalapa Court, with money and its allocation coming through different Shambhala corporate entities, some tax free?

Lama Norlha

In 1978 Lama Norlha Rinpoche (b. 1938 d. 2018) founded the Kagyü Thubten Chöling Monastery (KTC) and its Retreat Centers in Wappingers Falls, New York, in the tradition of the previously mentioned Kalu Rinpoche. In addition to a daily schedule of practice, study and work, weekend seminars and special courses were led by resident and visiting lamas. The monastery is also home to a traditional three-year retreat program currently (2019) in its ninth cycle. This program has been a major focus of the monastery since it was initiated in 1982. Lama Norlha also did much charitable work in terms of bringing health care and education for both children and nuns in Tibet.

Over a period of more than 30 years, the monastery hosted two visits from the Dalai Lama, and received blessings from both the sixteenth and seventeenth Karmapas, the heads of the Kagyü lineage, as well as numerous teachings and empowerments from the spiritual heads and other notable lamas from all four lineages of Tibetan Buddhism.81

Lama Norlha Rinpoche, who entered a monastery at five years old, was an accomplished meditation and retreat master.82 He had completed two three-year retreats by the time he was twenty-one. He served as the director of the revered meditation master, Kalu Rinpoche’s Dharma centers in the eastern half of the United States. Lama Norlha, like his teacher Kalu Rinpoche, presented himself as living a celibate life but in reality had at least six secret affairs with female students of his over a period of three decades.

On April 12, 2017, KTC, the monastery and retreat center, hosted a Sangha-wide Disclosure Meeting to inform their community that the founder and principal abbot of their monastery, Lama Norlha Rinpoche, had been secretly involved sexually with a number of female students over the last three decades. The disclosure process was initially set in motion by the coming forward of two former female residents of the monastery, who disclosed their sexual relationships with Lama Norlha to a group of senior officials at KTC in December 2016.83

Approximately 160 people were present at the Disclosure Meeting, including the two female students, who read aloud statements relating their experiences with Lama Norlha. Zen teacher Jan Chozen Bays acted as a representative and read the statements for three other female students who were not present but wrote that they were sexually involved with Lama Norlha. After the statements were read, a sixth woman came forward saying that she too had been involved in a sexual relationship with Lama Norlha. Most of the women reported they felt the relationship to be detrimental to their psychological and personal well being. The Disclosure Meeting included a taped apology from Lama Norlha Rinpoche, who did not attend.84

What was not mentioned or at least made public outside of the meeting was how the relationships began and how they ended—by the women or Lama Norlha, were some relationships concurrent, did the women think or were they led to believe they were the only one, and was there a sense of romance between Lama Norlha and the women? What had the women thought the nature of the relationship had been? How did Lama Norlha present what had been happening with the women?

Lama Norlha had since the meeting been removed from the teaching seat. The KTC website describes his status as “retired.” He passed away one year later, February 19, 2018 at the age of 79. According to the KTC website, in the final weeks of his life, Lama Norlha Rinpoche was fortunate to receive visits from the Gyalwang Karmapa (the seventeenth Karmapa) and Sakya Trichen Dorje Chang. The day before he passed away, Rinpoche was blessed with a visit from the Karmapa who bestowed the empowerment of Buddha Akshobya on Rinpoche. Sakya Trichen had bestowed this empowerent a few weeks earlier.85

Clearly, Lama Norlha reflects the years of secret sexual activity of his teacher Kalu Rinpoche, who is mentioned above in relation to Ösel Tendzin. At the Disclosure Meeting, Lama Norlha’s taped apology mentioned being sorry for any suffering he may have caused. It seems then that he made no effort to pretend that his sexual activity was tantric practice in the quest for enlightenment, at least not for the women who felt it was ‘detrimental to their psychological and personal well being.’ Then what was its purpose? Prolonging life for an older man as having sex with young woman is widely believed to effect in the East or to inspire his visions. Or was it, perhaps, the ordinary need for close human contact?

It also raises the question of how he could have had at least six relationships, but maybe more, with female students over a period of thirty years living in a fairly closed environment without any of his assistant lamas or perhaps close older students knowing what was going on? Were taking samaya vows instrumental in keeping the secret? As Lama Norlha was close to the highest Tibetan Buddhist clergy from the Dalai Lama and the Karmapa down, one wonders who if any of these elite clerics knew of Norlha’s secret life? If they did know, it did not seem like it was particularly troublesome for the elite clergy. As there is so much made of mystical power and spiritual insight connected to high Tibetan Lamas it seems fair to ask did some thing as ordinary as maintaining a secret sex life happening under their noses elude these lamas? And if it did elude them, what does it say about their supposed extraordinary powers and insight? Is it common knowledge among the Tibetan clergy that many lamas have secret sex lives, and that the “secret” is to be well kept to differentiate the clergy from lay people? This leads their devotees to believe that their clergy and lamas live in a sphere of piety which elevates their status above regular people while keeping the hierarchy in place and the donations flowing?

Perhaps a more fundamental question raised by Lama Norlha’s actions has to do with his practice, attainment, and elevated status in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy. Lama Norlha entered the Korche Monastery by the age of five and spent his life taking part in and leading empowerments and retreats, fasts, chanting services, Mahamudra practice, leading his followers in offering over a million butter lights, and daily meditation. He supposedly saw into emptiness and realized his true nature.

Yet for thirty years or so he secretly had a need for intimate female companionship. One wonders how the Tibetan system of taking young boys away from their mothers and families and raising them in the all male monastic world, which we have seen can be quite abusive, affects their emotional well being and need for close human contact and their relationship to women. This need appears to have caused Lama Norlha to have a string of secret relationships in which he had to know that in the end some of these women would not feel good about what was happening. It also caused him to live a lie with at least his very devoted students who certainly were some of the people closest to him. This went against the strong elements in Tibetan Buddhism to which he devoted his entire life, against causing harm to others and to selfishness which supposedly truly realizing emptiness avoids. And yet, that is exactly what he did.

Sogyal Rinpoche

Sogyal Rinpoche (b. 1947), comes from a prominent merchant family in the Kham region of eastern Tibet. He is the founder and was the spiritual leader of the Tibetan Buddhist organization called Rigpa (“Essential Nature of Mind”), which has a worldwide reach with 130 centers in 41 countries. Sogyal is a Tibetan Dzogchen lama in the Nyingma sect. His bestselling book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying was printed in 30 languages and has sold more than three million copies.86

He starred alongside Keanu Reeves in the movie Little Buddha. Sogyal is a highly successful guru—perhaps the best known Tibetan in the West after the Dalai Lama. Sogyal is regarded by his students as a living embodiment of the Buddhist teachings of wisdom and compassion, yet a man who teaches in a highly unorthodox way, known as “Crazy Wisdom”.87 “Crazy wisdom” was coined by Chogyam Trungpa who Sogyal greatly admired and who he wished to imitate in his rock star life style aspect after seeing him in Boulder, Colorado in the mid 1970’s.88 His center Lerab Ling is said to be the largest Tibetan Buddhist temple in the West.

The organization Rigpa was established quite early on in Sogyal’s career in London. News of his sexual predations and misbehavior filtered back to the late Dudjom Rinpoche, then head of the Nyingma sect and one of the world’s eminent meditation masters. Sogyal had dedicated his London Centre, Orgyen Chöling, to Dudjom. However, when the latter heard of Sogyal’s behavior, he suggested Sogyal give up teaching for a while and return to India to “ripen his practice.” Sogyal’s response was to remove his center from Dudjom Rinpoche’s tutelage and change its name to Rigpa (corresponding to the Skt. vidya, knowledge) with himself as head, accountable to no-one except himself.89

Lerab Ling (“Sanctuary of Enlightened Action”) is Rigpa’s international retreat center and home to the newly constructed temple known as The Institute of Wisdom and Compassion. Lerab Ling was founded in 1991 by Sogyal Rinpoche and is located near Montpellier in southern France. From its opening, the Center has been a place of teaching by a who’s who of Tibetan Buddhist teachers. They include the Dalai Lama and some of his teachers, and also students of the famous Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who was the Dalai Lama’s principle teacher in Nyingma and Dzogchen Buddhism, and Dudjom Rinpoche among others. The list of distinguished Tibetan Buddhist teachers is too long to list here.90

The Dutch investigator Rob Hogendoorn refers to Sogyal’s supposed enlightenment as “enlightenment by association.” That is, it was assumed by Sogyal’s western followers that he was on par with the famous lamas who visited and taught and who he entertained at his Center.91

Sogyal supposedly was recognized as a tulku, the reincarnation of Tertön Sogyal , a teacher of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. This is questioned by some knowledgeable Tibetans.92 He claimed to have studied traditional subjects at Dzongsar Monastery with a number of tutors though his main tutor died when he was a child. Most of his education took place in schools in India. He was trained by French-Roman Catholics at St. Augustine’s School in Kalimpong and by English Anglicans at St. Stephen’s College in Delhi. According to authors Mary Finnigan and Rob Hogendoorn, Sogyal’s credentials as a Nyingma master are at best questionable because of limited training and education.93

Whatever else one may say about Sogyal, there is no denying that he was a money machine. At his center Lerab Ling in southern France a week of teaching in 2011 was €500—which entitled participants to pitch a tent and eat vegetarian food. Five hundred people attended the retreat, including reporter Elodie Emery of Marianne magazine—which means that Sogyal attracted more than €250,000 on one occasion. Emery estimates that Lerab Ling pulls in €1m to €1.5m annually in retreat fees alone—in addition to shop sales and donations. Sogyal’s global organisation, Rigpa, has websites that include multiple income streams. One of them, the Tertön Sogyal Foundations, targets will bequests.94 Board members include Pedro Beroy, the managing director of the investment banking division of Credit Suisse.95

Following the Rigpa path is extremely expensive. Air France pilot Guy Durand was a career 747 captain. He became deeply committed to practice under Sogyal, rising in the hierarchy to become a Dharma teacher. Guy points out the underlying expenses: ‘You have to buy ritual objects and constantly update study material. You pay for courses, study days, statues, food offerings for the temple—the list is endless. You have to sponsor people who can’t afford retreats and for those who can, the price is exorbitant. They never stop asking for money—and it’s done with subtle persuasion—pretty speeches scripted specifically to make you put your hand in your pocket.’96 Other former Rigpa insiders confirm that there is relentless pressure to donate money. According to one of them: ‘I even heard Sogyal say to one man “just shut up and give me your money.”‘97

Before Sogyal’s retirement, in the wake of abuse allegations in 2017, he had been teaching for over 30 years in Europe, America, Australia, and Asia. Sogyal Rinpoche has been accused of sexual and physical assault and abuse, as well as misusing charitable funds to live a high lifestyle, with allegations stretching back to the 1970s.

A Long Time Coming

Within the Buddhist community, Sogyal Rinpoche has long been a controversial figure. For years, rumors have circulated on the internet about his behaviour.98 In the early 1990s a lawsuit alleging sexual and physical abuse plus one count of assault and battery was settled out of court by mediation in Los Angeles. One of Sogyal’s close personal assistants who ran a Rigpa Center in Europe before leaving because of Sogyal’s behavior testified that there was a long string of woman coming to Sogyal for help who end up being coerced into sex with him.99

On July 14, 2017 a twelve-page letter was posted by eight long term (14-33 years) students of Sogyal who were in positions of power, some of who had been working directly for Sogyal.100 The letter was also sent to the Dalai Lama, other senior Tibetan Buddhist lamas and approximately 1,000 members of the Rigpa organization:

‘This letter is our request to you to stop your unethical and immoral behavior. Your public face is one of wisdom, kindness, humor, warmth and compassion, but your private behavior, the way you conduct yourself behind the scenes, is deeply disturbing and unsettling. A number of us have raised with you privately, our concerns about your behavior in recent years, but you have not changed.

‘Those of us who write to you today have firsthand experience of your abusive behaviors, as well as the massive efforts not to allow others to know about them. Our concerns are deepened with the organizational culture you have created around you that maintains absolute secrecy of your actions, which is in sharp contrast with your stated directive of openness and transparency within the Sangha. Our wish is to break this veil of secrecy, deception, and deceit. We can no longer remain silent.’

The letter continues:

‘1. Your physical, emotional and psychological abuse of students

We have received directly from you, and witnessed others receiving, many different forms of physical abuse. You have punched and kicked us, pulled hair, torn ears, as well as hit us and others with various objects such as your back-scratcher, wooden hangers, phones, cups, and any other objects that happened to be close at hand. We trusted for many years that this physical and emotional treatment of students what you assert to be your “skillful means” of “wrathful compassion” in the tradition of “crazy wisdom”was done with our best interest at heart in order to free us from our “habitual patterns”. We no longer believe this to be so…Why did you inflict violence upon us and our fellow Dharma brothers and sisters? Why did you punch, slap, kick, and pull our hair? Your food was not hot enough; you were awakened from your nap a half hour late; the phone list was missing a name or the font was the wrong size…or you were moody because you were upset with one of your girlfriends (…)

‘Your emotional and psychological abuse has been perhaps more damaging than the physical scars you have left on us…your shaming and threatening have led some of your closest students and attendants to emotional breakdowns.’

‘2. Your sexual abuse of students

You use your role as a teacher to gain access to young women, and to coerce, intimidate and manipulate them into giving you sexual favors. The ongoing controversies of your sexual abuse that we can read and watch on the Internet are only a small window into your decades of this behavior.’101

Let’s look at some recent accounts.

‘In June 1993, less than a year after the publication of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, a young and beautiful woman in a state of acute distress over the death of her father went to a Rigpa retreat in Connecticut, USA. After one of Sogyal’s lectures she sent him a written question: “How can I help my father now that he’s dead?” Sogyal’s response was to invite her to his room.’ The woman, Dierdre Smith, says she was ‘completely vulnerable. “I might as well have had a notice round my neck saying Abuse Me!” She went on to describe how Sogyal seduced her, wearing her down over a period of hours in spite of her saying that she did not want to cheat on her husband—but Sogyal persisted, insisting that having sex with him would benefit her father’s karma. She eventually became part of Sogyal’s harem.

‘For several months Dierdre put her everyday life on hold and travelled with Sogyal as his servant, sex partner and arm candy. She recounts how the smile on Sogyal’s face and the unctuous charm of his of his public presentation vanished the moment they were hidden from view: “There must have been about 10 women in his inner circle,” she says, and it was our job to attend to his every need. We bathed him, dressed him, cooked for him, carried his suitcases, ironed his clothes and were available for sex. He was a tyrant. Nothing we did was ever good enough.’102

What Dierdre may have meant by “to attend to his every need” is described by Mimi, the daughter of the Air France pilot Guy Durand mentioned earlier in this paper who became part of Sogyal’s harem for a time. Besides mentioning Sogyal not using condoms and the sexually transmitted infections the women contracted, she described the level of control and humiliation he exercised over the women.

‘One of the most humiliating things happened to Anna. Sogyal always has diarrhea—his diabetes and his diarrhea make him extremely irritable. We had to wipe his arse each time he took a crap. He also has hemorrhoids. Someone wiped his arse, then he asked her to stick a finger in and it hurt—so he went into a total fit and called in all the girls. He asked each of us to wipe him to see who was the best. That was the only time I heard him say something nice about Anna—he announced that it was one thing she could do well.’103

The eight older students in their public letter in the Sexual Abuse section wrote:

‘You have had for decades, and continue to have, sexual relationships with a number of your student attendants, some who are married. You have told us to lie on your behalf, to hide your sexual relationships from your other girlfriends. Publicly you claim that your relationships are ordinary, consensual, and proper because you are not a monk. You deny any wrongdoing and have even claimed on occasion that you were seduced. You and others in your organization claim this is how a Buddhist master of “crazy wisdom” behaves, just like the tantric adepts of the past. We do not believe this to be so and see such claims as attempts to explain away egregious behaviors.

‘3. Your lavish, gluttonous, and sybaritic lifestyle.

‘Your lavish lifestyle is kept hidden from your thousands of students. It is one thing for you to accept an offering of the best of everything (that we may have) as an acknowledgment of our gratitude for spiritual teachings. It is quite another to demand it from us. Much of the money that is used to fund your luxurious appetites comes from the donations of your students who believe their offering is being used to further wisdom and compassion in the world….

‘As attendants, drivers, and organizers for you, most of our time and energy is taken up providing a steady supply of sensual pleasures. You demand all kinds of food be prepared for you at all hours of the night and day by your personal chefs and attendants (who Rigpa pays for) who travel the world with you.’ They go on to describe personal masseuses, drivers, … ‘on call 24 hours a day and outings for you and your companions to theaters, expensive restaurants, venues to shop and secretive places where you can smoke your expensive cigars.’104

This section of the open letter closes with,

‘With impatience, you have made demands for this entertainment and decadent sensory indulgences. When these are not made available at the snap of a finger, or exactly as you wished, we were insulted, humiliated, made to feel worthless, stupid and incompetent, and often hit or slapped. Your behavior did not cultivate our mindfulness or awareness, but rather it made us terrified of making a mistake. You tell your students that you spend most of your time engaging in Buddhist study and practice, but those of us who have attended you in private for years know this is not the reality.

‘4. Your actions have tainted our appreciation for the practice of the Dharma.

‘Please understand the harm that you have inflicted on us has also tainted our appreciation for and practice of the Dharma. In our decades of study and practice of Tibetan Buddhism with you, we trained our minds to view you as the ‘all embodied jewel’ and the ‘source of all the teachings and blessings’ of the Buddha Dharma. We trusted you completely. Yet, we struggled for years because your actions did not square with the teachings. Today, for many of us who have left you, the Lerab Ling community, and Rigpa the organization, our ground of confidence in the Buddha Dharma has been compromised (…)

‘In closing we want to acknowledge that most of the public critique of you that is found on the Internet is factual. Some of us, who have held positions of responsibility within Rigpa, struggle with our own part in having covered for you and “explained” away your behavior, while not caring for those with traumatic experiences. Our past motivation to see all the actions of our tantric teacher as pure obscured us from seeing the very real harm that you are inflicting… Our deepest wish is to see Buddhism flourish in the West. We no longer want to indulge in the stupidity of seeing the Guru as perfect at any cost. The path does not require us to sacrifice our wisdom to discern, our ethics and morality, or our integrity, on the altar of Guru Yoga.

‘Our heartfelt wish is that you seek guidance from the Dalai Lama, other reputable lamas of good heart, or anyone who can help to bring you back onto the true path of the Dharma.’105

But not everyone accepts the critical view of Sogyal just expressed above by eight of his old and senior students as well as the many other critical first-person accounts of other students intimately involved with Sogyal over a period of many decades.

Did Sogyal Rinpoche Do ‘Wrong’?

According to his Wikipedia entry, Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche (b. June 18, 1961), also known as Khyentse Norbu, is a Tibetan/Bhutanese lama, is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, and founder and supporter of a number of charities. In this paper we will refer to him as Dzongsar. Until the age of twelve Dzongsar studied at the Palace Monastery of the King of Sikkim. Reflecting the unusual non-sectarian tradition of the Khyentse lineage, he counts as his root-masters teachers from all four main schools of Tibetan Buddhism (Sakya, Gelug, Nyingma, and Kagyu). He has studied with several influential contemporary masters, particularly Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche who he considers as his root guru. After leaving Sikkim he studied at Sakya College in Rajpur, India and later attended SOAS University of London.

From a young age he has been active in the preservation of the Buddhist teaching, establishing centers of learning, supporting practitioners, publishing books and teaching around the world. Dzongsar supervises his traditional seat of Dzongsar Monastery and its retreat centers in eastern Tibet, as well as his new colleges in India and Bhutan. He has also established centers in Australia, North America and the Far East.106

Dzongsar issued a ten thousand word essay, a strongly worded, heartfelt statement via Facebook, titled ‘Guru and Student in the Vajrayana,’ in which he addresses recent public criticism from students over the conduct of the Nyingma teacher Sogyal Rinpoche. In the essay, Dzongsar gives a detailed account of his perspective on the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition, guru-student relationships, and the future of Buddhism in the modern age, directly broaching many deeply held concerns among Buddhist practitioners around the world.107

Guru and Student in the Vajrayana

Dzongsar is very clear to differentiate Buddhist teachers associated with the Theravada and Mahayana traditions of Buddhism from Vajrayana Buddhist teachers connected with Tibetan Buddhism. ‘But there is one thing we must all be clear about. There is a clear difference between Sogyal Rinpoche’s role as a Vajrayana master and his role as a very public Buddhist teacher and head of a non-profit organization. Vajrayana masters are not necessarily public figures. Many aren’t even known to be Buddhist teachers—in the past, some Vajrayana masters earned their livings as prostitutes and fishermen. But unlike the teacher-student relationship in other traditions, in the Vajrayana, the connection between the guru and the student is sometimes more personal and constant than family.’ He then describes some examples of the guru-disciple relationship from early history in India some one thousand four hundred years ago up to the present concluding with an idealized presentation of the previously mentioned Chögyam Trungpa.

As mentioned earlier in this paper, Trungpa was the founder of the Shambhala organization, coined the phrase, “Crazy Wisdom,” quite openly drank excessive amounts of alcohol and openly slept with his female students. Trungpa died mentally deluded, from a combination of alcoholism, cocaine and drug use. He passed his lineage on to Ösel Tendzin and after Tendzin died, Trungpa’s oldest son inherited the lineage, both of who infected the Shambhala organization with their own scandals, whose effects continue to the present (2019).

Dzongsar then asks, ‘Did Sogyal Rinpoche Do ‘Wrong?’

‘Recently, it was alleged by some of Sogyal Rinpoche’s students, who also consider themselves to be practitioners in the Vajrayana tradition, that Sogyal Rinpoche regarded abusive behaviour as the “skillful means” of “wrathful compassion” in the tradition of “crazy wisdom.”

Dzongsar continued, ‘However you describe Sogyal Rinpoche’s style of teaching, the key point here is that if his students had received a Vajrayana initiation, if at the time they received it they were fully aware that it was a Vajrayana initiation, and if Sogyal Rinpoche had made sure that all the necessary prerequisites has been adhered to and fulfilled, then from the Vajrayana point of view, there is nothing wrong with Sogyal Rinpoche’s subsequent actions. (By the way, ‘initiation’ includes the pointing out instruction which is the highest Vajrayana initiation, known as the fourth abhisheka.) Frankly, for a student of Sogyal Rinpoche who has consciously received abhisheka and therefore entered or stepped onto the Vajrayana path, to think of labeling Sogyal Rinpoche’s actions as “abusive,” or to criticize a Vajrayana master even privately, let alone publicly and in print, or to reveal that such methods exist, is a breakage of samaya.108

The essay seems more a defense or upholding the sanctity and the absolute infallibility of the Vajrayana system than even taking the barest look at or consideration of Sogyal’s well documented checkered history going back to the 1970’s. There is much literature of first-person accounts available describing Sogyal having sex with a steady stream of young almost entirely western woman with little pretense of it being for anything but his pleasure. We should keep in mind that there is a fundamental link between actions and interests, between the practices of agents and the interests which they knowingly or unknowingly pursue, that the world they create reflects their desires and fantasies.109

In Dzongsar’s view there is no room in the Vajrayana master system for institutional error or abuse or self interest. In fact, in Dzongsar’s view “Abusive Vajra master” is a contradiction in and of itself: either you are a Vajra master and can’t abuse by definition or you abuse and can’t be a Vajra master by definition. In this view a student, not being a Vajra master, is not capable of judging whether a Vajra master is a true master or not, whether a master is being abusive or giving kindly teaching, albeit in a rough manner.

Self-interest, however, has a radically disruptive function: it destroys ‘the ideology of disinterest, the professional ideology of clerics of every kind.’110 Symbolic interests such as not losing face, not losing your constituency, shutting up your opponent, triumphing over an adverse trend,… are not elements to consider in Dzongsar’s idealized vision of Vajrayana.111 Nor does the world of fantasies and desires these teachers created around themselves. Dzongsar does not mention the possible decline or change either spiritually, cognitively, or psychologically of a Vajrayana master over time. Nor does he consider the effects of excessive alcohol, cocaine, and drug use have over time as we have seen earlier with Trungpa. A basic Buddhist tenet holds that life is change, but Dzongsar’s essay does not allow for any decline in a Vajrayana master’s mental or spiritual being, that is, assuming it was at a high level to begin with rather than bestowed on someone to maintain a lineage or some other mundane reason.

Though Dzongsar points out Sogyal’s lack of traditional training he is quick to point out and criticize the eight writers for not being able to judge Sogyal’s ability and training before signing on to him. He wonders why it took so long for what he referred to as “these well-educated Westerners” to find fault with Sogyal, seemingly oblivious to the complicated nature of a Westerner entering some thing as culturally foreign as Vajrayana practice under the direction of a Vajrayana guru. Taking samaya vows which we saw earlier are inviolable and threaten horrible effects if broken, adds another layer of complication.

Mary Finnigan who much to her later regret, was influential in setting Sogyal up in London back in the 1970’s, mentions two aspects of Buddhist organizations that can have both merit yet can be used as manipulative tools. One is the injunction against gossip which can help keep the mind calm but also can be used to stifle and keep secret critical comment. Secondly is samaya, the bond of loyalty that is one of the key aspects of Vajrayana Buddhism.112

It supports the relationship between teacher and neophyte, but it can be deployed unscrupulously as a threat—break your samaya and attract dire consequences to yourself and your loved ones. We saw earlier in this paper how Kalu Rinpoche had warned his consorts about the dire consequences of breaking their samaya by disclosing his secret sex life. Kalu also warned Ösel Tendzin’s students about breaking their samaya. We also saw how no lama or long term lay student closely connected with Lama Norlha exposed his three-decade hidden sex life. Now we see Dzongsar threatening Sogyal’s disciples with dire consequences. Samaya no doubt was a strong factor in keeping Sogyal’s students from questioning any aspects of the guru’s behavior.

But this is a complicated topic too big to cover fully here. I will mention just a few aspects of the practice without going into detail, that would keep “well educated Westerners from finding fault,” to use Dzongsar’s terminology, with their guru.

• The physical setting: The main altar of Sogyal’s temple has a 23-foot high golden Buddha in a highly ornamented surrounding. This golden Buddha looking down upon the students generates emotional feelings and a sense of being part of a respected ancient wisdom tradition now transported to the West.
• The extreme elaboration of rituals: an emphasis on performing rituals generates an emotional response that deepens a person’s sense of historical continuity and connection with community and the sacred—the individual emerges feeling purified with a sense of awe and significance.113An emphasis on rituals also can strengthen a person’s sense of identity. Emotions however can be used and abused by those in power.
• The language: ornate prose so common in Tibetan Buddhism in the names of teachers, monasteries, and Dharma centers leads to hierarchy and strong power differentials. Perhaps the most common honorific Rinpoche means “Precious One.” Lerab Ling, Sogyal’s main Center in Southern France, means “Sanctuary of Enlightened Action.” Then Tibetan teachers have names like “Earth Lord,” “Radiant Holder of the Teachings,” “Victorious in All Directions”, and so on as well as many empowerments (wang in Tibetan(Wyl., dbang), abhisheka in Sanskrit) that also add spiritual gravitas and more emotional power and attachment the student has to the lama/guru.114
• The idea of the guru’s infallibility: the power of institutions to define legitimate language, to pass judgment, and most powerfully of all, to define reality. At the same time, an unenlightened student according to “Crazy Wisdom” teaching, cannot judge a Vajra master.115
• Training to be dependent on one person: practicing guru yoga under Sogyal, his students were instructed to train their minds to view him as the “all embodied jewel” and the “source of all the teachings and blessings of the Buddha Dharma”—it is not so easy to admit to fault with the guru, to say you have been wrong, or to having wasted much time after many years of this practice.
• Legitimation of abusive teachers by other teachers: Lerab Ling during the summer months hosted teachings and empowerments by a roster of renowned Tibetan Buddhist teachers. The presence of famous and respected lamas teaching at the center and interacting with Sogyal, naturally led people to believe that Sogyal was looked at as being on their level or more, as a peer of these high lamas. The Dalai Lama was the central figure in the two-day inauguration ceremony of Sogyal’s monastery Lerab Ling in 2008.
• Fear of spiritualized sanctioning: all of the above takes place in the context of guru yoga along with samaya vows which generates in the student strong emotional attachment and perhaps most importantly, surrender to the guru.

It is no wonder that the attachments to Sogyal and to teachers or gurus are so strong in much of Tibetan Buddhism and why there is so much hesitancy for critical discussion and openness and why it is so hard to leave once one pledges samaya vows and becomes a disciple of a Tibetan Buddhist guru.

Dzongsar writes, ‘The bottom line here is: if both student and guru are consciously aware of Vajrayana theory and practice, I can’t see anything wrong in what Sogyal Rinpoche then does to his so-called Vajrayana students—especially those who have been with him for many years. Those students stepped onto the Vajrayana path voluntarily; it’s a journey that they chose to make. At least, I assume they did.’116

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Part 3 of 3

One of Dzongsar’s problems here is that he and Sogyal are “Vajra brothers,” having received the same initiations from some of the same lamas. In that case, directly criticizing Sogyal would constitute a breach of samaya with both Sogyal and their mutual preceptor(s). This is one reason why Tibetan lamas have trouble critiquing other lamas: they tend to be Vajra brothers having received initiations (the Kalachakra for instance) from the Dalai Lama.117

This puts the Dalai Lama’s remark that “we Tibetans” like to let lamas “make their own mistakes” in a different light.118 However, in this scenario, there is little concern for the unknowing Westerners the lamas make their mistakes with.

The message we received from Kalu, from Dilgo Khyentse, and now Dzongsar is clear. It is that once accepted by the student, the Vajra Master is to be followed totally on faith with unquestioned devotion, no matter their actions in the world. Any critical thought regarding the master will bring a horrible future in Vajra hells. We should be thankful that Dzongsar states so clearly the Vajrayana view for us!

Everything That Can be Faced Can Be Changed
But Nothing Can Be Changed Until It is Faced119

In September of 2018 the Dalai Lama was on tour in Europe during which he was to spend four days in Holland. The Tibetan spiritual leader had agreed to meet four victims of alleged sexual abuse in the Netherlands. The meeting was facilitated by the Dutch researcher Rob Hogendoorn. This was not the Dalai Lama’s original plan but there was great pressure put on him to hear the abused’s stories as an on-line petition was signed by over 1,000 people. The group had requested the meeting to discuss abuse reportedly carried out by former or current Buddhist teachers in several countries. The three women and one man who attended the scheduled 20-minute meeting were going to deliver twelve written first-person accounts of sexual abuse by Buddhist teachers. The first-person accounts had on its cover page, #MeTooGuru: Abuse survivors’ testimonies, for the Dalai Lama’s eyes only.120

‘We found refuge in Buddhism with an open mind and heart, until we were violated in its name,’ they wrote.121

One of those present, a Dutch woman, Oane Bijlsma, told Efe [Spanish] news agency that it was ‘a very complicated meeting.’122 She said that at the beginning the Dalai Lama ‘didn’t want to hear’ about their cases, but added that after ten minutes of conversation he became ‘more receptive.’ “By the end, Ms Bijlsma said, he was closer to what we were presenting, he stopped trying to convince us that it wasn’t his fault and started to listen to what we were saying.123

The Dalai Lama stated, ‘I already did know these things, nothing new,’ he said in response on Dutch public television NOS late Saturday. ‘Twenty-five years ago… someone mentioned about a problem of sexual allegations’ at a conference for western Buddhist teachers in Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh, he added.124

This short meeting in Holland with the Dalai Lama has a few elements that call for closer examining. The conference with Western Buddhist teachers he refers to took place at a time when leading Tibetan Buddhist lamas, the leaders and spokespeople for some of the most active and respected groups in the West were dealing with scandals involving sexual abuse, alcoholism, drug use, and financial misdoings lasting over a period of at least two decades. Aside from the lamas, at least in some groups, in particular Shambhala, senior lay members were also abusing their positions. At that time too, there were widely known scandals around sex and alcoholism occurring in Zen Buddhist groups in the West. Almost every major Zen group in the West had faced scandal.

I think it calls for some questioning why the Dalai Lama, not only the most public but also the moral authority of Tibetan Buddhism can only find twenty minutes to fit into a four-day visit in Holland to hear about major problems of Tibetan Buddhism in the West. But more so, it seems to be poor judgement that he spent ten of his twenty minutes of allocated time to defending himself as “not being his fault” for the sexual, psychological, and financial abuse of western students by respected Tibetan and other teachers.

What is even more disturbing, his acknowledgement that, ‘Twenty-five years ago… someone mentioned about a problem of sexual allegations at a conference for western Buddhist teachers in Dharamshala.’ Presenting abuse by Buddhist teachers in this fashion trivializes the problem. But this topic of Buddhist teachers in the West drinking excessively and having sexual relations with their students which was breaking many sanghas(group of practitioners) apart at the time was raised at a meeting in Dharamshala, India between the Dalai Lama and twenty-two western Buddhist teachers from March 16-19, 1993.125 It was a major point of concern that was raised. Besides Tibetan Buddhist groups, the Zen sect at the time was suffering the most from the scandals caused by exposing the behavior of a number of prominent Zen masters. It was one of the earlier issues directly brought up at the Dharamashala meeting.

The Dalai Lama said at that meeting in 1993 that the situation must improve. Then suggested that people speak with the offending teachers and try to get them to improve their behavior. If after a time they did not change, and if there was irrefutable evidence, the Dalai Lama suggested outing them using their name so all would know who they were and they would be shamed.

The Dalai Lama suggested a joint statement be issued between himself and the Western Buddhist teachers addressing the issue of teacher sexual abuse. He was concerned about this issue and made many suggestions for the wording of the statement. Stephen Batchelor was selected as scribe. It took weeks for the Dalai Lama’s private office to ratify the document. When the document was finally returned to the Westerners for publication, it was unchanged except for one thing: the sentence in which the Dalai Lama personally endorsed the text had been deleted. Without his endorsement the text lost much of its authority. It looked like twenty-two self appointed Westerners chose to speak for the Buddhist community. Batchelor felt “used” by the Dalai Lama because he had communicated his concern and offered a solution, but by not endorsing the text, he did not have any responsibility for what it said.126

At the 1993 meeting, the trouble explicitly mentioned was about the Zen sect and their teachers, so called Zen masters, so perhaps it was “safe” for the Dalai Lama to suggest outing wayward teachers if they refused to improve their behavior.127

However, back in 1989 John Steinbeck IV and his wife Nancy met the Dalai Lama at the lavish grounds of the Heinz ketchup heirs’ estate in Newport, California and asked him, ‘You know about the situation within Trungpa Rinpoche’s community. Our teacher died of alcoholism after abusing his power with female students. His Regent transmitted AIDS in a similar abuse of power to a young male student. Many of us have experienced extreme heartbreak and a weakening of faith and devotion. Can you address this problem so that other students may avoid these pitfalls?’128

The Dalai Lama’s reply became a blueprint for the way he and the Tibetan government in exile handled trouble with Tibetan lamas for the next twenty five years. The Dalai Lama replied: ‘I would say that if you are going to follow a teacher, you must examine his behavior very carefully…The student has to take the responsibility of examining the behavior of the teacher very carefully, over a long period. You cannot be hasty about these things.’129

While it is true that a student has a responsibility for her or his decision to become a disciple, so does the teacher, the vajra master, supposedly with superior wisdom, have a responsibility not to take students too hastily and certainly, once taking them not to abuse them for their own satisfaction. But perhaps more importantly, what about the highly respected lamas who were leaders of their given sect, who sanctified the teacher, thereby elevating their standing in the religious hierarchy, do they not have a responsibility to the students who at least partially are studying with the abusive teacher because of their blessings—their giving a sort of Federal Drug Administration guarantee of purity and authority? It seems unfitting to blame only the student for a lack of wisdom.

Steinbeck wrote, ‘”No amount of Tibetan lawyer talk (…) is going to cover up the stench of underlying corruption. He [the Dalai Lama] can blame the student all he likes, but isn’t that the same as blaming the victim in any abusive situation?” “How is their cover-up any different from the decades of secrecy in the Catholic Church regarding their priests’ sexual abuse of choirboys?”130

And:

‘Will it be a matter of time before they follow suit with the Catholics in offering apologies?’131

Why, we may ask, would the Dalai Lama feel so defensive? One reason may be, that as the public face of Tibetan Buddhism, the sheer scale and scope of the recent scandals exposing forty years of dishonesty and abuse without a word of disapproval coming from him could be seen as a cover-up from on high, as is seen with the Pope in the Catholic Church scandals. Another simple reason is that after giving the advice to western students and teachers back in 1993 to out offending teachers if they would not improve their behavior, he has never mentioned one teacher himself though he was well aware of much of what was going with Tibetan teachers.

In addition, in 1992 the Dalai Lama received a ten-page letter about Sogyal’s abuses, the very year he wrote the foreword for The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. When the Janice Doe case against Sogyal was settled out of court in Los Angeles in 1994, the Dalai Lama’s secretary said that Tibetan Buddhist leaders had been aware of these allegations for years.132 But even if for cultural and perhaps political reasons he would not mention particular people, to name names, he surely could have avoided their centers, not doing photo ops with them knowing full well that these teachers were using the photo ops as his endorsement.133

The most striking example of this was the Dalai Lama flying into southern France on a private plane for a major two day affair to inaugurate the opening of Sogyal’s temple complex, Lerab Ling in 2008.134 Besides many other dignitaries in attendance, but often close to the Dalai Lama was Carla Bruni Sarkozy, the stylish wife of the president of France. Sogyal later informed his spokespeople to reply to criticisms of his behavior with the statement, ‘the Dalai Lama endorses me.’135

Sogyal well understood that would be the end of the story!

Yet still another question raised is if for twenty-five years the Dalai Lama knew this problem, why was nothing done about it.136

Why were offending lamas allowed to take prominent and visible places at the Dalai Lama’s talks and presentations?137

Why did the Dalai Lama attend Sogyal’s temple inauguration being the center of attraction for two days of meeting dignitaries, giving talks and performing rituals while Sogyal with obvious glee danced around him? Anyone attending the inauguration or watching it on YouTube would naturally think the Dalai Lama was fully endorsing Sogyal. On the other hand, not attending the inauguration of the largest Tibetan Buddhist monastery in the West, would have certainly been understood as a show of disapproval. The words of the Dalai Lama have tremendous power. In August, 2017, at the peak of the Sogyal scandal, after the public letter signed by eight senior students, after Sogyal’s behavior spread across the internet and into print media, the Dalai Lama finally spoke publicly. He said, ‘My friend Sogyal has shamed himself.’138 A few days later, on August 11, 2017 Sogyal announced his retirement and supposedly went into retreat.

This simple remark was viewed as an overwhelming condemnation of Sogyal. This after forty years of silence and tacit endorsements. It would not have taken very much on the Dalai Lama’s part, or other high lamas to reign in abusive lamas but at the least, to warn unsuspecting students. No wonder the Dalai Lama was defensive!

One wonders as the Steinbeck’s insinuated back in 1989 when they were talking with the Dalai Lama at the Heinz ketchup estate in Newport, California, how much confusion and pain could have been avoided if the various lineage heads, including the Dalai Lama were more open about abusing lamas, insisted on consequences for errant behavior, and outed unrepentant lamas as was suggested back in 1993 for wayward Zen masters.

One also wonders, as all the Tibetan Buddhist teachers involved in the above-mentioned scandals were respected and orthodox teachers endorsed by other highly respected senior lamas and the main lineage holders of their respected traditions, what are these endorsements based on?

What does it mean if the highest lamas’ endorsements were wrong or very questionable at best? What does this say about the understanding and wisdom of these many times reincarnated lamas? Their calls for secrecy and honoring titles in the face of scandal seem more about institutional self protection than any thing else? The high lamas appear hesitant to allow for the possibility of even the smallest crack in their self-created wall of infallibility. Yet we all know nothing in human endeavors is really like that.

Like Zen Buddhism that imputed unquestioning authority and enlightenment to its masters/roshis which led to scandal after scandal for the past 50 years or so, Tibetan lamas and Rinpoches are surrounded by an imputed aura of moral perfection and enlightenment, making the case of an abusive lama, at least until recently, almost inconceivable and rarely taken seriously. Even more than is in Zen, the prevalent view is that everything the Vajrayana teacher does or says is compassionate and enlightened activity.139

Any resistance or questioning of the teacher’s authority or pronouncements are considered arrogant, defending or expressing one’s too large ego. Being accused of arrogance or of defending your ego can apply to anyone, that is, anyone except the master. In fact, not seeing the master in this self imputed perfected way is looked at as a sign of being a slow student- not getting it! This also acts as a damper on any student raising a question about the master’s behavior.

It is widely recognized that sexual abuse is to a large extent about power. That seems to be the case with the teachers discussed in this paper. Trungpa often had sex with the wives and girlfriends of students, and at the snap of a finger could have disciples forcibly stripped naked whether they agreed to it or not. A close disciple of Sogyal stated that Sogyal slept with the wives of some of his students, that is, aside from seducing other women, married or single who came to him for spiritual counseling. This is on top of the physical abuse and humiliation he dealt to his dakinis. The Sakyong we saw also seduced many young women, some involved with other men and ghosted them when he was finished with them. The Vajra Regent liked straight men who had no previous homosexual experience, in one case it was a young man less then half his age who he infected with HIV. The teenage Kalu tulku while in the monastery, was raped for roughly two years by a group of older monks, and when he returned from a three-year retreat he recognized the next young boys attacked by them. When he wanted to change tutors, the rejected tutor attempted to kill him, while dismissing him as being easily replaceable.

From these cases it is clear that imputing spiritual attainment to people, be they lamas, or Rinpoches or tulku or whatever title they carry, who almost certainly have not reached the perfected levels imputed to them, leads to much confusion, pain and suffering. This is true at the least for the students, and given some time, public scandal will tarnish the name of Buddhism. The same goes for assuming that large Tibetan Buddhist institutions and monasteries are inherently pure. It appears to be true with Buddhism just as it does with other religions, that keeping secret and covering over abuse only makes matters worse and more widespread.

Things are clearly changing. There is no more room under the rug. Tibetan Buddhism is no better at policing itself than any other institution. The power of the internet keeps powerful institutions from controlling public dialogue. The voice of students who no longer are afraid to speak out publicly has shone light on the secrecy that many Buddhist teachers have been hiding behind. Of course, the “#MeToo” movement is an empowering and driving force, knocking open the doors of secrecy. Now that the dark underbelly of Tibetan Buddhism is being exposed and hopefully faced, it can be changed for the better.

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Notes:

1. Hannah Arendt, in the film Hitler’s Hollywood.
2. See a number of my papers at The Zen Site. Also, see Lachs, Stuart (2017). Modernizing American Zen Through Scandal: Is the Way Really the Way? in Havnevik, Hannaet al. (editors), Buddhist Modernities: Re-inventing Tradition in the Globalizing Modern World (pp. 282-295). New York: Routledge.
3. Modern scholarship has shown that the Zen propagated idea of an unbroken chain of enlightened masters going back to the Buddha is a myth. See, McCrae, John (2003).Seeing Through Zen: Encounter, Transformation, and Genealogy in Chinese Chan Buddhism (pp. 1-21). Berkeley: University of California Press. Many other scholars have written on this, Alan Cole, Griffith Foulk, Bernard Faure, Martin Schlutter, Robert Sharf, Albert Welter, et cetera.
4. In Tibetan Buddhism, the lineage is based on (re)incarnations or emanations of earlier great masters, who are verified by highly regarded Tibetan teachers.
5. Throughout this text, Tibetan words are italicized and transcribed according to Turrel Wylie’s (Wyl.) system published in 1959, but only on their first appearance. Wylie, Turrel (1959). A standard system of Tibetan transcription. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 22 (pp. 261-267).
6. Estimates for the number of tulkus and tulku lineages vary greatly. ‘From the twelfth century onwards, all four of the major sects of Tibetan Buddhism followed the example of the Karmapa sect and recognized the institution of reincarnations, which led to the emergence of numerous incarnations in almost all monasteries. At the peak of this development, at the turn of the twentieth century, there were believed to be well over ten thousand such reincarnations in Tibet.’ Michael, Franz (1982). Rule By Incarnation: Tibetan Buddhism and Its Role in Society and State (p. 43). Boulder: Westview Press. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism states: ‘There were some three thousand lines of incarnation in Tibet.’ Buswell Jr., Robert & Lopez Jr., Donald (2014) Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism (p. 847). Princeton: Princeton University Press. The vast majority are men, though there are a small number of female tulku lineages. Also see, Author unknown (2004). Tulku. Wikipedia.org, March 8, 2004 (last accessed January 9, 2019). High profile examples of tulkus are the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama, and the Karmapa.
7. Ibid.
8. Lama Kunsang, Lama Pemo & Aubèle, Marie (2012). History of the Karmapas: Recognizing a Tulku. Snow Lion Catalog and Newsletter, 26 (1), number 97, Winter 2012 (p. 1, 11, 22, 23).
9. Samdup, Tsenten (1989). Tulku Conference in Sarnath December 5-8, 1988. Snow Lion Catalog and Newsletter, 4 (1), number 7, Spring 1989 (p. 2).
10. If the highest estimate of 10,000 tulkus were really living in Tibet before the Chinese occupation in 1950, at an estimated population of three million, then one in every three hundred Tibetans was a tulku. If the conservative estimate of 3,000 tulkus is more accurate, then one in every thousand Tibetans was a tulku.
11. See, Kapstein, Matthew (2014). Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction(p. 89). Oxford: Oxford University Press: ‘In tantric Buddhism, the most crucial relationship is that between guru, or lama, and disciple. The disciple pledges body, speech, and mind to the teacher who bestows consecration upon him, and ones’s oath to the teacher is inviolable.’ This oath is referred to as samayavow, which we shall see plays an extremely important role in Vajrayana Buddhism and in the scandals discussed in this paper.
12. The line is the opening to the film The Big Short, falsely attributed to Mark Twain.
13. Sogyal Rinpoche (2008). The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying (Revised and updated edition). London: Rider.
14. The first Tibetan Monastery in the West was founded in 1958 by Geshe Wangyal in New Jersey in the USA, who immigrated to serve the Kalmuck Mongolian community. In 1967 he bought land and built a new monastery in Washington, New Jersey. Jeffrey Hopkins and Robert Thurman, well known Tibetan Buddhist scholars, studied with Geshe Wangyal.
15. Perry, Andrew (2011). Bringing Chogyam Trungpa’s “Crazy Wisdom” to the screen—A conversation with filmmaker Johanna Demetrakas. Lion’s Roar, November 23, 2011 (last accessed February 3, 2019).
16. John Steinbeck IV & Nancy Steinbeck (2001).The Other Side of Eden.Amherst: Prometheus Books.
17. Stephen Butterfield (1994) The Double Mirror: A Skeptical Journey into Buddhist Tantra (p. 11). Berkeley: North Atlantic Books. Also see, Matthew Kapstein (2014). Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction (p. 86). Oxford: Oxford University Press: ‘Tantric practice must be grounded in unswerving devotion to a qualified teacher, without this, only its outer form survives.’
18. Kashner, Sam (2004). When I Was Cool: My Life at the Jack Kerouac School(p. 49). New York: Harper Collins: ‘Consulting I Ching Smoking Pot Listening to the Fugs Sing Blake.’
19. Much has been written about this. See, Clark, Tom (1979). The Great Naropa Poetry Wars (designed and printed by Graham Mackintosh), November 1979. Also see, Marin, Peter (1979). Spiritual Obedience: The transcendental game of follow the leader. Harper’s Magazine, February 1979 (last accessed July 8, 2019), for an overview of Trungpa and his followers. For a description of the “Merwin Affair,” see pp. 51-53. For another condensed version of the “Affair,” some reactions by Ginsberg, and the atmosphere around Trungpa, see Woods, Robert (pseudonym of Tom Clark), ‘“Buddha-gate”: Scandal and cover-up at Naropa revealed,’ Berkeley Barb. 28 (13), number 698, March 29 – April 11, 1979 (pp. 17-18, 21).
20. Steinbeck, p. 29
21. Steinbeck, p. 39
22. One could argue that Trungpa practiced what he preached here leaving his son Ösel Mukpo, the future Sakyong Mipham with his mother in a Tibeten refugee camp in India while he went to England and then a little later leaving him again to go to America after Ösel Mukpo was in England.
23. Steinbeck, p. 39
24. Steinbeck, p. 40.
25. Steinbeck, p. 40. Trungpa was not alone in this behavior, the author of this paper is familiar with a number of Zen teachers who also assumed the all-wise role.
26. Steinbeck, p. 40.
27. According to Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, the Sanskrit word vidyadhara (in Tibetan rigdzin, Wyl., rig ‘dzin) indicates someone who constantly abides in the state of pure awareness of rigpa-knowledge that comes from recognizing one’s nature. See also, Vidyadhara, Rigpa Wiki (last accessed July 8, 2019).
28. See, Tibetan Buddhism in the West. Katy Butler’s (1990) article ‘Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America’ appeared in Common Boundary Magazine, May-June 1990 (pp. 14-22). It dealt mostly with teacher abuse and its effects in the Shambhala community but also mentioned similar troubles with Zen groups and teachers.
29. Steinbeck, p. 211. For a first person report of Trungpa’s cocaine use and child rape by one of his seven young wives trained to serve him see, Dharma Wheel (last accessed January 20, 2019). It also has come out recently that there was child sexual abuse at a number of Shambhala centers. See, Buddhist Project Sunshine (last accessed July 8, 2019).
30. Steinbeck, p. 211.
31. Steinbeck, p. 211.
32. Steinbeck, p. 211.
33. Steinbeck, p. 212-213.
34. Steinbeck, p. 32.
35. Steinbeck, p. 210.
36. Katy Butler (1990), Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America. Common Boundary Magazine, May-June 1990 (pp. 14-22).
37. Remski, Matthew (2018). Pema Chödrön on Trungpa in 2011: “I Can’t Answer the Relative Questions”. Matthewremski.com July 20, 2018 (last accessed October 26, 2018.
38. Steinbeck, p. 211.
39. Steinbeck, p. 32.
40. See, Way Back Machine (last accessed July 6, 2019). Thompson, Jesse (2000). The Dharma Brats: Growing up Buddhist in America. Nexus, May-June 2000.
41. The Vajra Regent Ösel Tendzin Library and Archive (last accessed October 28, 2018).
42. See, Rigpa Wiki (last accessed July 8, 2019): Abhisheka—wang (Wyl., dbang) in Tibetan— ‘refers to the Vajrayana ritual which awakens the special capacity for primordial wisdom (Tib. yeshe) to arise in the mind of the disciple. It is called ’empowerment’ because when we receive it, we are empowered to follow a particular spiritual practice, and so come to master its realization.’
43. Trungpa seemed drawn to upper crust British ways. He had his students who served as maids and servants address him as “Your Highness” while they dressed in British style maids’ outfits. See, Kapstein, Matthew (2014). Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction (p. 89). Oxford: Oxford University Press: ‘In Tibetan societies, the deference of social inferior to superior, junior to senior, mundane to sacred, spiritually immature to spiritually advanced, and so forth is very strongly marked.’ In spite of his “Crazy Wisdom,” Trungpa was bringing Tibetan social mores of deference to superiors to the United States of America.
44. Butler, Katy (1990). Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America. Common Boundary Magazine, May-June 1990 (pp. 14-22).
45. Steinbeck, p. 246.
46. Steinbeck, p. 246.
47. Butler, Katy (1990). Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America. Common Boundary Magazine, May-June 1990 (pp. 14-22).
48. Zaslowsky, Dylan (1989). Buddhists in U.S. Agonize on AIDS Issue. New York Times, February 21, 1989 (p. A14).
49. Zaslowsky, Dylan (1989). Buddhists in U.S. Agonize on AIDS Issue. New York Times, February 21, 1989 (p. A14).
50. Breaking of samaya vows can lead to all sorts of trouble, madness, and even death—some believe not only for yourself but also for family members. Samaya can support the teacher-student relationship but it can also be used unscrupulously as a threat to keep people quiet and in line.
51. For an abridged version of Kalu Rinpoche’s talk see, Facebook Dzogchen Meditation Center, December 20, 2017 (last accessed July 6, 2019). The full talk given in Los Angeles on December 22, 1988 was posted on the Chronicles of Chogyam Trungpa but was recently (March, 2019) removed. Kalu added, ‘Regarding Ösel Tendzin and his attainments, students are often unable to see the full enlightenment or the miraculous powers of their teachers.’
52. This remark is part of the full talk that has been removed from the Chronicles of Chogyam Trungpa website.
53. See, Mendelsohn, Deborah (1989). Correspondence. The Sun, July 1989, published on line at The Sun Magazine (last accessed April 12, 2019).
54. Campbell, June (1996). Traveler in Space: In Search of Female Identity in Tibetan Buddhism (p. 98). London: Athlone. This source will be quoted as Traveller in Space.
55. Traveller in Space, p. 102
56. Traveller in Space, p. 104
57. Traveller in Space, p. 98
58. Hooper, Joseph (2012). Leaving Om: Buddhism’s Lost Lamas. Details Magazine, August 1, 2012, archived by the Way Back Machine (last accessed April 12, 2019). Senge was abused, he says, as a 5-year-old by his own tutor, a man in his late twenties, at a monastery in India.
59. Ibid. The young Kalu also made a ten minute video discussing his life as a tulku, titled ‘The Confessions of Kalu Rinpoche’ (last accessed 26 December 2018). In the video he remarks, ‘Its all about money, power, controlling…’ the video has received over 200,000 hits.
60. Butler, Katy (1990). Encountering the Shadow in Buddhist America. Common Boundary Magazine, May-June 1990 (pp. 14-22).
61. Steinbeck, p. 253.
62. Steinbeck, p. 254. Also see, Finnigan, Mary (2011). The Buddhist organizations that are thriving during the debt crisis. The Guardian, February 18, 2011 (last accessed November 21, 2018). For example, the seventeenth Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje visited the North America for the first time in 2008. About 2,000 people gathered at a monastery in Woodstock, New York to catch a glimpse of him. They paid $200 each—a total of $400,000. In October of 2011, 1,500 people flew to Tenerife for a three day teaching of Namkhai Norbu, a master in the Dzogchen tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The cost was 150 Euros excluding, flights, accommodation and subsistence—225,000 Euro total for the three days.
63. This is a common trope in Tibetan Buddhism, where “retreat” can mean anything from intense solitary practice to hide from view.
64. ‘Letter to the Sangha from His Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche’, October 17, 1989, available on line at The Chronicles of ChogyamTrungpa Rinpoche(last accessed July 6, 2019).
65. Statement to the Sangha from His Eminence Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche. August 26, 1990, available on line at The Chronicles of ChogyamTrungpa Rinpoche (last accessed July 6, 2019).
66. Penor Rinpoche recognized the action film star Steven Seagal as a tulku of a 17th-century Buddhist master named Chungdrag Dorje. See, Sweet, Matthew (1999). Steven Seagal: Top Action Hero and Tibetan Lama’.Independent magazine, November 14, 1999 (last acccessed July 8, 2019).
67. Author unknown (no date). Sakyong Wangmo: Invoking the Mother Lineage.Shambala.com (last accessed April 11, 2019)
68. Lama Tsultrim Allione is an American woman born in Maine in 1947. She is a well-known author and teacher of the Karma Kagyü lineage. In January 1970, at the age of 22, she became the first American ordained by the 16th Karmapa. See, Author unknown (date unknown). Lama Tsultrim Allione’s Biography. Tara Mandala (last accessed July 8, 2019).
69. Andrea Winn is founder of Buddhist Project Sunshine which broke open discussions of sexual abuse in the Shambhala organization. She wrote, ‘I was first sexually abused when I was around seven, and again by multiple men during my teen years.’ Whitaker, Justin (2018). Healing a Heart and a Community: Andrea Winn and Project Sunshine. Buddhistdoor.net, March 28, 2018 (last accessed 8 July 2019). She later added that that the shocking truth is almost all the children in her group were abused by older men in the group. See, Winn, Andrea (2018). Project Sunshine: Final Report. Andreamwinn.com, February 15, 2018 (p. 7) (last accessed July 8, 2019).
70. Winn, Andrea (2018). Project Sunshine: Final Report. Andreamwinn.com, February 15, 2018 (p. 7) (last accessed July 8, 2019).
71. Winn, Andrea (2018). Critical information that the Shambhala community needs to know. Andreamwinn.com, March 24, 2018 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
72. Winn, Andrea (2018). Buddhist Project Sunshine Phase 2: Final Report. Andreamwinn.com, June 28, 2018 (p. 18) (last accessed 8 July 2019).
73. Ibid. p. 17.
74. Ibid., p. 17.
75. Ibid., p. 13.
76. The full text of this letter can be found at Author unknown (2018). Shambhala leader makes public apology. Lion’s Roar, June 25, 2018 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
77. Newman, Andy (2018). The “King” of Shambhala Buddhism is Undone By Abuse Report. New York Times, July 11, 2018 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
78. Whitaker, Justin (2018). Further abuse accusations against Sakyong Mipham, head of Shambhala Buddhism. Patheos: American Buddhist Perspectives, February 17, 2019 (last accessed July 8, 2019). The article gives a good condensed version of the 35-page letter and places it in the context of scandals in Tibetan Buddhism. It also has a link to the letter of the Kusung (last accessed July 8, 2019).
79. Morman, Craig et al. (2018) An Open Letter to the Shambhala Community from Long-Serving Kusung, p. 27.
80. Ibid. p. 27.
81. Information taken from the Kagyü Thubten Chöling website (last accessed October 10, 2018.
82. Atwood, Haleigh (2018). Lama Norlha Rinpoche, founding abbot of Kagyu Thubten Chöling dies at age 79. Lion’s Roar, February 22, 2018 (last accessed 8 July 2019).
83. Deveaux, Tynette (2017) Kagyu Thubten Choling addresses sangha about Lama Norlha Rinpoche’s sexual misconduct with students. Lion’s Roar, July 15, 2017 (last accessed 10 October 2018).
84. Ibid.
85. See, Kagyü Thubten Chöling website (last accessed April 17, 2019.
86. See, Brown, Mick, Sexual Assaults and violent rages…Inside the world of Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche. The Telegraph, 21 September, 2017 (last accessed October 15, 2018).
87. Ibid.
88. Finnigan, Mary & Hogendoorn, Rob (2019). Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche (p. 66). Portland: Jorvik Press.
89. The term Rigpa can be talked about in many ways—knowledge is a simple translation. See, Author unknown (2004). Rigpa. Rigpa Wiki, February 16, 2007 (last accessed July 8, 2019). See also, Whitaker, Justin (2017). Further Tibetan Buddhist thoughts on Sogyal/Rigpa. Patheos: American Buddhist Perspectives, September 7, 2017 (last accessed October 27, 2018). This article is unique in that Tibetan leaders of a branch of the Nyingma sect are openly and directly critical of Sogyal.
90. See, Author unknown (2006) Lerab Ling. Rigpa Wiki, December 20, 2006 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
91. Hogendoorn, Rob (2018). The Making of a Lama: Interrogating Sogyal Rinpoché’s Pose as a (Re)incarnate Master, a paper presented to the panel From Rape Texts to Bro Buddhism: Critical Canonical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Sexual Abuse Scandals in Western Buddhism, during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Denver, November 17-20, 2018.
92. Whitaker, Justin (2017). Further Tibetan Buddhist thoughts on Sogyal/Rigpa. Patheos: American Buddhist Perspectives. September 7, 2017 (last accessed February 17, 2019): ‘However, Sogyal Lakar is not universally accepted as an incarnation of gTértön Sogyal. Chhi’mèd Rig’dzin Rinpoche and Künzang Dorje Rinpoche both held it to be impossible. They quoted many other Lamas including Düd’jom Rinpoche, Chatral Rinpoche, and the 16th Gyalwa Karmapa as holding this view.’
93. Finnigan, Mary & Hogendoorn, Rob (2019). Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche (pp. 23-30). Portland: Jorvik Press.
94. Emery, Elodie (2011). “Pas si zen, ces bouddhistes…”. Marianne, 15-21 October 2011, 756 (pp. 72-77). There are five Tertön Sogyal Foundations, one in France, Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. See, Terton-sogyal.org (last accessed January 12, 2019). The Rigpa Fellowship in England is under investigation by the British Charity Commission (last accessed July 8, 2019).
95. Finnigan, Mary (2011). The Buddhist organisations that are thriving during the debt crisis. The Guardian, November 18, 2011 (last accessed October 18, 2018).
96. Finnigan, Mary & Hogendoorn, Rob (2019). Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche(pp. 91-92). Portland: Jorvik Press.
97. Ibid. p. 92.
98. See, Brown, Mick (2017). Sexual Assaults and violent rages…Inside the world of Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche. The Telegraph, 21 September, 2017 (last accessed October 15, 2018).
99. Ibid.
100. Standlee, Mark et al. (2017). Public letter from eight senior students of Sogyal, July 14, 2017 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
101. Standlee, Mark et al. (2017). Public letter from eight senior students of Sogyal, July 14, 2017 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
102. Finnigan, Mary & Hogendoorn, Rob (2019). Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche (pp. 81-82). Portland: Jorvik Press.
103. Ibid. p. 96.
104. Standlee, Mark et al. (2017). Public letter from eight senior students of Sogyal, July 14, 2017 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
105. Ibid.
106. Author unknown (2005). Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche. Wikipedia.com, August 30, 2005 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
107. Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse’s essay on Facebook was reproduced in its entirety by Lewis, Craig (2017). Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche Issues Public Statement on Recent Criticism of Sogyal Rinpoche. Buddhist Door Global, August 15, 2017 (last accessed October 21, 2018).
108. Ibid.
109. Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Language and Symbolic Power (p. 16). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
110. Ibid.
111. Ibid.
112. Finnigan, Mary & Hogendoorn, Rob (2019). Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche (pp. 81-82). Portland: Jorvik Press.
113. See, Kapstein, Matthew (2014). Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction(p. 89). Oxford: Oxford University Press. See also, Kakar, Sudhir (2010). The Uses of Ritual. in Brosius, Christiane & Huesken, Ute (editors) Ritual Matters: Dynamic Dimensions in Practice (p. 203). London: Routledge.
114. Empowerment refers to a ceremony in which a lama, on the basis of his own spiritual attainments and understanding of the proper rituals that have been handed down in an unbroken lineage for hundreds and even thousands of years, places a recipient in connection with a particular Tantric deity or deities. The result of this teaching “empowers” a recipient to visualize that deity and recite the deity’s mantra. See, Author unknown (date unknown). What are empowerments? Ewam Choden Tibetan Buddhist Center (last accessed January 10, 2019.
115. Bourdieu, Pierre (1991). Rites of Institutions. in Language and Symbolic Power (pp. 117-126).
116. Lewis, Craig (2017). Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche Issues Public Statement on Recent Criticism of Sogyal Rinpoche. Buddhist Door Global, August 15, 2017 (last accessed October 21, 2018).
117. Kapstein, Matthew (2014). Tibetan Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction (p. 89). Oxford: Oxford University Press: ‘By entering into a teacher’s circle, you become similarly bound by oath to your fellow disciples, who thus become “vajra brothers and sisters.”’
118. Steinbeck, p. 253
119. Taken from the film, James Baldwin: I Am Not Your Negro.
120. Hogendoorn, Rob (2018). The Making of a Lama: Interrogating Sogyal Rinpoché’s Pose as a (Re)incarnate Master, a paper presented to the panel From Rape Texts to Bro Buddhism: Critical Canonical and Contemporary Perspectives on the Sexual Abuse Scandals in Western Buddhism, during the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Denver, November 17-20, 2018. See also, Hogendoorn, Rob (2018). The Dalai Lama’s Clarion Call. Tibetan Review, December 6, 2018 (last accessed December 6, 2018.
121. Author unknown (2018). Dalai Lama meets alleged abuse victims. BBC News, September 14, 2018 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
122. The major multimedia news agency in the Spanish language and the world’s fourth largest wire service after the Associated Press, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse.
123. Author unknown (2018). Dalai Lama meets alleged abuse victims. BBC News, September 14, 2018 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
124. Mees, Anna & De Vries, Bas (2018). Dalai lama over misbruik: ik weet het al sinds de jaren 90. NOS.nl, September 15, 2018 (last accessed April 12, 2019). The Dalai Lama’s remarks can be watched through this link.
125. Much of the conference can be watched on line through this link: ‘The Western Buddhist Teachers Conference with H.H. the Dalai Lama’, The Meredian Trust (last accessed July 8, 2019).
126. See, Batchelor, Stephen (2011). Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist (pp. 195-211). New York: Spiegel & Grau.
127. Tenzin Palmo and Stephen and Martine Batchelor at the meeting referred to Tibetans but only Chögyam Trungpa’s name was given. He, of course, had already passed away.
128. Steinbeck, p. 212. John Steinbeck IV and his wife Nancy were very active in the Shambhala organization. Over time and witnessing Trungpa’s drinking, drugging, and sex addiction along with Ösel Tendzin’s out of control sexual behavior became a leading critic of Shambhala. John and Nancy describe Shambhala in detail in their book, The Other Side of Eden. The Steinbecks seemed to be totally disappointed with the Dalai Lama and other lineage heads who maintained their silence about renegade lamas. Steinbeck, p. 254.
129. Steinbeck, p. 253.
130. Ibid., p. 254. See also, Sheriff’s office investigating misconduct allegations at Colorado Buddhist retreat. Fort Collins Coloradoan, December 18, 2018 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
131. Steinbeck, p. 254.
132. Hogendoorn, Rob (2018). The Dalai Lama’s Clarion Call. Tibetan Review, December 6, 2018 (last accessed December 6, 2018).
133. Tibetan social conventions include a taboo against criticizing lamas. The Dalai Lama is constrained by this and so too are the majority of other lamas teaching in the west.
134. Author unknown (2008). The Visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama to Lerab Ling 2008. Rigpa Video (YouTube), January 2, 2009 (last accessed July 8, 2019).
135. Sogyal Rinpoche & Rigpa: An interview with the former director of Rigpa France, Olivier Raurich, Diffi-Cult, March 9, 2016 (last accessed July 8, 2019). Also see, Finnigan, Mary & Hogendoorn, Rob (2019). Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche (p. 104). Portland: Jorvik Press.
136. See, Brown, Mick (1995). The Precious One. The Daily Telegraph Magazine, February 2, 1995 (pp. 20-28): ‘In a unique manifestation of his disapproval, The Dalai Lama withdrew from participation in a Living and Dying Conference scheduled by Rigpa to take place in California. The conference was canceled.’
137. Finnigan, Mary & Hogendoorn, Rob (2019). Sex and Violence in Tibetan Buddhism: The Rise and Fall of Sogyal Rinpoche (p. 104). Portland: Jorvik Press: ‘When I asked why Sogyal was usually a guest speaker at events with the Dalai Lama, like the Kalachakra Initiation, Chhimed Rigdzin, an official in the Dalai Lama’s office, responded, “We don’t invite him.” I pointed out that they don’t refuse him either.’
138. See, Brown, Mick (2017). Sexual Assaults and violent rages…Inside the world of Buddhist teacher Sogyal Rinpoche. The Telegraph, 21 September, 2017 (last accessed October 15, 2018).
139. Dapsance, Marion (2014). When Fraud is Part of a Spiritual Path: A Tibetan Lama’s Play on Reality and Illusion. (last accessed July 8, 2019) in Van Eck Duymaer van Twist, Amanda (editor). Minority Religions and Fraud: In Good Faith (pp. 171-186). Farnham: Ashgate. This paper gives an in depth and disturbing presentation of Sogyal’s organization and practice instructions to his followers.

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Speculative development and the origins and history of East India Company settlement in Cavendish Square and Harley Street
by Harriet Richardson & Peter Guillery
The London Journal
Volume 41, 2016 - Issue 2

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-- The East India Company: The original corporate raiders. For a century, the East India Company conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant, by William Dalrymple

-- A Nabob’s return: the Pybus conversation piece by Nathaniel Dance, by Emma Lauze

As London grew north and west in the eighteenth century, wealth settled on the new-built streets of the Cavendish-Harley (later Portland, now Howard de Walden) estate. This paper describes how, why and where individuals enriched through the East India Company came to ground in this part of London. The cases of Francis Shepheard, scion of an important company family, Governor Robert Adams, in flight from Tellicherry, his nephew Robert Orme, the historian of India, General Richard Smith, a notorious ‘Nabob’, and a few others elucidate the market-based origins and accidental then deliberate consolidation of this settlement and stand for many more East India Company names about whom at this point less is known.

The transfer to London of wealth derived from commerce in India based in the activities of the East India Company was great and ramifying. But its points of landing and consequences are difficult to pin down. Many individual stories have been told and the impact of investment on British country houses in particular has been widely investigated, with a major project focusing on where and how wealth from India was spent in Britain recently completed.1 It is well known that as London’s West End grew northwards into the parish of St Marylebone in the eighteenth century the area was in significant measure populated by those with repatriated wealth from the Caribbean and India, and West Indian connections have now been mapped and quantified.2 That Harley Street and its immediate area in the West End had come by the early nineteenth century to be particularly associated with ‘nabobs’ returned well-heeled from India is also readily discovered. But there has been little close study of this London settlement and its origins have been obscure. This paper delves into the subject, aiming to open it up through individual case studies. It argues for an essentially economic explanation of origins, downplaying socio-cultural emphasis at the outset. It is an illustrative account and makes no claim to be comprehensive or definitively explicative.3

What follows is largely about speculative housing, buildings erected for habitation by the wealthy in market conditions that made it hard to control exactly who those wealthy people would be. The West End house of the eighteenth century is a much celebrated almost quintessential type. It has been a prominent marker, a kind of cultural trope, through successive twentieth-century interpretations. Despite the clear explanations of eighteenth-century West End development set out in John Summerson’s enduringly valuable Georgian London (1945), followed by much other architectural history, recent scholarship of a socio-cultural and identity focussed nature has sometimes overlooked the fact that virtually all the West End’s houses went up as speculations and that supply generally exceeded demand. This has tended to favour teleological understandings of both architecture and settlement that give too much agency to owners and occupiers, too little to the market or the ‘invisible hand’, what in an evolutionary context would be called ‘natural selection’. The result has been an approach to material culture that elides a crucial aspect of how the period’s materiality was experienced.4

The building of high-status speculative houses is a risky business, vulnerable to the turbulence of credit markets and building cycles; fastidiousness as to the source of investment is generally unwise. For this reason the buildings discussed here do not in themselves reflect anything much by way of an East India Company identity. That is by and large not what is being interrogated. The divinity that shapes the ends being traced here is a complex mix of aspiration and design on the parts of both builders and occupants, chance and, above all, market forces. The result was the filling from India of an opening at the top end of London’s residential market. Or, to put it another way, new money from India was what the market supplied to help fill Marylebone’s otherwise surplus smart houses. As is often the case, once the link was established it was reinforced through family relationships, professional and other networks and less tangible collective interdependence. Those returning from South Asia having made their fortune there became a particularly close-knit group, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century when they became the objects of public prejudice, branded as ‘nabobs’ and viewed with distrust. Studies of other wealthy social groups, such as Americans and West Indian planters, groups which also favoured Marylebone for their London residences, have shown similar settlement patterns at this time.5 One thing leads to another, people cohere and colonial economies pervaded the West End.

Taking the period of the development of the CavendishHarley/Portland Estate from its beginnings in the early eighteenth century through ups and downs and its heyday from the 1750s on to the mid-nineteenth century when its earlier prestige was beginning to fade, there is a direct correlation with the fortunes of the East India Company itself. In the early eighteenth century the Company enjoyed great prominence, strength and profitability. But it was in the second half of the century that opportunities for individual fortunes reached their peak, leading to the emergence of the returning nabob. Whilst some such as Robert Clive were of old landed families sent out to restore depleted coffers, many more were of humbler stock and perceived to be upstarts. On their return to Britain they possessed sufficient new wealth to aspire to the life of a gentleman: a country estate, a town house and a seat in parliament. For most returning from Indian service, their desire was for ‘ease and relaxation’ rather than continued investment in trade or manufacture.6

The rapid pace of development on the Portland estate in the second half of the eighteenth century was given added impetus by the laying out of the New Road in 1756-7. This major thoroughfare transformed the accessibility of Marylebone from the City, which mattered to those with East India Company connections. But it also set a highly visual northern boundary to the urban core. Situated at the edge of this rapidly growing city, Marylebone was perceived as neither of the town nor out of it. It offered respite from the hubbub of the inner areas, open space on its doorstep and clear air.7 Marylebone therefore almost immediately reinforced its attractions as a desirable and fashionable location, but fashion moved fast and the southern and eastern parts of the parish where building development began earlier, were soon eclipsed as the most desirable neighbourhoods and the newer houses in the upper stretches of Wimpole and Harley Streets and Portland Place gained the ascendance.

As the century wore on the East India Company’s dominance began to wane, with growing pressure to end its monopoly on trade. Beginning with the Regulatory Act of 1773, government intervention in Company business started to grow. Though the Company’s commercial interests declined, its importance to the government of India remained key. Marylebone residents of this later phase were more generally Company directors or stock holders, and included the director David Scott, who was a central figure in reform of the Company.8

Cavendish Square

Cavendish Square was the centrepiece of London’s first significant expansion north of Oxford Street, speculative development on the Cavendish-Harley estate that began in 1717. Robert Harley’s son Edward, later the 2nd Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, inherited the land in 1713 through marriage to Lady Henrietta Cavendish Holles. At first, Tory grandees who were political associates of the elder Harley, were lined up to build, to give the project prestige and attract others. The 1st Viscount Harcourt, Baron Bingley and the Duke of Chandos took sites on three sides of the square and began building great houses. Progress was slow, set back by the bursting of the South Sea Bubble in 1720, and less palatial than first intended. The square’s frontages were gradually but not more than partially filled. The investors who followed on through the 1720s were less august and less Tory. More northerly plots remained open, something of a notorious embarrassment, and were only gradually filled up to 1770 (see below).

Several of the houses of the 1720s still stand. Nos 3–5 on the east side, begun in 1720, but passed from one bankrupt builder to others and only complete in 1727, were first occupied by two Whig MPs (John Neale and Walter Plumer) and James Naish, a financier and a director of both the London Assurance Corporation and the Royal African Company. Nos 4 and 5 had been finished by Thomas Milner, a former salt commissioner and a member of the York Buildings Company’s committee, so very probably an associate of Chandos’s, and George Greaves, a Clerkenwell carpenter. The finest surviving house of the 1720s at what is now No. 20 on the square’s west side was built to fill most of a gap south of Bingley’s mansion on the west side. Here, inside a stone carapace of the 1930s in what is now the headquarters of the Royal College of Nursing, is one of London’s best surviving early eighteenth-century painted staircases (Figure 1). The house was built and decorated in 1726–30. Milner held the site and was chivvied to get on with its development. Greaves built the house with a mortgage from Naish. The first occupant was Francis Shepheard (1676–1739), the scion of an East India Company family, a wine trader and a former MP who had moved from the Whigs to the Harleyite Tories.9 His new political allegiance might provide reason enough for his decision to take a house on the Cavendish-Harley estate, but his connections went deeper. Shepheard’s father Samuel had been an MP, Robert Harley’s financier and Deputy Governor of the South Sea Company from 1713. Before that he had made his name as a prominent critic of the East India Company in the 1690s. After the anti-monopoly legislation of 1698 he was one of the founders of the new East India Company, and in 1708 one of the first directors of the united Company.10 When he died in 1719 he left a fortune to his eldest son, Francis.11 Painted staircases like this did not come cheap. The north side of the square was sold entirely to the Duke of Chandos, whose princely wealth had been built up through speculative opportunities offered by his position as paymaster of the armed forces from 1705 to 1713.12 He intended a full-width palace, something without parallel in London. But, in somewhat reduced circumstances after 1720, drew back. After much havering he decided to build two houses, one at either end of the property. These were substantial dwellings, mansions in their own right (Figure 2). Chandos probably intended them for his two sons – he now had a townhouse on St James’s Square.13 Building work began in 1724, but the houses remained unfinished in 1727 when Chandos’s eldest son, John, died aged 24. He decided to keep the western house for himself and to sell the other, eastern one.14 It was not until 1730 that a buyer was secured. Chandos was advised not to let him go as another might not come forward. Difficulty selling such a huge house is not surprising. Chandos and his proximity would have put off many from society’s upper echelons, and Chandos knew that ‘Cavendish Square is not so well liked as to render it easy to meet with tenants for so large a house’. The only money around was distastefully new money. The catch was Governor Robert Adams – in Chandos’s words not ‘a very steady man’.15

But he was a colourful man and, it seems, a unique upstart. Adams had recently arrived in London from India. He had lived there since a child in 1687 and on the north Malabar (Kerala) coast acquired fluency in Malayalam. As a young man he gained charge of the East India Company factory or trading depot at Calicut where he cultivated good relations with the Zamorin, the ruler of the kingdom centred there, forming an alliance against the Dutch and Cochin. In 1715 Adams devised and financed a plan for the Zamorin to reconquer Chettuva from the Dutch. It succeeded and Adams built a warehouse there. But the Dutch fought back, taking three of Adams’s munchuas (flat-bottomed boats), and forcing the Zamorin into an unfavourable treaty in 1717. Adams retreated north up the coast to become governor of the factory at Tellicherry (now Thalassery). This had been established from Surat in 1683 to secure trade in pepper as well as what were said to be the finest cardamoms. When Adams arrived in Tellicherry it had, according to his predecessor, suffered years ‘under clouds of misfortune’.16

There had been running battles with the local Nair population. These continued and there were deaths in 1723. Adams mediated between the Nair and the Dutch, but defending Tellicherry was costing the Company more than the profits it generated. In Calicut Adams had met and been impressed by Dr Alexander Orme, a physician and surgeon, who in 1707 was based further south at Anjengo (Anchuthengu). It was an enduring bond – Adams married Margaret Hill, Orme her sister. Orme became chief of the station at Anjengo, a place chastened by the massacre in 1721 of a predecessor, William Gyfford, and many under his charge. Orme’s second son, Robert, was born there in 1728, and named after his uncle (see below).17

The Malabar stations were generally run at a loss for the private benefit of their chiefs and factors. The profits of the pepper trade were appropriated to personal accounts by men who operated like lords of local manors. The East India Company usually turned a blind eye. Supervision was impractical and ruthless profiteering often brought the company advantage. According to Alexander Hamilton’s contemporary account, until 1717 Adams imported Bengal opium and sent it inland from Calicut on the Company’s empty pepper munchuas as a profitable private trade.18

Adams had loaned large amounts of company funds to the Zamorin and other Malabar ‘princes’ to fight the Dutch. Of this, £6,424 17 1½ could not be recovered in the late 1720s so the Council of Bombay obliged Adams to sign bonds for its recovery in Fort St George (Madras or Chennai). Fearing he would abscond, the Company detained Margaret, but the couple were able to meet at Calicut and from there to flee to England in 1729.19

In London Adams set about clearing his name and his access to money. He made representations to the Company in September 1729 seeking cancellation of the bonds. These gained a favourable hearing from the Committee of Correspondence in June 1730 and a week later the Court of Directors cleared Adams of responsibility and liability as the transactions with the Zamorin and others had been notified to the Council of Bombay. It was felt, anyway, that the money would soon be paid back.20

In fact a bill from Bengal to pay £3,000 to Adams had been cleared by the Company in May.21 This and anticipation of vindication probably underlay Adams’s upmarket house-hunting. Just days before he was cleared Chandos was writing about the arrangement whereby Adams would finish the fitting out and decoration of the still incomplete house on Cavendish Square. The sale had been settled by October 1730, the price was £3,400.

Three ‘black servants’,22 Edward, Antonio and Abigail, who had come with Adams from India, may have been briefly resident in Cavendish Square. A London winter perhaps came as a shock; they were already keen to return home in February 1730 when Adams sought free passage for them through the Company. This was granted, but not until January 1731.23

In 1732 Adams acquired a coat of arms (Figure 3). Long before, near Calicut, he had, he attested, been ‘attacked by a Tyger who Seizd Him on the left Arm, the Marks whereof are still to be seen; But through Providence he had the good Fortune to destroy that Furious Beast, by ripping his Belly with a Lance, that his Guts fell out and immediately died.’24 The coat of arms therefore included ‘on a cross gules five mollets or, a tiger salient proper and for his crest on a wreath of the colours a Dexter Arm couped at the Elbow habited in Crimson Velvet holding in the Hand a Lance Proper Stuck into the Belly of a like Tyger.’25

Further substantial sums were remitted to Adams from India through the Company and he evidently settled to a well-appointed retirement up to his death in 1738. He was, along with George Frideric Handel, among the callers at the Dover Street home of the Earl of Oxford and Lady Harley after the marriage in 1734 of their daughter, Lady Margaret Cavendish Harley, to William Bentinck, the 2nd Duke of Portland, at the Oxford Chapel (now St Peter Vere Street).26 Cavendish Square was certainly a prestigious address, but not unqualifiedly so. In the same year as the aristocratic marriage James Ralph published a stinging critique of the still only partially built-up square, slating it as a failed speculation: ‘there we shall see the folly of attempting great things, before we are sure we can accomplish little ones. Here ’tis, the modern plague of building was first stayed, and I think the rude, unfinish’d figure of this project should deter others from a like infatuation. When we see any thing like grandeur or beauty going forward, we are uneasy till ’tis finish’d, but when we see it interrupted, or intirely laid aside, we are not only angry with the disappointment, but the author too: I am morally assur’d that more people are displeas’d at seeing this square lie in its present neglected condition, than are entertain’d with what was meant for elegance or ornament in it.’27

Adams completed the house’s interior, finding a place, no doubt, for the tiger skin which he had kept, and added the plain single-storey range on the west side of the house (Figure 2).28 His infant nephew, Robert Orme, had been sent from India to be brought up in the house from the age of two until he was sent to Harrow for schooling in 1734 age six. Orme went back to India in 1742 aged 13 (see below).29 Widowed, Margaret Adams had by then vacated the big house and moved round the corner to a marginally humbler dwelling at what is now 6 Cavendish Square. The Adams’s daughter Elizabeth married Bennet Noel and the larger house was thereafter long in the hands of the Noel family, including Earls of Gainsborough and Gerard Noel, an evangelical anti-slavery MP.30 It was demolished in the 1890s, but a stable and coach-house that Chandos built to the rear survives, much altered and extended, as the Medical Society of London’s headquarters on Chandos Street.31

Harley Street

With the economic downturn following the South-Sea-Bubble’s bursting, the planned northward expansion of the Cavendish-Harley estate came almost to a standstill. Only the southernmost stretch of Harley Street had been set out, and the first buildings there were a rag-tag of houses, a cold bath and a pub, the Blue Posts, built near the track that led to Marylebone village – partly on the line of present day Queen Anne Street.32 It was not until the 1750s that speculators had the confidence to start building north of Wigmore Street. Thomas Huddle, a brick-maker who had grown wealthy developing on the Berners’ estate further east, was the first to take a sizeable piece of ground here, followed by John Corsar, a bricklayer, and a mason, George Mercer, both also local men.

By 1760 terraces of first-rate houses reached Queen Anne Street. Within ten years the west side of Harley Street was built up as far as New Cavendish Street, and a terrace of seven houses had been built on the east side. Into one of these, originally number 11, moved Robert Orme in 1764 at the age of 35. This remained his home for the next thirty years (Figure 4). His return to within a stone’s throw of the house in which he had passed part of his childhood marks a crucial step towards the entrenchment of East India Company settlement in the neighbourhood.33

Orme’s career with the East India Company was not typical, and unlike so many of his cohort, he did not return with a vast fortune. During his early years in India he had studied widely, but also focused on Indian affairs, writing an essay on ‘A general idea of the government and people of Indostan’ when still in his early twenties. On a visit to England with Robert Clive in 1753 his knowledge of India won him influential friends who secured him a senior post on the Madras council when he returned to India the following year. By September 1758 he had risen further through the ranks to become deputy to the Governor. But it was at this point that his career began to unravel. Orme was an arrogant man, ambitious and impatient. He had been sending his imperious criticisms of his fellow (and senior) council men back to the directors of the Company in London, and once this apparent duplicity was discovered in Madras his career with the Company came to an abrupt halt. Making no effort to explain or clear his name, he fled India in October 1758 making a slow return to London.34

At first he stayed with his aunt Margaret in Cavendish Square before taking lodgings on the other side of Oxford Street just off Hanover Square, and then Norfolk Street, before moving to the newly completed house in Harley Street.35 Orme was not quite the first with connections to India to take up residence in this street. He was preceded by William Martin, a retired Royal Navy Captain on half-pay, who had served in India in 1757-8 as commander of the Cumberland at the Battle of Negapatam under Vice-Admiral George Pocock.36 Martin lived in Harley Street from 1761 until his death in 1766. His time in India was remembered in his will, where he named his friends Robert Palk, Governor of Madras, and Henry Vansittart, late Governor of Bengal, as his executors.37 After his death his household furniture was sold, and amongst the items advertised for sale were many that suggest an Indian provenance: India cabinets, blue mixed damask window curtains, sofas and chairs, and fine chintz patterned beds and chairs.38

Although it is plausible that Robert Orme at least knew something of Martin, there is no evidence that they were personally acquainted or that the presence of the aged sea captain had anything to do with Orme’s decision to move to the same street. More likely reasons were his early associations with Cavendish Square and the proximity of at least two of his close circle of friends at that time: Edmund Burke, who was just around the corner in Queen Anne Street, and Lauchlin MacLeane, who was then in Holles Street.39 Harley Street was a respectable address, with a smattering of aristocratic residents, but it was also affordable. With his relatively modest fortune of a little over £5,500, Orme could not afford a country estate as well as a townhouse, but the rent of £60 a year was not beyond his means. His immediate neighbours were Lord Waltham, a young Irish peer and MP, and Captain Staats Long Morris, an American-born army officer who had married the Dowager Duchess of Gordon. Morris was briefly in India, in command of the British troops in Bombay in January 1763, but returned to England in December the same year. He and the Dowager Duchess took up residence in Harley Street in 1766.40

Orme’s house, together with those adjoining, was demolished following bomb damage in the Second World War.41 It was partially captured in a photograph taken in the 1930s (Figure 5). Externally, at least, these houses were exceedingly plain: brick-faced, of three storeys and attics over a basement and with a shallow area. They were entirely typical of mid-eighteenth century speculative houses in the West End, and were not designed to attract wealthy nabobs any more than the landed gentry or any other citizen who had the wherewithal to take a lease of the property. Behind these sober façades, the interiors were by contrast richly decorated. From a stone flagged entrance hall, stone stairs rose up through the building, most with ornate wrought iron balustrades. The principal rooms on the ground and first floors had decorative plaster ceilings and marble chimneypieces. The chief feature of Orme’s house would have been his library. This he finally sold in 1796, together with the lease of his house, due to increasing blindness. He retired to the rural quiet of Ealing, leaving behind ‘the rumble of Harley Street’.42

One of Orme’s closest friends was drawn to Harley Street. Orme had known General Richard Smith from his early days in Madras and had cared for his son from 1764 while Smith was in India. When the General returned in April 1770 it was to a house a few doors down from his old friend.43 For around seventeen years Smith’s townhouse was at 22 Harley Street (originally No.5). It had been built by George Mercer in the late 1750s and was first occupied in 1760 by Sir John Shaw, 4th Baronet, who also held the formerly royal Eltham Lodge.44 Although it too has been demolished, photographs taken just prior to demolition in the 1960s show a building much the same as Orme’s house. Unusually, No. 22 had retained its brick façade, most had the ground-floor front fashionably stuccoed in the nineteenth century, but modest alterations had been made including the cut-down first-floor windows and added balcony (Figure 6). Inside, a photograph of the entrance hall shows what may well have been the original iron stair balustrade with its mahogany handrail, but the tiled floor is Victorian (Figure 7).45 It was also no doubt richly furnished, probably with many items brought back from India.

Unlike Orme, General Smith had accumulated an enormous fortune. As well as his townhouse, in 1771 he purchased a country estate, Chilton Lodge, in Berkshire, for £36,000 from John Zephania Holwell, another ex-East India Company servant and, briefly, a Harley Street resident.46 Like Orme, Smith was known for his arrogance, but his great wealth allowed him to indulge his fondness for the gaming table, horses and extra-marital affairs. All this, together with his origins in trade (his father was a cheesemonger) frequently made him the butt of satirists. He was widely recognized as the model for Sir Mathew Mite in Samuel Foote’s play The Nabob, first produced in 1772, and, under that name, his biography was given, in no tender light, in the Town and Country Magazine in 1776. At that time he had taken as his mistress the equally notorious courtesan, Mrs Elizabeth Armistead.47

When Smith was appointed High Sheriff of Berkshire he was said to have favoured proposals for a new road that would allow him to ‘arrive at his magnificent seat … without the necessity of passing through the little stinking town of Hungerford’.48 He also served a six-month jail sentence for bribing his way to a parliamentary seat. In 1783 he was vilified in a pamphlet by Joseph Price, ironically entitled A Vindication of General Richard Smith, in response to his role as chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on East India affairs.49

By 1784 Smith’s finances were severely depleted and he was forced to sell up his country estate and flee abroad to escape his creditors.50 The Public Advertiser, always quick to attack Smith’s taste and social status, announced that the purchaser of General Smith’s place in Berkshire (John Macnamara MP) would have a great deal to do before he could make it fit for ‘a gentleman’ to live in: ‘All the gewgaw work, and excessive decoration, must be destroyed, and almost all the best rooms re-formed and modernised’.51 There was perhaps more bile here than accuracy, although even The Times noted that this was where Foote, the playwright, declared that he had been served ‘diamond dumplings’ for his supper.52 Macnamara did not keep the house for long. It was up for auction again in 1788 along with the contents. It is possible that some of these may have been Smith’s, but the descriptions are vague: suites of rich Damask, Muslin and fine Chintz Patterns … a variety of Inlaid and fine Mahogany Articles’. There was also mention of some pictures by Angelica Kauffman.53 Two months later there were plans to demolish the house, and the building materials were advertised for sale. Items listed included marble chimney-pieces ‘of superior elegance and exquisite sculpture’, mahogany folding doors, other doors with ormolu mountings, and a stone portico.54 (The house was not demolished at this date, and almost the same list of fixtures and building materials was readvertised in 1791.55)

During the 1770s and into the 1780s the pace of building on the Portland Estate had been rapid, with new houses now reaching as far north as the New Road (now Marylebone Road) with its easy access to the City. When Orme and Smith had first moved here, their houses were still on the very edge of the expanding metropolis. This suburban aspect was especially appealing to both the old elite and its imitators with newer wealth. In 1765 when one of the houses opposite Orme’s was advertised to let, amongst its attractions was the ‘delightful prospect over the green fields as far as Highgate’.56 This was not to last. In 1771 John White entered into the first of a series of building agreements with the Duke of Portland to continue Harley Street northwards. White was working with a consortium of builders and tradesmen that included his business partner, Thomas Collins, who had established himself as highly skilled in plasterwork and who was part of the circle of William Chambers. John Johnson, the carpenter turned architect, was another of that circle who was involved in designing some of the houses here. The first stretch of the extended Harley Street went up between 1772 and 1776, and the second, north of Weymouth Street was completed by 1778. The final section leading up to the New Road was built in two phases, in the 1780s and the 1820s.57

White’s houses were mostly just a little larger than the earlier ones, and boasted particularly fine interiors, but otherwise were built to harmonize with those of the 1750s and 1760s. There was some variation in the width and depth of each plot, and a few lacked a coach-house and stables in the mews to the rear. Typically each house contained a hall, with a stone staircase, iron balustrade and mahogany handrail, then two rooms to a floor. The basement contained the servants’ quarters - a servants’ hall, housekeeper’s room, and butler’s pantry - while the kitchen was generally described as being ‘apart from the house’, and seems to have been in the basement below the back yard or garden.58

Harley Street was one of the best addresses on the Portland Estate, with Cavendish Square and later Portland Place and Mansfield Street being the grandest with the largest houses. Although there was not a great difference in the size of the individual houses in Harley Street, they were not entirely uniform. The largest was taken by another former East India Company servant: John Pybus. Latterly No. 81, this was the only house that had four, rather than the usual three windows across its front. It survives, but with considerable alterations, including the addition of stone window surrounds to the front elevation (Figure 8).

Of modest family background, John Pybus had begun his career with the East India Company as a writer in 1742 when he was about 15 years of age. He became a member of the Council of Madras and in 1762 travelled to Sri Lanka as an ambassador to the King of Kandy. This was the first contact between the Company and the island, prompted by the King’s request for help to oust the Dutch. Nothing became of the mission, however, and Pybus went back to Fort St George.59 He returned to England in 1768 with his family. Before moving to Harley Street he had lived for a few years in Berners Street; he appears as the first ratepayer of No. 64 in 1769.60 Amongst his neighbours were (Sir) William Chambers at No. 13, Thomas Collins at No. 44 and John Johnson at No. 32, all of whom were involved in the development of Berners Street. It seems highly likely that one or other of these men was instrumental in Pybus’s move to Harley Street. Johnson was a party to Pybus’s lease of No. 81, and Collins was John White’s partner in the wider development of that stretch of Harley Street. William Gowing, carpenter and John Utterton, plasterer, were also active in the development here and had earlier built houses in Berners Street. Pybus was one of the few who leased directly from the Portland estate, mostly the Portland leases went to the developers who then assigned or sub-let to tenants. This might suggest that Pybus was an investor in the Harley Street development, or just that he knew of it at an early date.

In the same year as he was issued the lease of 81 Harley Street, 1773, Pybus seems to have been considering a return to India, writing to the Company’s Court of Directors for permission to return on the grounds that his health had recovered. Perhaps he did not expect to be sent back, as he also set about establishing himself in business in London, founding the banking partnership of Pybus, Hyde, Dorset and Cockell in New Bond Street.61

Pybus remained in Harley Street until 1784.62 He died at his new house in New Bond Street in 1789, leaving a lengthy and unusually detailed will.63 Many of the individual items listed had no doubt once graced 81 Harley Street, and thus provide an insight into the richness of the interiors of these outwardly plain houses. There were several portraits, mostly of himself and his wife described as being ‘by Stuart’ (perhaps Gilbert Stuart, who was working in London from 1777 to 1787). These are most likely still in private hands, assuming that they have survived, but one painting can be identified as the conversation piece painted shortly after their return from India by the fashionable portraitist Nathaniel Dance, now in the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia (Figure 9).64 The family are grouped in an idyllic landscape, the father resting his hand on the shoulder of his youngest child – his second son Charles Small Pybus who is standing on his mother, Martha’s, lap. Seated on the ground is the eldest son, also John, and to the side stand two daughters: Martha, on the left, and Anne. It is interesting that this family portrait contains no hint of their time in India, unlike many commissioned by returning East India Company employees, who had themselves painted wearing Indian dress, with native attendants or accoutrements such as hookah pipes.65

In addition to paintings, various items of furniture were mentioned, mostly mahogany pieces, such as a large bookcase and bedsteads upholstered in chintz. The chintz was presumably from India, as also an India Blackwood inlaid chest of drawers mounted with silver and a clothes press or wardrobe ‘thereunto belonging’ which had been ‘lately altered by Simpson, upholsterer’. Explicitly brought back from India was an India inlaid mahogany chest of drawers mounted with silver, which also had a matching wardrobe or clothes press. It is noticeable that these exotic pieces of furniture would have been in the bedrooms or dressing rooms, the private side of the house. The one item mentioned which would have been on public display was not from India, it was a Shudi and Broadwood harpsichord.

There were also many smaller decorative items. To his wife Pybus left a pair of gold ‘fillagree’ trunks or boxes which he had bought from George Smith, a merchant in Fort St George shortly before he left India, and ‘a large fillagree rosewater bottle and tree lately gilt by Heming’, presumably the goldsmith Thomas Heming, whose shop was on New Bond Street.66 There were also silver tea canisters and ‘a dressing box and frame of a looking glass for a toilet.’ The looking glass may have been of the type made in Vizagapatam (now Vishakhapatnam), or Mursdabad specifically for the western market.67 Other silverware more particularly described were a ‘gilt monteith of silver’ which he claimed had been given to his father by the Earl of Burlington and a silver cup and cover, another gift to his father this time given by the Marchioness of Rockingham. A more recent acquisition was a large silver tea table, weighing 230 ounces, bought from Timothy Davies, silversmith, of Bond Street.

As so many of his contemporary returnees from India, Pybus invested in property and at the time of his death owned the leases of thirteen houses in Bunhill Row, Moorfields, and a country estate at Cheam, Surrey, which he had purchased from Edward Sanxay in 1787.68 The house no longer survives, but the Pybus family memorials can be found in the Lumley chapel, in the grounds of St Dunstan’s Church in Cheam.

In 1775 Pybus had stood for election as a director of the East India Company, though he was not successful. He had plenty of contacts within the Company, not least his brother-in-law Thomas Bates Rous, who served as a director from 1773 to 1779, and who moved into the house opposite the Pybus’s in Harley Street (now No. 76) in 1776.69 Bates Rous had in fact followed Pybus here from Berners Street, where he had lived next-door but one to William Chambers, and a few doors up from his brother-in-law, similarly taking that house from new in 1769.

There were numerous other serving directors who took houses in and around Harley Street, including Stephen Lushington and John Smith Burges at 69 and 102 Harley Street respectively in the 1780s and 1790s; William Fullarton Elphinstone at No. 92 in the early nineteenth century, and William Wigram from the late 1820s to the 1850s.70 Of the thirty-four men who served on the Court of Directors between 1838 and 1842, seventeen were living in Marylebone at the time they were a director, precisely half. The next most popular London address was Mayfair, with only seven directors.71 A brief analysis of the occupants of all 146 houses in Harley Street in 1840 found 27 with some connection to the East India Company, 20 politicians, 17 in the legal profession, 13 with slave-owning connections in the West Indies, 9 in the medical professions and 8 bankers.72 No information could be gleaned for the occupants of 43 of the houses. Although there is some degree of overlap in these categories, those with Indian connections form the largest group. Whilst similar analysis of other areas in London must be left to others to conduct, it is clear that the London residences of East India Company directors from around 1820 to 1840 have a noticeable Marylebone bias. During that period Marylebone always housed more directors than any other district, by some considerable margin over Mayfair – the next most popular and fashionable address.

Conclusion

During the second half of the eighteenth century and into the early decades of the nineteenth many people living in and around Harley Street had connections to the East India Company. They included many serving and former directors. The newer houses north of New Cavendish Street, which were somewhat larger, proved particularly popular. Apart from access to the New Road, at the north end of Harley Street, which eased travel into the City, and to East India House, the neighbourhood was also convenient for parliament. Many MPs and a smattering of Lords and Bishops resided here, perhaps a further lure to someone with an eye on a parliamentary seat and political advancement.

The colonization of Marylebone by those with East India Company connections was largely due to the availability of good houses coupled with either family connections or ties of friendship with those already resident there. It was Orme’s early years in Cavendish Square together with the proximity of his friends which would have dictated a wish to return to settle. His wish was easily fulfilled by the number of new houses going up in the area around Cavendish Square which created an oversupply and therefore competitive rents. This abundance of new housing in a fashionable location became available at the same time as the first nabobs appeared on the London scene, and continued through the peak years of the 1770s and 80s by which time the character of the nabob had become firmly established in Britain. By the final years of the eighteenth century this part of Marylebone provided an address with cachet. For East India Company men there was also a comforting number of residents with the shared experience of having lived in South Asia. The outward anonymity and respectability of these terraced houses screened their occupants from the officious gaze of the critics of nabobery, masking interiors where the trappings of Indian wealth could be displayed in the public rooms, or hidden away in private apartments.

In the popular culture of the period, the area came to be recognized as an enclave of Nabobs.73 It was perhaps the presence of General Smith, the Nabob of Nabobs, which cemented the area’s reputation, or ensured its notoriety. But quantitative analysis suggests it was not just nabobian visibility and notoriety which gave rise to this popular view. The perception had some basis in facts.

By the early nineteenth century the small area in Marylebone between Portland Place and Wimpole Street had become well known as a centre of the Anglo-Indian community in London, and Harley Street itself was as synonymous with Nabobs as it was later to be with the medical profession. As late as 1841, Harley Street was still being described as ‘the headquarters of oriental nabobs’. Here ‘the claret is poor stuff, but Harley Street Madeira has passed into a proverb, and nowhere are curries and mulligatawny given in equal style’.74

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Notes

1 - East India Company at Home, 1757–1857 (2011–14), see blogs.ucl.ac.uk/eicah/home.

2 – Legacies of British Slave-ownership, 2009–15, see http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs <accessed 14/03/2016>

3 – The material presented here derives from research carried out for the Survey of London and many of its findings are destined for publication in brief form in volumes 51 and 52 of the Survey of London series which will cover South-eastern St Marylebone. A version of this paper was presented at the East India Company at Home end-of-project conference, Objects, Families, Homes: British Material Cultures in Global Context, at University College London in July 2014.

4 - Consequent misapprehensions were evident at the East India Company at Home conference (see note 3). See also, for example, R. Stewart, The Town House in Georgian London (London: Yale University Press, 2009). J. M. Holzman, The nabobs in England: a study of the returned Anglo-Indian, 1760–1785 (New York, 1926), and T. W. Nechtman, Empire and Identity in Eighteenth-Century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), studied the material culture of those returning from South Asia but concentrated on country estates rather than London property holdings.

5 - For a study of settlers in London from America and the West Indies see J. Flavell, When London was the Capital of America (London: Yale University Press, 2010).

6 - P. J. Marshall, East Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976), 215: see also H.V. Bowen, The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain 1756-1833 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

7 – E. McKellar, Landscapes of London (London: Yale University Press, 2013), passim, see, for example, 209-12.

8 – See, for example, A. Webster, The Twilight of the East India Company. The evolution of Anglo-Asian Commerce and politics, 1790-1860 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2009).

9 – London Metropolitan Archives (hereafter LMA), MDR/1729/3/219; City of Westminster Archives Centre, St Marylebone ratebooks (hereafter RB); P. Watson and P. Gauci, ‘Shepheard, Francis (1676–1739), of London, and Exning, Suff.’, in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1690–1715 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), see http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1690- 1715/member/shepheard-francis-1676-1739 <accessed 14/03/2016>.

10 – Watson and Gauci, ‘Shepheard, Samuel I (c.1648–1719), of St Magnus the Martyr, and Bishopsgate Street, London’, in History of Parliament, see http://www.historyofparliamentonline.or ... 1648-1719; P. Carter, ‘Shepheard, Samuel (c.1648–1719)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004) (hereafter ODNB), see http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/67062 <accessed 14/03/2016>.

11 – The National Archives (hereafter TNA), PROB11/567/81.

12 – C. Henry & M. I. Collins Baker, The Life and Circumstances of James Brydges, First Duke of Chandos, Patron of the Liberal Arts (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949); Susan Jenkins, Portrait of a Patron: The Patronage and Collecting of James Brydges, 1st Duke of Chandos (1674–1744) (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007).

13 – LMA, MDR 1724/6/158–61; Jenkins, Chandos, 101–4; Survey of London, 29: St James, Westminster, South of Piccadilly (London, 1960), 120–2.

14 – LMA, MDR 1731/2/75–8.

15 – Both quotes are as in Collins Baker, Chandos, 279; Jenkins, Chandos, 104.

16 – British Library (hereafter BL), IOR/G/37/1, letter from John Johnson, 19 February 1715/16; IOR/D/19, f. 35, Robert Adams’s memorial of 1729; IOR/B/62, 355; Leicestershire Record Office (hereafter LRO), DE3214/10388; A. Hamilton, A New Account of the East Indies, 1 (London, 1744), 298–301,315–18; M. O. Koshy, The Dutch Power in Kerala, 1729–1758 (New Delhi: Mittal Publications, 1989), 38–9; R. J. Barendse, Arabian Seas 1700–1763: vol. 1, The Western Indian Ocean in the eighteenth century (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 538–9.

17 – Hamilton, East Indies, 299; John Keay, The Honourable Company: A History of the English East India Company (London: Harper Collins, 1991), 250–4.

18 – Hamilton, East Indies, 317–18.

19 – BL, IOR/B/60, 309.

20 – BL, IOR/B/61, passim; IOR/D/19, 35.

21 - BL, IOR/B/61, 20 and 36.

22 – BL, IOR/B/61, 215.

23 - BL, IOR/B/60, 420; IOR/E/1/21/45, letter of 5 February 1729/30 from Robert Adams.

24 – LRO, DE3214/10388.

25 – College of Arms, Grants 8, 148r.

26 - Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, The manuscripts of His Grace the Duke of Portland, [formerly] preserved at Welbeck Abbey, vol. 6 (London, 1901), 56; BL, IOR/B/62, passim: LRO, DE3214/9750/1.

27 – J. Ralph, A Critical Review of the Publick Buildings, Statues and Ornaments in and around London and Westminster (London, 1734), 106.

28 – Gentleman’s Magazine, viii/1, April 1738, 221; Derby Mercury, 13 April 1738.

29 – S. Tammita-Delgoda, ‘Orme, Robert (1728–1801)’, ODNB, see http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/20833 <accessed 14/03/2016>.

30 – RB; LRO, DE3214/3606; DE3214/10172; S. Harratt, ‘Noel, Sir Gerard Noel, 2nd bt. (1759–1838), of Exton Park, Rutland’, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1820–1832 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), see http://www.historyofparliamentonline.or ... d1759-1838 <accessed 14/03/2016>.

31 - City of Westminster Archives Centre, Ashbridge Collection, 160/CAV, pencil sketch by Jean-Claude Nattes, c.1805; Building News, 3 August 1894, 141.

32 – Howard de Walden Estate Archives, HDW 6/1, Survey ‘touching the nature and condition’ of the Marylebone estate, 1737; RB; J. Rocque, Survey of London, Westminster, and Southwark and the Country near Ten Miles Round 1746.

33 – RB. No. 11 Harley Street became No. 16 in the 1820s and was latterly No. 34. A block of flats now stands on the site.

34 – S. Tammita-Delgoda, ‘“Nabob, Historian and Orientalist” The Life and Writings of Robert Orme (1728–1801)’ (PhD thesis, Kings College London, 1991), 24, 28–68, 153

35 – Ibid., 69.

36 – R. Winfield, British Warships in the Age of Sail 1714–1792 (Barnsley: Seaforth, 2007), 33.

37 – RB; TNA, PROB11/920/192.

38 – Gazetteer & New Daily Advertiser, 8 Dec 1766.

39 – RB.

40 – RB; Sir Lewis Namier, ‘Olmius, Drigue Billers, 2nd Baron Waltham [I] (1746–87), of New Hall, Boreham, Essex’, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754–1790 (London: H.M.S.O, 1964), see http://www.historyofparliamentonline.or ... rs-1746-87 <accessed 14/03/2016>; S. Reid, ‘Morris, Staats Long (1728–1800)’, ODNB, see http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/68360; Tammita-Delgoda, ‘“Nabob, Historian and Orientalist”’, 69.

41 – Howard de Walden Estate Archives, property files.

42 – R. Orme, Historical Fragments of the Mogul Empire (London, 1805), xlix; Tammita-Delgoda, ‘“Nabob, Historian and Orientalist”’, 146–8.

43 – Tammita-Delgoda, ‘“Nabob, Historian and Orientalist”’, 79; RB; Gazetteer & New Daily Advertiser, 28 April 1770.

44 – RB; LMA, MDR 1754/4/242-3: http://www.thepeerage.com/p14044.htm <accessed 14/03/2016>.

45 – Historic England, London Region photographs, copies also in LMA, SC/PHL/01/311/57/3669 and SC/PHL/01/311/59/2534.

46 – Museum of English Rural Life, BER 36/5/200; RB; D. L. Prior, ‘Holwell, John Zephaniah (1711–1798)’, ODNB, see http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13622 <accessed 14/03/2016>.

47 – S. Foote, ‘The Nabob: A comedy…’ (London, 1778); Town and Country Magazine, vol. 8, 1776, 345–7; Survey of London, 30: St James, Westminster, South of Piccadilly (London, 1960), 442–3.

48 – quoted in T. W. Nechtman, Nabobs Empire and Identity in Eighteenth-century Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 165–6.

49 – G. J. Bryant, ‘Smith, Richard (bap. 1734, d. 1803)’, ODNB, see http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/63539; J. Price, A Vindication of Gen. Richard Smith…, 2nd edn (London, 1783).

50 – Smith, ODNB.

51 – Public Advertiser, 1 Nov 1785.

52 – The Times, 4 April 1788.

53 – The World, 29 Sept 1788.

54 – Bath Chronicle, 20 Nov 1788.

55 – The World, 29 April 1791; Morning Post and Daily Advertiser, 9 May 1791.

56 – Gazetteer & New Daily Advertiser, 21 Nov 1765.

57 – RB.

58 – Howard de Walden Estate Archives, HDW 3/3.

59 – Account of Mr Pybus’s Mission to the King of Kandy, In 1762 (Colombo: W. Skeen, 1862).

60 – RB; the ratebook for 1768 is missing, and the house does not appear in the ratebook for 1767.

61 – BL, IOR/E/1/57, 492–3v; BL, Mss EurF110; J. M. Holzman, Nabobs in England (New York, 1926), 76, 158; F. G. Hilton Price, Handbook of London Bankers (London, 1876), 25–6.

62 – RB.

63 – TNA, PROB11/1184/72.

64 – E. Lauze, ‘A Nabob’s return: the Pybus conversation piece by Nathaniel Dance’, in National Gallery of Victoria Art Bulletin 43, 2 June 2014, see publications.ngv.vic.gov.au/artjournal/a-nabobs-return-the-pybus-conversationpiece-by-nathaniel-dance/#.VD-pWfnF_To <accessed 14/03/2016>.

65 – M. Archer, India and British Portraiture, 1770-1825 (London: Philip Wilson, 1979), 487–519.

66 – E. Packer, ‘Heming, Thomas’, Grove Art Online, see http://www.oxfordartonline.com.libproxy ... rove/art/T 037481?q=Heming%2C+Thomas&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1 <accessed 14/03/2016>.

67 – J. P. Losty et al., ‘Indian subcontinent’, Grove Art Online, see http://www.oxfordartonline.com.libproxy ... rove/art/T 040113?q=Indian+subcontinent&search=quick&pos=1&_start=1 pg54 <accessed 14/03/2016>; collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O90270/toilet-glass-unknown/<accessed 14/03/2016>.

68 – Gazetteer & New Daily Advertiser, 5 Dec 1787.

69 – RB.

70 – J. G. Parker, ‘The Directors of the East India Company 1754–1790’, PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1977, 114–17, 165–8, 229–30; Boyle’s Court Guides; RB.

71 - Information derived from lists of directors published in the Asiatic Journal.

72 – RB; Post Office Directories; Census; numerous sources were consulted to identify occupations and affiliations of the residents, too numerous to cite here, but most began with a simple google search on the name.

73 – Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, July–December 1841, 71; C. G. F. Gore, The Sketch Book of Fashion (London, 1833), 170–1: W. M. Thackeray, The Newcomes, vol. 1 (London, 1854), 81.

74 – Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, July–December 1841, p. 71.

Captions and Figure Credits

Figure 1 – Francis Shepheard’s painted staircase at 20 Cavendish Square. Photographed in 2014 by Chris Redgrave © Historic England

Figure 2 – Robert Adams’s house at 9 Cavendish Square. Photographed in 1891, Bedford Lemere, © Historic England

Figure 3 – Robert Adams’s coat of arms, granted 1732. College of Arms Grants 8 148r, © College of Arms

Figure 4 – Extract from Horwood’s Map of London, surveyed in1792, showing the houses (with original numbering) of: Robert Orme (11 Harley Street, later No.34); General Richard Smith (5 Harley Street, later No.22); Robert Adams (8 Cavendish Square, later No.9); and Francis Shepheard (16 Cavendish Square, later No.20). © London Metropolitan Archives, Corporation of London

Figure 5 – A view of Harley Street taken c.1930 showing Robert Orme’s former house on the far right. From The Metropolitan Borough of St. Marylebone Official Guide, n.d. p.111

Figure 6 – Nos 22-28 Harley Street. General Richard Smith’s house at 22 Harley Street to the right. Photographed in 1957, © London Metropolitan Archives, Corporation of London

Figure 7 – Entrance hall in 22 Harley Street. Photographed in 1959, © London Metropolitan Archives, Corporation of London

Figure 8 – John Pybus’s house at 81 Harley Street. Photographed in 2014 by Chris Redgrave © Historic England

Figure 9 – The Pybus family, conversation piece painted by Nathaniel Dance c.1769. © The National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia

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A Nabob’s return: the Pybus conversation piece by Nathaniel Dance
by Emma Lauze
Art Journal 43
June 2, 2014

NOTICE: THIS WORK MAY BE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT

YOU ARE REQUIRED TO READ THE COPYRIGHT NOTICE AT THIS LINK BEFORE YOU READ THE FOLLOWING WORK, THAT IS AVAILABLE SOLELY FOR PRIVATE STUDY, SCHOLARSHIP OR RESEARCH PURSUANT TO 17 U.S.C. SECTION 107 AND 108. IN THE EVENT THAT THE LIBRARY DETERMINES THAT UNLAWFUL COPYING OF THIS WORK HAS OCCURRED, THE LIBRARY HAS THE RIGHT TO BLOCK THE I.P. ADDRESS AT WHICH THE UNLAWFUL COPYING APPEARED TO HAVE OCCURRED. THANK YOU FOR RESPECTING THE RIGHTS OF COPYRIGHT OWNERS.

I was born Diana Judith Pybus at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London, England, on October 8, 1953, at midnight on the new moon. My great-great grandfather was the first British ambassador to Ceylon and a member of the Council of Madras. When he returned to England, the king honored him by adding an elephant to the family coat of arms, which is also part of the Pybus seal on the family signet ring.

David Humphrey Pybus, my father, grew up in a large country house in the village of Hexham in Northumberland in the north of England. The house was close to Hadrian's Wall and in fact was made out of stones from the wall, so it had enormously thick walls. Denton Hall, as it was called, is one of the famous haunted houses in England.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian

N. B. The following oath was tendered to, and taken by Mr. Holwell in Council the 24th of December, 1759.

"I John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the Council of Fort William, 1756, when Kissendass, the son of Rajah Bullob, received the protection of this presidency, do solemnly swear that I never did, directly or indirectly, receive from the said Kissendass, or from anyone on his behalf, any the least reward or gratuity, either in money, jewels, or merchandise, for such protection granted the said Kissendass, and that I never did, on any other pretence or consideration whatsoever, benefit myself by the said Kissendass to the amount or value of one rupee. So help me God.

J. Z. Holwell."

***

The scrutiny ordered in the before-recited 132d paragraph, was made by Colonel Clive at Moorshadabad, (where Kissendass then resided) at the time the Colonel went to take leave of the Nabob, on his departure for Europe. On his return to Fort William, he wrote the following letter to the Board, on the subject of his enquiry.

To the Gentlemen of Council.

22d January, 1760.

Sirs,

"The justice I owe to my own reputation, as well as my duty to the Company, obliged me, prior to the resignation of this Government, to use my utmost endeavors in coming at the truth of the heavy charge, seemingly contained against Mr. Holwell, in the 132d paragraph of the general letter. Enclosed is the solemn attestation of Kissendass; and I make no doubt but that gentleman's innocence will appear as clear to the Court of Directors, as it did to us who were present at, and witnessed the said attestation."

N. B. The gentlemen who witnessed the attestation were,

Col. Clive,
Col. Ford,
Major Caillaud,
Mr. Pybus,
Capt. Carnac.

-- Important Facts regarding the East India Company's Affairs in Bengal, from the Year 1752 to 1760. This Treatise Contains an Exact State of the Company's Revenues in that Settlement; With Copies of several very interesting Letters Showing Particularly, The Real Causes Which Drew on the Presidency of Bengal the Dreadful Catastrophe of the Year 1767; and Vindicating the Character of Mr. Holwell From Many Scandalous Aspersions Unjustly Thrown Out Against Him, in an Anonymous Pamphlet, Published March 6th, 1764, Entitled, "Reflections on the Present State of Our East-India Affairs." by J.Z. Holwell

-- The East India Company: The original corporate raiders. For a century, the East India Company conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant, by William Dalrymple

-- Speculative development and the origins and history of East India Company settlement in Cavendish Square and Harley Street, by Harriet Richardson & Peter Guillery

The National Gallery of Victoria has recently acquired a magnificent conversation piece of The Pybus family, c.1769, by the British artist Nathaniel Dance (1735–1811). The painting will complement the NGV’s already impressive holdings in the area of eighteenth-century British art and will be the first work by Dance on display in a public collection in Australia (fig. 1).

The picture represents John Pybus Senior (1727–1789), a retired East India Company servant, and his wife Martha, née Small, (1733–1802), with their children identified, from left to right as: Martha (1758–1788), Anne (1756–1791), John Junior (1754–1808), and Charles Small (1766–1810). The family is depicted full-length, exquisitely dressed in tones of pink and grey, in an idyllic English-landscape setting. The painting was brought to Australia in 1897 by descendants of the sitters and, from that point on, escaped the notice of scholars of both Nathaniel Dance and eighteenth-century British art. It is a source, therefore, of great excitement that this beautiful work has now emerged, newly cleaned, into the public sphere.

John Pybus Senior was born into modest circumstances on 22 November 1727, the only child of Bryan Pybus (1690–1747) of Dover and Mary Kempster of Harwich.1 His father came from Thirsk in Yorkshire but worked as an agent on the packet boats at Dover.2 Aged fifteen, on 15 December 1742, John was sent as a writer to Fort St George, Madras, by the East India Company. The post was clerical but it did at least offer the opportunity for advancement. At the very same meeting, Robert Clive – known to posterity as Clive of India – was also appointed as a writer.3

In March 1752 John Pybus received his first promotion when he was sent to oversee the company factory at Deve Cotah; when he returned at the end of that year he was a junior-merchant on £30 per annum.4 In view of his improved circumstances and future prospects, aged twenty-eight, he married Martha Small of Lewisham on 20 October 1753 in Madras. The young couple must have left immediately for Fort Marlborough in Sumatra where Pybus was appointed as deputy governor on a salary of £40 per annum.5 It was here on 1 January 1755 that the first of their eight children (and the oldest boy in the painting), was baptised John. Another child was born later that year but died shortly after. Their daughter Anne was born on 16 November 1756, presumably in Sumatra as well, but this is not documented; she stands second from the left in the painting.6 On the family’s return to Madras in 1757, a further daughter, Martha, was born on 30 June 1758; she is the younger girl in the painting. Pybus was to write mournfully to Robert Clive on the eve of the birth of his fifth child in March 1764, ‘If a fortune had been as easy to have got as children, I should have been a very rich fellow long ago but this I was certainly never intended to be’.7 The child died shortly after.

Immediately on his return to Madras, Pybus was engaged as assay master, followed by his appointment in October to the council who ran the Presidency of Madras. The following year he was made land customer.8 However, the same directors who only shortly before had declared themselves satisfied, started to question his actions in Sumatra, so much so that he felt compelled to return to London to defend his reputation. He resigned from the council and wrote to them explaining his sudden departure was due to ‘[t]he justification of my character, which to my great uneasiness and concern … has been most basely traduced and misrepresented to my employers’ who he had served ‘with zeal and fidelity’ for sixteen years.9

His wife and family were already in England having left India in September 1758.10 During their reunion in England, a further child was born and named Margaret Clive after his friend, but she died soon afterwards.11 Presumably having cleared his name and justified his actions, Pybus returned again to Madras in October 1761. While he was in England his brother-in-law, Mr Fairfield, had been appointed to the chieftainship of Masulipatan. Pybus, who wanted the post himself, wrote indignantly to Clive:

I have been deprived of my Right, nay I may say my rank in the service by it for what other benefit arises from Rank but that of succeeding to those Places of Profit which the service affords and very few these are of them God knows.12

Perhaps to mollify him, the council sent him as the ambassador to the King of Kandy in Ceylon. The ostensible purpose was to establish exclusive trading rights with the king over the Dutch. The embassy failed but Pybus’s report and diary survive and have been published.13 Despite the physical discomfort of the embassy, clearly it was something of which he was proud as it is commemorated on his funerary epitaph where it states that he was ‘the first Englishman received in a public character at that Prince’s court’.14 Meanwhile, his wife and family had joined him again in Madras from England, he reasoned frugally ‘I think I shall be able to support her here at as little expense as in England’.15

From November 1762, perhaps due to the intervention of Clive, he was finally appointed as the new chieftain of Masulipatan.16 Pybus must have made the fortune he had so longed for at Masulipatan as he was subsequently able to leave India and the East India Company for good. There was one further addition to the family during this period, Charles Small Pybus, who was born in November 1766 in Madras and who stands on his mother’s lap in the painting. The following November John Pybus, his wife and three17 children are documented leaving Madras for the last time to a gun salute on the Hector. The family changed boats at St Helena on to the Northumberland and arrived back in England in May 1768. Pybus’s epitaph proclaims:

Having during a period of twenty-five years filled these and other public situations in India, with fidelity to his honourable employers and credit to himself, he returned to his native country.18

On their return to England the family seem to have settled in London at Brudley Street, Berkeley Square.19 Shortly afterwards, in August 1768, John Pybus bought the ancient property of Pricklers in East Barnet, Hertfordshire, just outside London, from Thomas Brand MP, in whose family the property had been since 1558. In true nabob fashion, the Pybus family were establishing themselves with their Indian-made money both in town and country.20 There could be no better way to advertise their new wealth and prosperity than to commission a family portrait by one of the most fashionable artists of the time, Nathaniel Dance (fig. 2). The artist had run a successful portrait practice from 13 Tavistock Row, Covent Garden, since returning from Italy in the mid 1760s. While in Italy he had made a name for himself as a painter of conversation pieces of Grand Tourists, that peculiarly English genre of informal group portraiture. In order to improve his style and his clientele, from 1762 Dance worked alongside Pompeo Batoni (1708–1787) the pre-eminent portraitist in Rome, renowned for his elegant and refined conversation pieces of English travellers (fig. 3). The prominence of Dance’s recent sitters cannot have been unimportant in Pybus’s choice of the artist for a family portrait. In 1768, commissioned by George III, Dance painted the king’s brother-in-law, Christian VII of Denmark. It was Dance alone who exhibited portraits of the king and queen at the first Royal Academy Exhibition in 1769 where he had chosen to exclusively exhibit portraits.21 On the Pybus family’s return from India, Dance’s profile as a portrait painter was particularly high.



No account books or sitters’ books of Nathaniel Dance’s survive from this period and it is therefore not possible to confirm the attribution or date of the painting through this means. However, as the age of the Pybus children is well documented, it is possible to establish the date of the painting within a period of eighteen months. On the family’s return from India in May 1768, John was thirteen and a half; Ann, eleven and a half; Martha, ten; and Charles, one and a half. In the painting their childish features and appearance makes it extremely unlikely that they are any more than, at most, a year and a half older than these ages, dating the painting to no later than the end of 1769 (figs 4 & 5). Tantalisingly, we know that there was a conversation piece exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1770 which is as yet unidentified and may well prove in time to be this painting.22 Although the painting is unsigned and until now has been attributed to Dance on stylistic grounds and the family tradition of the former owners, John Pybus’s will of 1787 clearly refers to the family pictures by Dance’.23





The fine clothes, elegant poses and English countryside speak volumes about the status and aspirations of the family on their return. However, the painting can be viewed more poignantly as commemorating the family’s survival. Collectively they had survived war, disease and separation. John’s beloved wife Martha had given birth to seven children, three of whom had died soon after their birth, all but one having been born in the heat and disease-ridden conditions of the East. The family had been divided between Europe and the Indian subcontinent on several occasions and even when they were together in India, it seems that Martha and the children lived at Fort St George while John Pybus lived at Masulipatan. Finally the family were reunited and were looking forward to a new life in their native country and it is this, as much as their wealth, that Dance captures for posterity.

The Landscape in which the family stands appears to be idealised and is similar to the background of other portraits by Dance, in particular the treatment of the tree with creepers climbing up the trunk (fig. 6). However, if, for argument’s sake, it does represent a location that is associated with the family, one must look to the Pricklers estate in Hertfordshire and not to Cheam, Surrey, where the family is buried, as this land was not acquired until 1788.

The Pybus conversation piece was not the only painting by Dance that John Pybus commissioned; it seems he was a good client of the artist. The use of the plural in John Pybus’s will when he mentions the family pictures by Dance makes clear that there was more than one family picture by the artist. In addition to this, a further half-length portrait of John Pybus by Dance is specifically mentioned in the will.24 In total, therefore, there were at least three paintings commissioned of the family from the painter, all of which must have been painted before the closure of his practice in 1782 and most likely predate the mid 1770s tailing off of that practice. Fascinatingly, we also know that Pybus commissioned a portrait of Robert Clive, as in 1780 Francis Fowke, resident of Benares and a school friend of John Pybus Junior, was sent by his uncle, John Walsh, ‘a large picture of Lord Clive … It is a copy of that done by Dance for Mr Pybus’.25 It is quite probable that Pybus’s painting is the prototype half-length of Clive with the Battle of Plassey in the background at Powis Castle, Wales, of which there are eight copies, one of which is in the National Portrait Gallery, London.26

Major-General the Right Honourable The Lord Clive KB FRS. Lord Clive in military uniform. The Battle of Plassey is shown behind him. By Nathaniel Dance. National Portrait Gallery, London.

The Pybus conversation piece should be viewed not only in the context of other commissions by John Pybus from Dance but also in the wider context of a number of other portraits of East India Company servants dating from a similar period by the artist. Dance received a commission from John Pybus’s friend Robert Palk, governor of Madras, for a portrait of his wife and children which was exhibited at the Royal Academy Exhibition in 1771.27 He also painted Lady Clive and a further full-length portrait of Lord Clive, both dated to c.1772–73 and at Powis Castle, Wales.28 It can be no coincidence that these three close associates all commissioned portraits by Dance during the same period. In addition there is a cryptic note in John Pybus’s papers for ‘Cash paid Dance the Limner for the frame of a Picture’ under the account of his son-in-law Sir Robert Fletcher who was on the military side of the company – was he too painted by the artist?29

The subsequent history of the painting can be traced through the wills of the family. In his own will John Pybus requested that:

I also will and direct that my said wife shall have the possession of our family pictures by Dance … during her life and after her demise I give the said family pictures and all my other pictures and paintings of whatsoever kind not herein before or herein after specifically disposed of, to my son John Pybus’.30

His wife Martha died on 4 November 1802 in her sixty-ninth year; the painting must then have passed to John Pybus Junior. In his will of 1808 it is written: ‘I give to my dear son John Bryan Pybus all my family pictures’.31 He died in the same year and the painting must then have passed to his only son, who, like his grandfather, had returned to Madras as a writer in 1807. It is possible that the painting travelled out to India at this point. John Bryan Pybus married Catherine Wilson in Madras in 1818, but he died shortly afterwards and was buried in Madras on 27 January 1820.32 His widow and son John, who had been born in 1819, probably returned to England at this point. We certainly know that the painting passed to the son in later life, as on 18 May 1885 a John Pybus of 33 Spring Gardens, London, wrote to the National Portrait Gallery offering the painting on loan, describing it in a letter as

a fine picture by ‘Dance’ with a landscape by ‘Wilson’ a family group of the late John Pybus and his wife and children about 120 years old and in very fine preservation.33

I believe the mention of the landscape being by Wilson must be discounted, the two artists are not known to have collaborated.

At the trustees meeting on 6 June 1885 the offer was turned down on the basis that loans were not accepted on principle. This John Pybus (1819–1886) and his wife Charlotte Coventry had ten children. Their eldest daughter was Martha, who married William Cooke. On her father’s death the painting seems to have passed to her brother Cecil who sold it in 1897 for £500 to Martha’s Australian grandson, Samuel Winter Cooke, the son of Cecil Pybus Cooke and Arabella Winter. The painting has then passed by descent (fig. 7).34



We know little of the Pybus family’s life on their return from India until in 1773, perhaps because his fortune had dwindled, John Pybus set up a bank, Pybus, Hyde, Dorsett & Cockell, at 148 New Bond Street.35 Mr Russell, John Pybus Junior’s former tutor, wrote in 1778

Mr Pybus & son are partners in a Bankers shop in Bond Street. The former struggles incessantly with an asthma and other disorders, which frequently renders his life doubtful for four and twenty hours. His son John finds full employment in the shop and has but little leisure for literary pursuits or any other pleasure.36

John Pybus Junior became a partner in the bank in 1779, replacing Mr Hyde. In 1785 a new bank was founded, Pybus, Cockell, Pybus & Call, and moved premises to Old Bond Street.37 In a letter to Warren Hastings, John Pybus Senior asked if he

might assist in promoting the interests of our house by recommending it to any of your friends who may not already have appointed attorneys to the management of their money concerns in this country.38

The records of the bank do not survive although it seems to have been deliberately aimed at the niche market of absentee East India men.

In 1774 Ann made an impressive marriage to Brigadier-General Sir Robert Fletcher, Commander in Chief of the British Forces, and returned with him to India. She was followed in 1776 by her younger sister, Martha, who shortly after her arrival married Lieutenant Arthur Lysaght.39 Soon after, Sir Robert died on Mauritius on 24 December 1776 and Ann returned as a wealthy widow to live with her family in England who had by now moved to Harley Street.40 At about this time the eighth child of John and Martha Pybus was born, Catherine Amelia; she was the only child who lived to adulthood and who is not in the painting. Charles Small Pybus qualified to the Bar and went on to became MP for Dover and a lord of the Admiralty.41

By the time of his will in 1787 John Pybus was no longer living in Harley Street but in Old Bond Street above the banking house. He had sold his country estate, Pricklers, in 1781 to General Provost for £9000.42 In a codicil to his will, in the knowledge that he was dying, John Pybus bought Cheam House, Cheam, Surrey, just outside London, from the trustees of the late Edmund Saxnay for £1500 at Carraway’s Coffee House in 1788. He bought the property as a security for his wife from which she might live after his demise. The house was pulled down in 1922 but is recorded in photographs prior to this.43

John Pybus died on 22 June 1789 and was buried on 29 June in the Church of St Dunstan’s, Cheam. His wife Martha, sons John and Charles and daughter Ann were also all buried there. It is only his daughter Martha who is not buried at Cheam; she died in 1788, most probably in India, having remarried a company surgeon on her first husband’s death.44 Three Pybus wall monuments were saved from destruction when the church was rebuilt in 1864 and can be seen in the Lumley Chapel – the remaining part of the medieval church.45 Cheam House was sold by John Pybus Junior in 1803 following his mother’s death.

The reappearance of the Pybus conversation piece has cast a refreshing new light on Nathaniel Dance and his portrait practice. As a Dance portrait in a good state of preservation, it highlights the quality of the artist’s work on his return to London. This has not previously been studied in any great depth, his work in Italy and as a history painter having always attracted more attention. Through research on John Pybus’s patronage of Dance it has also become clear that he was not alone as an East India Company servant in favouring the artist. Pybus, like many other nabobs, returned to England in the 1760s with a large disposable income just when Dance’s star was in the ascendant and it is unsurprising to find the two attracted to each other. John Pybus may have until now only appeared in history books as a footnote to Robert Clive or as the father of his more famous son Charles Small Pybus but he and his family are deserving of greater attention by historians, not least because of Dance’s family portrait.

Emma Lauze, Photographic Activist, The Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art, London (in 2004).

_______________

Notes:

In addition to the specific citations that follow, a number of official public records pertaining to Pybus family genealogy, travel and property dealings were used in researching this article. For Pybus family genealogy, see Ecclesiastical Returns, Madras, 1698–1784, N/2/1 f. 279, f. 312, f. 534 & J/1/22 f. 149; Sumatra Proceedings, 1755, G35/10 & 10A; Oriental and India Office Collections, BL; Register of St Dunstan’s, Cheam, Sutton Archives and Local Studies Collection. For travel dates and passenger lists, see Journal of the Hector, L/MAR/B 486F, 4 Nov. 1767 & 19 Feb. 1768; –Northumberland L/MAR/B/141D 22 Mar. & 29 May 1768, Oriental and India Office Collections. For property purchases and sales, see Indenture of Lease, 5 Feb. 1788 and Release, 6 Feb. 1788, Sutton Archives and Local Studies Collection.

Websites:

http://www.bl.uk/collections/orientalandindian.html

http://www.sutton.gov.uk/Sutton/Relaxin ... tudies.htm

1 See Rev. W. Betham, The Baronetage of England, vol. 3, London, 1801–05, p.399, fn.

2 See R. G. Thorne, History of Parliament: The House of Commons 1790–1820, vol. 4, London, 1986, p. 905.

3 See Court Minute Book, B/67, pp. 177–83, Oriental and India Office Collections, BL, London.

4 See B. S. Baliga, (ed.), Records of Fort St George. Diary and Consultation Book of 1752, Madras, 1939, pp. 51 & 61.

5 ibid., p. 385.

6 Ann Pybus’s birth date appears on her tomb in the Lumley Chapel, Cheam, (see transcription in Rev. O. Manning, The History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey, vol. 2, London, 1804–14, p.477).

7 John Pybus, letter to Robert Clive, 27 March 1764, Clive Papers, MSS Eur/G37, box 32, Oriental and India Office Collections.

8 See Baliga, (ed.), Records of Fort St George, 1758, 1953, pp. 15 & 193.

9 Pybus, letter, 1 January 1760, transcribed in Baliga, (ed.), Records of Fort St George, 1760, p.24.

10 ibid., p. 168.

11 Manning, p. 477.

12 Pybus, letter, 8 April 1762, box 29.

13 See Pybus, Account of Mr Pybus’s Mission to the King of Kandy in 1762, Ceylon, 1862.

14 Manning, p. 476.

15 Pybus, letter, 12 January 1763.

16 See Baliga, (ed.), Records of Fort St George, 1762, 1946, P. 74.

17 It is not clear why three, not four, children are documented; as Charles Small was a baby it is possible he was not documented, it is also possible that John Junior was already in England for his education (see Journal of the Hector, L/MAR/B 486F, entries for 4 Nov. 1767 & 19 Feb. 1768, Oriental and India Office Collections).

18 Epitaph on John Pybus’s wall monument, Lumley Chapel, Cheam, transcribed in Manning, pp. 476–7.

19 Pybus, letter, 22 June 1768, box 53.

20 See J. M. Holzman, The Nabobs in England. A Study of the Returned Anglo-Indian 1760–1785, New York, 1926, pp. 7 & 158.

21 See D. Goudreau, Nathaniel Dance 1735–1811 (exh. cat.), Iveagh Bequest, Kenwood, London, 1977, introd., unpaginated.

22 See A. Graves, The Royal Academy of Arts. A Complete Dictionary of Contributors and their Work from its Foundation in 1769 to 1904, vol. 2, London, 1905, p.239, 1770, entry no. 69.

23 Will of John Pybus Senior, 18 August 1787, PROB 11/1184, London.

24 ibid.

25 John Walsh, letter to Francis Fowke, 23 June 1780, Fowke Papers, MSS Eur D11, K25, letter 19, Oriental and India Office Collections.

26 See J. Kerslake, Early Georgian Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London, 1977, pp. 56–9.

27 See Graves, p. 239, 1771, entry no. 56. The painting is now unlocated and is known only from photographs.

28 See J. Steegman, A Survey of Portraits in Welsh Houses, vol. 1, Cardiff, 1956–62, p. 266, nos 47 & 50; and Goudreau, nos 32 & 33.

29 Pybus, note in account book, February 20 1775, John Pybus Papers, MSS Eur f. 110/2, Oriental and India Office Collections.

30 Will of John Pybus Senior, PROB 11/1184.

31 Will of John Pybus Junior, 27 May 1808, PROB 11/1480.

32 See C. C. Prinsep, Record of Services of the Honourable East India Company’s Civil Servants in the Madras Presidency from 1741–1858, London, 1885, pp. 117–18. For his marriage and birth of child see Ecclesiastical Returns, Madras, J/1/22 f. 149.

33 Letter with minutes of the NG trustees 176th meeting, National Portrait Gallery archive.

34 Details of the sale to the Australian line of the family have been taken from notes kindly provided by the National Gallery of Victoria, having been compiled from the Winter Cooke Papers at the La Trobe Australian Manuscripts Collection, State Library of Victoria.

35 See F. G. Hilton Price, A Handbook of London Bankers with Some Account of their Predecessors the Early Goldsmiths, London, 1876, p. 21.

36 See S. Russell, letter to Francis Fowke, Marylebone, 14 January 1778, Fowke Papers, MSS Eur D11, K25, letter 8, Oriental and India Office Collections.

37 See Hilton Price, p. 21.

38 John Pybus, letter to Warren Hastings, 8 October 1784, Warren Hastings MSS Add. 29166 f. 254, Manuscript Collection, BL.

39 See Ecclesiastical Returns, Madras, 1698–1784, N2/1 f. 378.

40 See Russell, letter, 14 January 1778.

41 See Thorne, pp. 905–7.

42 See Holzman, pp. 76 & 158.

43 See photographic files, Sutton Archives.

44 See Manning, p. 477.

45 See C. J. Marshall, A History of the Old Villages of Cheam and Sutton, Surrey, 1936, p. 29.

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Part 1 of 2

Robert Clive
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Major-General the Right Honourable The Lord Clive KB FRS. Lord Clive in military uniform. The Battle of Plassey is shown behind him. By Nathaniel Dance. National Portrait Gallery, London.

Fascinatingly, we also know that Pybus commissioned a portrait of Robert Clive, as in 1780 Francis Fowke, resident of Benares and a school friend of John Pybus Junior, was sent by his uncle, John Walsh, ‘a large picture of Lord Clive … It is a copy of that done by Dance for Mr Pybus’.25 It is quite probable that Pybus’s painting is the prototype half-length of Clive with the Battle of Plassey in the background at Powis Castle, Wales, of which there are eight copies, one of which is in the National Portrait Gallery,
London.26

-- A Nabob’s return: the Pybus conversation piece by Nathaniel Dance, by Emma Lauze

Governor of the Presidency of Fort William, Bengal
In office
1757–1760
Preceded by Roger Drake
as President
Succeeded by Henry Vansittart
In office
1765–1766
Preceded by Henry Vansittart
Succeeded by Harry Verelst
Personal details
Born 29 September 1725
Styche Hall, Market Drayton, Shropshire, England
Died 22 November 1774 (aged 49)
Berkeley Square, Westminster, London
Nationality British
Alma mater Merchant Taylors' School
Awards KB
Military service
Allegiance Kingdom of Great Britain


Branch/service Flag of the British East India Company (1707).svg Company Army
Years of service 1746–1774
Rank Major-general
Unit British East India Company
Commands Commander-in-Chief of India
Battles/wars War of the Austrian Succession
Battle of Madras
Siege of Cuddalore
Siege of Pondicherry
Tanjore Expedition
Second Carnatic War
Siege of Trichinopoly
Siege of Arcot
Battle of Arnee
Battle of Chingleput
Seven Years' War
Battle of Vijaydurg
Recapture of Calcutta
Battle of Chandannagar
Battle of Plassey

Major-General Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive, KB, FRS (29 September 1725 – 22 November 1774), also known as Clive of India, Commander-in-Chief of British India, was a British military officer and East India Company official who established the military and political supremacy of the East India Company in Bengal. He is credited with securing a large swath of South Asia (Bangladesh, India, Pakistan) and the wealth that followed, for the British East India Company. In the process, he also turned himself into a multi-millionaire. Together with Warren Hastings he was one of the key early figures setting in motion what would later become British India. Blocking impending French mastery of India, and eventual British expulsion from the continent, Clive improvised a military expedition that ultimately enabled the East India Company to adopt the French strategy of indirect rule via puppet government. Hired by the company to return a second time to India, Clive conspired to secure the Company's trade interests by overthrowing the locally unpopular heir to the throne of Bengal, the richest state in India, richer than Britain, at the time. Back in England, he used his success to secure an Irish barony, from the then Whig PM, Thomas Pelham-Holles, 1st Duke of Newcastle, and again a seat for himself in Parliament, via Henry Herbert, 1st Earl of Powis, representing the Whigs in Shrewsbury, Shropshire (1761–1774), as he had previously in Mitchell, Cornwall (1754–1755).[1][2]

Clive was one of the most controversial figures in all British military history. His achievements included establishing control over much of India, and laying the foundation of the entire British Raj (though he worked only as an agent of the East India Company, not the British government). For his methods and his self-aggrandisement he was vilified by his contemporaries in Britain, and put on trial before Parliament. Of special concern was that he amassed a personal fortune in India. Modern historians have criticised him for atrocities, for high taxes, and for the forced cultivation of crops which exacerbated famines.[3][4][5]

Early life

Robert Clive was born at Styche, the Clive family estate, near Market Drayton in Shropshire, on 29 September 1725 to Richard Clive and Rebecca (née Gaskell) Clive.[6] The family had held the small estate since the time of Henry VII. The family had a lengthy history of public service: members of the family included an Irish chancellor of the exchequer under Henry VIII, and a member of the Long Parliament. Robert's father, who supplemented the estate's modest income as a lawyer, also served in Parliament for many years, representing Montgomeryshire.[7] Robert was their eldest son of thirteen children; he had seven sisters and five brothers, six of whom died in infancy.[8]


St. Mary's in Market Drayton, whose tower Clive is reputed to have climbed

Clive's father was known to have a temper, which the boy apparently inherited. For reasons that are unknown, Clive was sent to live with his mother's sister in Manchester while still a toddler. Biographer Robert Harvey suggests that this move was made because Clive's father was busy in London trying to provide for the family.[9] Daniel Bayley, the sister's husband, reported that the boy was "out of measure addicted to fighting".[10][11] He was a regular troublemaker in the schools he was sent to.[12] When he was older he and a gang of teenagers established a protection racket that vandalised the shops of uncooperative merchants in Market Drayton. Clive also exhibited fearlessness at an early age. He is reputed to have climbed the tower of St Mary's Parish Church in Market Drayton and perched on a gargoyle, frightening those down below.[13]

When Clive was nine his aunt died, and, after a brief stint in his father's cramped London quarters, he returned to Shropshire. There he attended the Market Drayton Grammar School, where his unruly behaviour (and improvement in the family's fortunes) prompted his father to send him to Merchant Taylors' School in London. His bad behaviour continued, and he was then sent to a trade school in Hertfordshire to complete a basic education.[8] Despite his early lack of scholarship, in his later years he devoted himself to improving his education. He eventually developed a distinctive writing style, and a speech in the House of Commons was described by William Pitt as the most eloquent he had ever heard.[7]

First journey to the East (1744–1753)

See also: First Carnatic War


Clive House at Fort St. George, Chennai


Plaque at Clive House

In 1744 Clive's father acquired for him a position as a "factor" or company agent in the service of the East India Company, and Clive set sail for Bombay, (present day Mumbai, India). After running aground on the coast of Brazil, his ship was detained for nine months while repairs were completed. This enabled him to learn some Portuguese,[14] one of the several languages then in use in south India because of the Portuguese center at Goa. At this time the East India Company had a small settlement at Fort St. George near the village of Madraspatnam, later Madras, now the Indian metropolis of Chennai,[15] in addition to others at Calcutta, Bombay, and Cuddalore.[16] Clive arrived at Fort St. George in June 1744, and spent the next two years working as little more than a glorified assistant shopkeeper, tallying books and arguing with suppliers of the East India Company over the quality and quantity of their wares. He was given access to the governor's library, where he became a prolific reader.[17]

Political situation in south India

The land Clive arrived in was divided into a number of successor states to the Mughal Empire. Over the forty years, since the death of the Emperor Aurangzeb in 1707, the power of the emperor had gradually fallen into the hands of his provincial viceroys or Subahdars. The dominant rulers on the Coromandel Coast were the Nizam of Hyderabad, Asaf Jah I, and the Nawab of the Carnatic, Anwaruddin Muhammed Khan. The nawab nominally owed fealty to the nizam, but in many respects acted independently. Fort St. George and the French trading post at Pondicherry were both located in the nawab's territory.[18]

The relationship between the Europeans in the region was influenced by a series of wars and treaties in Europe, and by commercial rivalries for trade on the subcontinent. Through the 17th and early 18th centuries, the French, Dutch, Portuguese, and British had vied for control of various trading posts, and for trading rights and favour with local Indian rulers. The European merchant companies raised bodies of troops to protect their commercial interests and latterly to influence local politics to their advantage. Military power was rapidly becoming as important as commercial acumen in securing India's valuable trade, and increasingly it was used to appropriate territory and to collect land revenue.[19]

First Carnatic War

Further information: Carnatic Wars and War of the Austrian Succession


Portrait by Charles Clive, c. 1764

In 1720 France effectively nationalized the French East India Company, and began using it to expand its imperial interests. This became a source of conflict with the British in India with the entry of Britain into the War of the Austrian Succession in 1744.[16] The Indian theatre of the conflict is also known as the First Carnatic War. Hostilities in India began with a British naval attack on a French fleet in 1745, which led the French Governor-General Dupleix to request additional forces.[20] On 4 September 1746, Madras was attacked by French forces led by La Bourdonnais. After several days of bombardment the British surrendered and the French entered the city.[21] The British leadership was taken prisoner and sent to Pondicherry. It was originally agreed that the town would be restored to the British after negotiation but this was opposed by Dupleix, who sought to annex Madras to French holdings.[22] The remaining British residents were asked to take an oath promising not to take up arms against the French; Clive and a handful of others refused, and were kept under weak guard as the French prepared to destroy the fort. Disguising themselves as natives, Clive and three others eluded their inattentive sentry, slipped out of the fort, and made their way to Fort St. David (the British post at Cuddalore), some 50 miles (80 km) to the south.[23][24] Upon his arrival, Clive decided to enlist in the Company army rather than remain idle; in the hierarchy of the Company, this was seen as a step down.[25] Clive was, however, recognized for his contribution in the defence of Fort St. David, where the French assault on 11 March 1747 was repulsed with the assistance of the Nawab of the Carnatic, and was given a commission as ensign.[26]

In the conflict, Clive's bravery came to the attention of Major Stringer Lawrence, who arrived in 1748 to take command of the British troops at Fort St. David.[26] During the 1748 Siege of Pondicherry Clive distinguished himself in successfully defending a trench against a French sortie: one witness of the action wrote Clive's "platoon, animated by his exhortation, fired again with new courage and great vivacity upon the enemy."[27] The siege was lifted in October 1748 with the arrival of the monsoons, but the war came to a conclusion with the arrival in December of news of the Peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Madras was returned to the British as part of the peace agreement in early 1749.[28]

Tanjore expedition

The end of the war between France and Britain did not, however, end hostilities in India. Even before news of the peace arrived in India, the British had sent an expedition to Tanjore on behalf of a claimant to its throne. This expedition, on which Clive, now promoted to lieutenant, served as a volunteer, was a disastrous failure. Monsoons ravaged the land forces, and the local support claimed by their client was not in evidence. The ignominious retreat of the British force (which lost its baggage train to the pursuing Tanjorean army while crossing a swollen river) was a blow to the British reputation.[29] Major Lawrence, seeking to recover British prestige, led the entire Madras garrison to Tanjore in response. At the fort of Devikottai on the Coleroon River the British force was confronted by the much larger Tanjorean army. Lawrence gave Clive command of 30 British soldiers and 700 sepoys, with orders to lead the assault on the fort. Clive led this force rapidly across the river and toward the fort, where the small British unit became separated from the sepoys and were enveloped by the Tanjorean cavalry. Clive was nearly cut down and the beachhead almost lost before reinforcements sent by Lawrence arrived to save the day. The daring move by Clive had an important consequence: the Tanjoreans abandoned the fort, which the British triumphantly occupied. The success prompted the Tanjorean rajah to open peace talks, which resulted in the British being awarded Devikottai and the costs of their expedition, and the British client was awarded a pension in exchange for renouncing his claim. Lawrence wrote of Clive's action that "he behaved in courage and in judgment much beyond what could be expected from his years."[30]

On the expedition's return the process of restoring Madras was completed. Company officials, concerned about the cost of the military, slashed its size, denying Clive a promotion to captain in the process. Lawrence procured for Clive a position as the commissary at Fort St. George, a potentially lucrative posting (its pay included commissions on all supply contracts).[31]

Second Carnatic War

Further information: Second Carnatic War

The death of Asaf Jah I, the Nizam of Hyderabad, in 1748 sparked a struggle to succeed him that is known as the Second Carnatic War, which was also furthered by the expansionist interests of French Governor-General Dupleix. Dupleix had grasped from the first war that small numbers of disciplined European forces (and well-trained sepoys) could be used to tip balances of power between competing interests, and used this idea to greatly expand French influence in southern India. For many years he had been working to negotiate the release of Chanda Sahib, a longtime French ally who had at one time occupied the throne of Tanjore, and sought for himself the throne of the Carnatic. Chanda Sahib had been imprisoned by the Marathas in 1740; by 1748 he had been released from custody and was building an army at Satara.

Upon the death of Asaf Jah I, his son, Nasir Jung, seized the throne of Hyderabad, although Asaf Jah had designated as his successor his grandson, Muzaffar Jung. The grandson, who was ruler of Bijapur, fled west to join Chanda Sahib, whose army was also reinforced by French troops sent by Dupleix. These forces met those of Anwaruddin Mohammed Khan in the Battle of Ambur in August 1749; Anwaruddin was slain, and Chanda Sahib victorious entered the Carnatic capital, Arcot. Anwaruddin's son, Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah, fled to Trichinopoly where he sought the protection and assistance of the British. In thanks for French assistance, the victors awarded them a number of villages, including territory nominally under British sway near Cuddalore and Madras. The British began sending additional arms to Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah and sought to bring Nasir Jung into the fray to oppose Chanda Sahib. Nasir Jung came south to Gingee in 1750, where he requested and received a detachment of British troops. Chanda Sahib's forces advanced to meet them, but retreated after a brief long-range cannonade. Nasir Jung pursued, and was able to capture Arcot and his nephew, Muzaffar Jung. Following a series of fruitless negotiations and intrigues, Nasir Jung was assassinated by a rebellious soldier. This made Muzaffar Jung nizam and confirmed Chanda Sahib as Nawab of the Carnatic, both with French support. Dupleix was rewarded for French assistance with titled nobility and rule of the nizam's territories south of the Kistna River. His territories were "said to yield an annual revenue of over 350,000 rupees".[32]

Robert Clive was not in southern India for many of these events. In 1750 Clive was afflicted with some sort of nervous disorder, and was sent north to Bengal to recuperate.[33] It was there that he met and befriended Robert Orme, who became his principal chronicler and biographer. He returned to Madras in 1751.

Siege of Arcot

Main article: Siege of Arcot


Clive at the siege of Arcot (1751)

In the summer of 1751, Chanda Sahib left Arcot to besiege Muhammed Ali Khan Wallajah at Trichinopoly. This placed the British at Madras in a precarious position, since the latter was the last of their major allies in the area. The British company's military was also in some disarray, as Stringer Lawrence had returned to England in 1750 over a pay dispute, and much of the company was apathetic about the dangers the expanding French influence and declining British influence posed. The weakness of the British military command was exposed when a force was sent from Madras to support Muhammed Ali at Trichinopoly, but its commander, a Swiss mercenary, refused to attack an outpost at Valikondapuram. Clive, who accompanied the force as commissary, was outraged at the decision to abandon the siege. He rode to Cuddalore, and offered his services to lead an attack on Arcot if he was given a captain's commission, arguing this would force Chanda Sahib to either abandon the siege of Trichinopoly or significantly reduce the force there.

Madras and Fort St David could supply him with only 200 Europeans, 300 sepoys, and three small cannons; furthermore, of the eight officers who led them, four were civilians like Clive, and six had never been in action. Clive, hoping to surprise the small garrison at Arcot, made a series of forced marches, including some under extremely rainy conditions. Although he did fail to achieve surprise, the garrison, hearing of the march being made under such arduous conditions, opted to abandon the fort and town; Clive occupied Arcot without firing a shot.

The fort was a rambling structure with a dilapidated wall a mile long (too long for his small force to effectively man), and it was surrounded by the densely packed housing of the town. Its moat was shallow or dry, and some of its towers were insufficiently strong to use as artillery mounts. Clive did the best he could to prepare for the onslaught he expected. He made a foray against the fort's former garrison, encamped a few miles away, which had no significant effect. When the former garrison was reinforced by 2,000 men Chanda Sahib sent from Trichinopoly it reoccupied the town on 15 September. That night Clive led most of his force out of the fort and launched a surprise attack on the besiegers. Because of the darkness, the besiegers had no idea how large Clive's force was, and they fled in panic.

The next day Clive learned that heavy guns he had requested from Madras were approaching, so he sent most of his garrison out to escort them into the fort. That night the besiegers, who had spotted the movement, launched an attack on the fort. With only 70 men in the fort, Clive once again was able to disguise his small numbers, and sowed sufficient confusion against his enemies that multiple assaults against the fort were successfully repulsed. That morning the guns arrived, and Chanda Sahib's men again retreated.

Over the next week Clive and his men worked feverishly to improve the defences, aware that another 4,000 men, led by Chanda Sahib's son Raza Sahib and accompanied by a small contingent of French troops, was on its way. (Most of these troops came from Pondicherry, not Trichinopoly, and thus did not have the effect Clive desired of raising that siege.) Clive was forced to reduce his garrison to about 300 men, sending the rest of his force to Madras in case the enemy army decided to go there instead. Raza Sahib arrived at Arcot, and on 23 September occupied the town. That night Clive launched a daring attack against the French artillery, seeking to capture their guns. The attack very nearly succeeded in its object, but was reversed when enemy sniper fire tore into the small British force. Clive himself was targeted on more than one occasion; one man pulled him down and was shot dead. The affair was a serious blow: 15 of Clive's men were killed, and another 15 wounded.

Over the next month the besiegers slowly tightened their grips on the fort. Clive's men were subjected to frequent sniper attacks and disease, lowering the garrison size to 200. He was heartened to learn that some 6,000 Maratha forces had been convinced to come to his relief, but that they were awaiting payment before proceeding. The approach of this force prompted Raza Sahib to demand Clive's surrender; Clive's response was an immediate rejection, and he further insulted Raza Sahib by suggesting that he should reconsider sending his rabble of troops against a British-held position. The siege finally reached critical when Raza Sahib launched an all-out assault against the fort on 14 November. Clive's small force maintained its composure, and established killing fields outside the walls of the fort where the attackers sought to gain entry. Several hundred attackers were killed and many more wounded, while Clive's small force suffered only four British and two sepoy casualties.

The historian Thomas Babington Macaulay wrote a century later of the siege:

... the commander who had to conduct the defence...was a young man of five and twenty, who had been bred as a book-keeper... Clive...had made his arrangements, and, exhausted by fatigue, had thrown himself on his bed. He was awakened by the alarm, and was instantly at his post.... After three desperate onsets, the besiegers retired behind the ditch. The struggle lasted about an hour...the garrison lost only five or six men.[34]

His conduct during the siege made Clive famous in Europe. The Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder described Clive, who had received no formal military training whatsoever, as the "heaven-born general", endorsing the generous appreciation of his early commander, Major Lawrence. The Court of Directors of the East India Company voted him a sword worth £700, which he refused to receive unless Lawrence was similarly honoured.

Clive and Major Lawrence were able to bring the campaign to a successful conclusion. In 1754, the first of the provisional Carnatic treaties was signed between Thomas Saunders, the Company president at Madras, and Charles Godeheu, the French commander who displaced Dupleix. Mohammed Ali Khan Walajah was recognized as Nawab, and both nations agreed to equalize their possessions. When war again broke out in 1756, during Clive's absence in Bengal, the French obtained successes in the northern districts, and it was Mohammed Ali Khan Walajah's efforts which drove them from their settlements. The Treaty of Paris (1763) formally confirmed Mohammed Ali Khan Walajah as Nawab of the Carnatic. It was a result of this action and the increased British influence that in 1765 a firman (decree) came from the Emperor of Delhi, recognizing the British possessions in southern India.

He left Madras for home, after ten years' absence, early in 1753, but not before marrying Margaret Maskelyne, the sister of his friend Nevil Maskelyne who was afterwards well known as Astronomer Royal.

Clive also briefly sat as Member of Parliament for the Cornwall rotten borough of St Michael's, which then returned two Members, from 1754 to 1755.[35] He and his colleague, John Stephenson were later unseated by petition of their defeated opponents, Richard Hussey and Simon Luttrell.[36]

Second journey to India (1755–1760)

Further information: Great Britain in the Seven Years War

In July 1755, Clive returned to India[37] to act as deputy governor of Fort St. David at Cuddalore. He arrived after having lost a considerable fortune en route, as the Doddington, the lead ship of his convoy, was wrecked near Port Elizabeth, losing a chest of gold coins belonging to Clive worth £33,000. Nearly 250 years later in 1998, illegally salvaged coins from Clive's treasure chest were offered for sale,[38] and in 2002 a portion of the coins were given to the South African government after protracted legal wrangling.

Clive, now promoted to lieutenant-colonel in the British Army, took part in the capture of the fortress of Gheriah, a stronghold of the Maratha Admiral Tuloji Angre. The action was led by Admiral James Watson and the British had several ships available, some Royal troops and some Maratha allies. The overwhelming strength of the joint British and Maratha forces ensured that the battle was won with few losses. A fleet surgeon, Edward Ives, noted that Clive refused to take any part of the treasure divided among the victorious forces as was custom at the time.[39]

Fall and recapture of Calcutta (1756–57)

Following this action Clive headed to his post at Fort St. David and it was there he received news of twin disasters for the British. Early in 1756, Siraj Ud Daulah had succeeded his grandfather Alivardi Khan as Nawab of Bengal. In June, Clive received news that the new Nawab had attacked the British at Kasimbazar and shortly afterwards on 20 June he had taken the fort at Calcutta. The losses to the Company because of the fall of Calcutta were estimated by investors at £2,000,000. Those British who were captured were placed in a punishment cell which became infamous as the Black Hole of Calcutta. In stifling summer heat, it was alleged that 123 of the 146 prisoners died as a result of suffocation or heat stroke. While the Black Hole became infamous in Britain, it is debatable whether the Nawab was aware of the incident.[40]

By Christmas 1756, as no response had been received to diplomatic letters to the Nawab, Admiral Charles Watson and Clive were dispatched to attack the Nawab's army and remove him from Calcutta by force. Their first target was the fortress of Baj-Baj which Clive approached by land while Admiral Watson bombarded it from the sea. The fortress was quickly taken with minimal British casualties. Shortly afterwards, on 2 January 1757, Calcutta itself was taken with similar ease.[41]

Approximately a month later, on 3 February 1757, Clive encountered the army of the Nawab itself. For two days, the army marched past Clive's camp to take up a position east of Calcutta. Sir Eyre Coote, serving in the British forces, estimated the enemy's strength as 40,000 cavalry, 60,000 infantry and thirty cannon. Even allowing for overestimation this was considerably more than Clive's force of approximately 540 British infantry, 600 Royal Navy sailors, 800 local sepoys, fourteen field guns and no cavalry. The British forces attacked the Nawab's camp during the early morning hours of 5 February 1757. In this battle, unofficially called the 'Calcutta Gauntlet', Clive marched his small force through the entire Nawab's camp, despite being under heavy fire from all sides. By noon, Clive's force broke through the besieging camp and arrived safely at Fort William. During the assault, around one tenth of the British attackers became casualties. (Clive reported his losses at 57 killed and 137 wounded.) While technically not a victory in military terms, the sudden British assault intimidated the Nawab. He sought to make terms with Clive, and surrendered control of Calcutta on 9 February, promising to compensate the East India Company for damages suffered and to restore its privileges.

War with Siraj Ud Daulah


"9 (Plassey) Battery Royal Artillery" of the British Military.

As Britain and France were once more at war, Clive sent the fleet up the river against the French colony of Chandannagar, while he besieged it by land. There was a strong incentive to capture the colony, as capture of a previous French settlement near Pondicherry had yielded the combined forces prizes valued at £140,000. After consenting to the siege, the Nawab unsuccessfully sought to assist the French. Some officials of the Nawab's court formed a confederacy to depose him. Jafar Ali Khan, also known as Mir Jafar, the Nawab's commander-in-chief, led the conspirators. With Admiral Watson, Governor Drake and Mr. Watts, Clive made a gentlemen's agreement in which it was agreed to give the office of viceroy of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha to Mir Jafar, who was to pay £1,000,000 to the Company for its losses in Calcutta and the cost of its troops, half a million to the British inhabitants of Calcutta, £200,000 to the native inhabitants, and £70,000 to its Armenian merchants.

Clive employed Umichand, a rich Bengali trader, as an agent between Mir Jafar and the British officials. Umichand threatened to betray Clive unless he was guaranteed, in the agreement itself, £300,000. To dupe him a second fictitious agreement was shown to him with a clause to this effect. Admiral Watson refused to sign it. Clive deposed later to the House of Commons that, "to the best of his remembrance, he gave the gentleman who carried it leave to sign his name upon it; his lordship never made any secret of it; he thinks it warrantable in such a case, and would do it again a hundred times; he had no interested motive in doing it, and did it with a design of disappointing the expectations of a rapacious man." It is nevertheless cited as an example of Clive's unscrupulousness.

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Part 2 of 2

Plassey

Main article: Battle of Plassey


Robert Clive, 1st Baron Clive of Plassey, meeting with Mir Jafar after the Battle of Plassey, by Francis Hayman. National Portrait Gallery, London.

The whole hot season of 1757 was spent in negotiations with the Nawab of Bengal. In the middle of June Clive began his march from Chandannagar, with the British in boats and the sepoys along the right bank of the Hooghly River. During the rainy season, the Hooghly is fed by the overflow of the Ganges to the north through three streams, which in the hot months are nearly dry. On the left bank of the Bhagirathi, the most westerly of these, 100 miles (160 km) above Chandernagore, stands Murshidabad, the capital of the Mughal viceroys of Bengal. Some miles farther down is the field of Plassey, then an extensive grove of mango trees.

On 21 June 1757, Clive arrived on the bank opposite Plassey, in the midst of the first outburst of monsoon rain. His whole army amounted to 1,100 Europeans and 2,100 sepoy troops, with nine field-pieces. The Nawab had drawn up 18,000 horse, 50,000-foot and 53 pieces of heavy ordnance, served by French artillerymen. For once in his career Clive hesitated, and called a council of sixteen officers to decide, as he put it, "whether in our present situation, without assistance, and on our own bottom, it would be prudent to attack the Nawab, or whether we should wait till joined by some country (Indian) power." Clive himself headed the nine who voted for delay; Major Eyre Coote led the seven who counselled immediate attack. But, either because his daring asserted itself, or because of a letter received from Mir Jafar, Clive was the first to change his mind and to communicate with Major Eyre Coote. One tradition, followed by Macaulay, represents him as spending an hour in thought under the shade of some trees, while he resolved the issues of what was to prove one of the decisive battles of the world. Another, turned into verse by Sir Alfred Lyall, pictures his resolution as the result of a dream. However that may be, he did well as a soldier to trust to the dash and even rashness that had gained Arcot and triumphed at Calcutta since retreat, or even delay, might have resulted in defeat.

After heavy rain, Clive's 3,200 men and the nine guns crossed the river and took possession of the grove and its tanks of water, while Clive established his headquarters in a hunting lodge. On 23 June, the engagement took place and lasted the whole day, during which remarkably little actual fighting took place. Gunpowder for the cannons of the Nawab were not well protected from rain. That impaired those cannons. Except for the 40 Frenchmen and the guns they worked, the Indian side could do little to reply to the British cannonade (after a spell of rain), which, with the 39th Regiment, scattered the host, inflicting on it a loss of 500 men. Clive had already made a secret agreement with aristocrats in Bengal, including Jagat Seth and Mir Jafar. Clive restrained Major Kilpatrick, for he trusted to Mir Jafar's abstinence, if not desertion to his ranks, and knew the importance of sparing his own small force. He was fully justified in his confidence in Mir Jafar's treachery to his master, for he led a large portion of the Nawab's army away from the battlefield, ensuring his defeat.

Clive lost hardly any European troops; in all 22 sepoys were killed and 50 wounded. It is curious in many ways that Clive is now best-remembered for this battle, which was essentially won by suborning the opposition rather than through fighting or brilliant military tactics. Whilst it established British military supremacy in Bengal, it did not secure the East India Company's control over Upper India, as is sometimes claimed. That would come only seven years later in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar, where Sir Hector Munro defeated the combined forces of the Mughal Emperor and the Nawab of Awadh in a much more closely fought encounter.

Siraj Ud Daulah fled from the field on a camel, securing what wealth he could. He was soon captured by Mir Jafar's forces and later executed by the assassin Mohammadi Beg. Clive entered Murshidabad and established Mir Jafar as Nawab, the price which had been agreed beforehand for his treachery. Clive was taken through the treasury, amid a million and a half sterling's worth of rupees, gold and silver plate, jewels and rich goods, and besought to ask what he would. Clive took £160,000, a vast fortune for the day, while half a million was distributed among the army and navy of the East India Company, and provided gifts of £24,000 to each member of the company's committee, as well as the public compensation stipulated for in the treaty.

In this extraction of wealth Clive followed a usage fully recognized by the company, although this was the source of future corruption which Clive was later sent to India again to correct. The company itself acquired revenue of £100,000 a year, and a contribution towards its losses and military expenditure of a million and a half sterling. Mir Jafar further discharged his debt to Clive by afterwards presenting him with the quit-rent of the company's lands in and around Calcutta, amounting to an annuity of £27,000 for life, and leaving him by will the sum of £70,000, which Clive devoted to the army.

Further campaigns

Battle of Condore

While busy with the civil administration, Clive continued to follow up his military success. He sent Major Coote in pursuit of the French almost as far as Benares. He dispatched Colonel Forde to Vizagapatam and the northern districts of Madras, where Forde won the Battle of Condore (1758), pronounced by Broome "one of the most brilliant actions on military record".

Mughals

Main article: Treaty of Allahabad


The Mughal Emperor Shah Alam II, as a pensioner of the British East India Company, 1781.

Clive came into direct contact with the Mughal himself, for the first time, a meeting which would prove beneficial in his later career. Prince Ali Gauhar escaped from Delhi after his father, the Mughal Emperor Alamgir II, had been murdered by the usurping Vizier Imad-ul-Mulk and his Maratha associate Sadashivrao Bhau.[42]

Prince Ali Gauhar was welcomed and protected by Shuja-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh. In 1760, after gaining control over Bihar, Odisha and some parts of the Bengal, Ali Gauhar and his Mughal Army of 30,000 intended to overthrow Mir Jafar and the Company in order to reconquer the riches of the Eastern Subah's for the Mughal Empire. Ali Gauhar was accompanied by Muhammad Quli Khan, Hidayat Ali, Mir Afzal, Kadim Husein and Ghulam Husain Tabatabai. Their forces were reinforced by the forces of Shuja-ud-Daula and Najib-ud-Daula. The Mughals were also joined by Jean Law and 200 Frenchmen, and waged a campaign against the British during the Seven Years' War.

Prince Ali Gauhar successfully advanced as far as Patna, which he later besieged with a combined army of over 40,000 in order to capture or kill Ramnarian, a sworn enemy of the Mughals. Mir Jafar was terrified at the near demise of his cohort and sent his own son Miran to relieve Ramnarian and retake Patna. Mir Jafar also implored the aid of Robert Clive, but it was Major John Caillaud, who defeated and dispersed Prince Ali Gauhar's army.

Dutch aggression

Clive also repelled the aggression of the Dutch, and avenged the massacre of Amboyna – the occasion when he wrote his famous letter; "Dear Forde, fight them immediately; I will send you the order of council to-morrow". Meanwhile, Clive improved the organization and drill of the sepoy army, after a European model, and enlisted into it many Muslims from upper regions of the Mughal Empire. He re-fortified Calcutta. In 1760, after four years of hard labour, his health gave way and he returned to England. "It appeared", wrote a contemporary on the spot, "as if the soul was departing from the Government of Bengal". He had been formally made Governor of Bengal by the Court of Directors at a time when his nominal superiors in Madras sought to recall him to their help there. But he had discerned the importance of the province even during his first visit to its rich delta, mighty rivers and teeming population. Clive selected some able subordinates, notably a young Warren Hastings, who, a year after Plassey, was made resident at the Nawab's court.

The long-term outcome of Plassey was to place a very heavy revenue burden upon Bengal. The company sought to extract the maximum revenue possible from the peasantry to fund military campaigns, and corruption was widespread amongst its officials. Mir Jafar was compelled to engage in extortion on a vast scale in order to replenish his treasury, which had been emptied by the company's demand for an indemnity of 2.8 crores of rupees (£3 million).[43]

Return to Great Britain

In 1760, the 35-year-old Clive returned to Great Britain with a fortune of at least £300,000 and the quit-rent of £27,000 a year. He financially supported his parents and sisters, while also providing Major Lawrence, the commanding officer who had early encouraged his military genius, with a stipend of £500 a year. In the five years of his conquests and administration in Bengal, the young man had crowded together a succession of exploits that led Lord Macaulay, in what that historian termed his "flashy" essay on the subject, to compare him to Napoleon Bonaparte, declaring that "[Clive] gave peace, security, prosperity and such liberty as the case allowed of to millions of Indians, who had for centuries been the prey of oppression, while Napoleon's career of conquest was inspired only by personal ambition, and the absolutism he established vanished with his fall." Macaulay's ringing endorsement of Clive seems more controversial today, as some would argue that Clive's ambition and desire for personal gain set the tone for the administration of Bengal until the Permanent Settlement 30 years later. The immediate consequence of Clive's victory at Plassey was an increase in the revenue demand on Bengal by at least 20%, much of which was appropriated by Zamindars and corrupt Company Officials, which led to considerable hardship for the rural population, particularly during the famine of 1770.[43]

During the three years that Clive remained in Great Britain, he sought a political position, chiefly that he might influence the course of events in India, which he had left full of promise. He had been well received at court, had been made Baron Clive of Plassey, County Clare, had bought estates, and had a few friends as well as himself returned to the House of Commons. Clive was MP for Shrewsbury from 1761 until his death. He was allowed to sit in the Commons because his peerage was Irish.[36] He was also elected Mayor of Shrewsbury for 1762–63.[44] The non-graduate Clive received an honorary degree as DCL from Oxford University in 1760, and in 1764 he was appointed Knight of the Order of the Bath.[45]

Clive set himself to reform the home system of the East India Company, and began a bitter dispute with the chairman of the Court of Directors, Laurence Sulivan, whom he defeated in the end. In this he was aided by the news of reverses in Bengal. Mir Jafar had finally rebelled over payments to British officials, and Clive's successor had put Kasim Ali Khan, Mir Jafar's son-in-law upon the musnud (throne). After a brief tenure, Kasim Ali had fled, ordering Walter Reinhardt Sombre (known to the Muslims as Sumru), a Swiss mercenary of his, to butcher the garrison of 150 British at Patna, and had disappeared under the protection of his brother, the Viceroy of Awadh. The whole company's service, civil and military, had become mired in corruption, demoralized by gifts and by the monopoly of inland and export trade, to such an extent that the Indians were pauperised, and the Company was plundered of the revenues Clive had acquired. For this Clive himself must bear much responsibility, as he had set a very poor example during his tenure as Governor. Nevertheless, the Court of Proprietors, forced the Directors to hurry Lord Clive to Bengal with the double powers of Governor and Commander-in-Chief.

Third journey to India


Clive meeting with Emperor Shah Alam II, 1765

On 3 May 1765 Clive landed at Calcutta to learn that Mir Jafar had died, leaving him personally £70,000. Mir Jafar was succeeded by his son-in-law Kasim Ali, though not before the government had been further demoralized by taking £100,000 as a gift from the new Nawab; while Kasim Ali had induced not only the viceroy of Awadh, but the emperor of Delhi himself, to invade Bihar. At this point a mutiny in the Bengal army occurred, which was a grim precursor of the Indian rebellion of 1857, but on this occasion it was quickly suppressed by blowing the sepoy ringleader from a gun. Major Munro, "the Napier of those times", scattered the united armies on the hard-fought field of Buxar. The emperor, Shah Alam II, detached himself from the league, while the Awadh viceroy threw himself on the mercy of the British.


Miniature of Al-Khidr, from the "Small Clive Album" thought to have been given to Clive on his 1765–67 visit to India by Shuja ud-Daula, the Nawab of Awadh. The Album contains 62 folia of Mughal miniature paintings, drawing and floral pattern studies. The binding is from Indian brocade silk brought home by the 2nd Lord Clive, who served as Governor of Madras, 1799 to 1803. Acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum in 1956.

Clive had now an opportunity of repeating in Hindustan, or Upper India, what he had accomplished in Bengal. He might have secured what is now called Uttar Pradesh, and have rendered unnecessary the campaigns of Wellesley and Lake. But he believed he had other work in the exploitation of the revenues and resources of rich Bengal itself, making it a base from which British India would afterwards steadily grow. Hence he returned to the Awadh viceroy all his territory save the provinces of Allahabad and Kora, which he presented to the weak emperor.

Mughal Firman

In return for the Awadhian provinces Clive secured from the emperor one of the most important documents in British history in India, effectively granting title of Bengal to Clive. It appears in the records as "firman from the King Shah Aalum, granting the diwani rights of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha to the Company 1765." The date was 12 August 1765, the place Benares, the throne an English dining-table covered with embroidered cloth and surmounted by a chair in Clive's tent. It is all pictured by a Muslim contemporary, who indignantly exclaims that so great a "transaction was done and finished in less time than would have been taken up in the sale of a jackass". By this deed the company became the real sovereign rulers of thirty million people, yielding a revenue of four millions sterling.

On the same date Clive obtained not only an imperial charter for the company's possessions in the Carnatic, completing the work he began at Arcot, but a third firman for the highest of all the lieutenancies of the empire, that of the Deccan itself. This fact is mentioned in a letter from the secret committee of the court of directors to the Madras government, dated 27 April 1768. The British presence in India was still tiny compared to the number and strength of the princes and people of India, but also compared to the forces of their ambitious French, Dutch and Danish rivals. Clive had this in mind when he penned his last advice to the directors, as he finally left India in 1767:

"We are sensible that, since the acquisition of the dewany, the power formerly belonging to the soubah of those provinces is totally, in fact, vested in the East India Company. Nothing remains to him but the name and shadow of authority. This name, however, this shadow, it is indispensably necessary we should seem to venerate."

Attempts at administrative reform

Having thus founded the Empire of British India, Clive sought to put in place a strong administration. The salaries of civil servants were increased, the acceptance of gifts from Indians was forbidden, and Clive exacted covenants under which participation in the inland trade was stopped. Unfortunately this had very little impact in reducing corruption, which remained widespread until the days of Warren Hastings. Clive's military reforms were more effective. He put down a mutiny of the British officers, who chose to resent the veto against receiving presents and the reduction of batta (extra pay) at a time when two Maratha armies were marching on Bengal. His reorganisation of the army, on the lines of that which he had begun after Plassey, neglected during his absence in Great Britain, subsequently attracted the admiration of Indian officers. He divided the whole army into three brigades, making each a complete force, in itself equal to any single Indian army that could be brought against it.[46][47]

Retirement and death

Clive left India for the last time in February 1767. In 1768, he lived for a time at the Chateau de Larzac in Pézenas in the Hérault département of the Languedoc-Roussillon region in southern France. Local tradition says that he was responsible for introducing the local pastry makers of Pézenas to a sweet pastry, Le petit pâté de Pézenas, the size and shape of a large cotton reel with a sweet centre, and that he (or, more likely, his chef) had brought the recipe from India as a refined version of the savoury keema naan.[48] Pézenas is now known for these delicacies.


Plaque in memory of Lord Clive in Pézenas (France)

Later in 1768, Clive was made a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS).[45]

In 1769, he acquired the house and gardens at Claremont near Esher and commissioned Lancelot "Capability" Brown to remodel the garden and rebuild the house.

In 1772 Parliament opened an inquiry into the Company's practices in India. Clive's political opponents turned these hearings into attacks on Clive. Questioned about some of the large sums of money he had received while in India, Clive pointed out that they were not contrary to accepted company practice, and defended his behaviour by stating "I stand astonished at my own moderation" given opportunities for greater gain. The hearings highlighted the need for reform of the Company, and a vote to censure Clive for his actions failed. Later in 1772, Clive was appointed Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath (eight years after his knighthood had been awarded),[45] and was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Shropshire.

There was a great famine in Bengal between 1769 and 1773, which reduced the population of Bengal by a third. It was argued that the activities and aggrandizement of company officials was to blame for the famine, particularly the abuse of monopoly rights on trade and land tax used for the personal benefit of company officials.[49][50] These revelations and the subsequent debates in parliament reduced Clive's political fortunes considerably.

Clive continued to be involved in ongoing Parliamentary discussions on company reforms. During these, in 1773, General John Burgoyne, one of Clive's most vocal enemies, pressed the case that some of Clive's gains were made at the expense of the Company and the government. Clive again made a spirited defence of his actions, and closed his testimony by stating "Take my fortune, but save my honour." The vote that followed completely exonerated Clive, who was commended for the "great and meritorious service" he rendered to the country. Immediately thereafter Parliament began debating the Regulating Act of 1773, which significantly reformed the East India Company's practices.

On 22 November 1774 Clive died, aged forty-nine, at his Berkeley Square home in London. There was no inquest on his death and it was variously alleged he had stabbed himself or cut his throat with a penknife or had taken an overdose of opium, while a few newspapers reported his death as due to an apoplectic fit or stroke.[51] One 20th-century biographer, John Watney, concluded: "He did not die from a self-inflicted wound...He died of a heart attack brought on by an overdose of drugs".[52] Though Clive's demise has been linked to his history of depression and to opium addiction, the likely immediate impetus was excruciating pain resulting from illness (he was known to suffer from gallstones) which he had been attempting to abate with opium. Shortly beforehand, he had been offered command of British forces in North America which he had turned down.[53] He was buried in St Margaret's Parish Church at Moreton Say, near his birthplace in Shropshire.

Clive was awarded an Irish peerage in 1762, being created Baron Clive of Plassey, County Clare; he bought lands in County Limerick and County Clare, Ireland, naming part of his lands near Limerick City, Plassey. Following Irish independence, these lands became state property. In the 1970s a technical college, which later became the University of Limerick, was built at Plassey.

Family


George Clive and his family with an Indian maid, painted by Joshua Reynolds, 1765

Robert Clive married Margaret Maskelyne (d. 28 December 1817[33]) on 18 February 1753,[33] sister of the Rev. Dr Nevil Maskelyne, fifth Astronomer Royal, in Madras. They had nine children:

• Edward Clive, 1st Earl of Powis (b. 7 March 1754 d. 16 May 1839)
• Rebecca Clive (b. 15 September 1760 bapt 10 October 1760 Moreton Say d. December 1795, married in 1780 to Lt-Gen John Robinson of Denston Hall Suffolk, MP (d. 1798.)
• Charlotte Clive (b. 19 January 1762 d. unm 20 October 1795)
• Margaret Clive (bapt 18 September 1763 Condover, Shropshire d. June 1814 married 11 April 1780 Lt-Col Lambert Theodore Walpole (d. in Wexford Rebellion 1798)
• Elizabeth Clive (bapt 18 November 1764 Condover d. young))
• Richard Clive (d. young)
• Robert Clive (d. young)
• Robert Clive Jnr (b. 14 August 1769 d. unm 28 July 1833), Lt-Col.
• Jane Clive (d. young)

Criticism

While Clive was loyal to his employers, the British East India Company, some of his actions resulted in the plundering of Indian treasures and also in famines caused by policies disastrous to local Indian farm production. The historian William Dalrymple has called Clive an "unstable sociopath", due to these policies and his actions leading to famines and other atrocities towards native populations in Bengal. Changes caused by Clive to the revenue system and existing agricultural practices, to maximize profits for the East India Company, led to the Bengal Famine of 1770 and increased poverty in Bengal.[54]

Legacy

• Robert Clive's desk from his time at Market Drayton Grammar School is on display at Market Drayton museum complete with his carved initials.
• Robert Clive's pet Aldabra giant tortoise died on 23 March 2006 in the Kolkata zoo. The tortoise, whose name was "Adwaita" (meaning the "One and Only" in Bengali), appeared to be 150–250 years old. Adwaita had been in the zoo since the 1870s and the zoo's documentation showed that he came from Clive's estate in India[55]
• A statue of Clive stands in the main square in the market town of Shrewsbury, as well as a later one in King Charles Street near St James's Park, London.
• Clive is a Senior Girls house at the Duke of York's Royal Military School, where, as at Welbeck college, all houses are named after prominent military figures.
• Clive Road, in West Dulwich, London, commemorates Baron Clive[56] despite being so named close to a century after his death. Following the completion of the relocation of The Crystal Palace from Hyde Park to what is now Upper Norwood in 1854, the West End of London and Crystal Palace Railway was opened on 10 June 1854 to cope with crowds visiting the Crystal Palace. This led to a huge increase in employment in the area and a subsequent increase in the building of residential properties. Many of the new roads were named after eminent figures in Britain's imperial history, such as Robert Clive.
• There is a settlement named after Clive in the Hawke's Bay province of New Zealand.
• A bestselling children's novel of the 1800s, G. A. Henty's With Clive in India: Or, the Beginnings of an Empire celebrated Clive's life and career from a pro-British point of view.
• The film Clive of India was released in 1935, and starred Ronald Colman, Loretta Young, and Colin Clive, his descendant.[57]
• 'Clive' is a house at Merchant Taylors' School, Northwood where he was a student for seven years before his expulsion. Members can be distinguished by their red striped ties.
• Robert Clive established the first slaughterhouse of India in Calcutta in 1760.[58]
• 'Clive of India' is a brand of curry powder manufactured in Australia by McKenzie's Foods.
• Clive is now established as a male first name in English-speaking countries.
• Lord Clive was a ship that was sunk in front of the city of Colonia del Sacramento by Spanish fire during an Anglo-Portuguese attack in the Rio de la Plata in 1763. Its wreck was located in 2004 by diver Ruben Collado.[59]

Notes

1. "CLIVE, Robert (1725-74), of Styche Hall, nr. Market Drayton, Salop; subsequently of Walcot Park, Salop; Claremont, Surr.; and Oakley Park, Salop". The History of Parliament.
2. "Robert Clive - Biography, papers and letters written by him". http://www.britishonlinearchives.co.uk. British Onlive Archives. Retrieved 8 June 2017.
3. Charles Messenger, ed., Reader's Guide to Military History (2001) pp 112-13.
4. Dalrymple, William (4 March 2015). "The East India Company: The Original Corporate Raiders". The Guardian. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
5. Moxham, Roy. "Lecture : THE EAST INDIA COMPANY'S SEIZURE OF BENGAL AND HOW THIS LED TO THE GREAT BENGAL FAMINE OF 1770". You Tube. Brick Lane Circle. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
6. Arbuthnot, p. 1
7. Jump up to:a b Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Clive, Robert Clive, Baron" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 532–536.
8. Harvey (1998), p. 11
9. Harvey (1998), p. 10
10. (Malleson 1893, p. 9)
11. Arbuthnot, p. 2
12. (Malleson 1893, p. 10)
13. Treasure, p. 196
14. Harvey (1998), pp. 18–21
15. Harvey (1998), pp. 23–24
16. Harvey (1998), p. 30
17. Harvey (1998), pp. 24–29
18. (Malleson 1893, pp. 16–32)
19. Harvey (1998), pp. 29–30
20. Harvey (1998), p. 31
21. (Malleson 1893, p. 35)
22. Harvey (1998), pp. 31–34
23. (Malleson 1893, p. 38)
24. Harvey (1998), pp. 35–36
25. Harvey (1998), p. 39
26. Jump up to:a b Harvey (1998), p. 41
27. Harvey (1998), p. 42
28. (Malleson 1893, pp. 40–41)
29. Harvey (1998), p. 46
30. Harvey (1998), pp. 46–47
31. Harvey (1998), pp. 47–48
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36. "CLIVE, Robert (1725-74), of Styche Hall, nr. Market Drayton, Salop; subsequently of Walcot Park, Salop; Claremont, Surr.; and Oakley Park, Salop". History of Parliament Online. Retrieved 8 September2017.
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38. Russell, Alec (9 October 1997). "South Africa seeks its share of Clive's treasure trove". The Telegraph. Retrieved 23 November 2008.[dead link]
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40. H.E. Busteed, Echoes from Old Calcutta (Calcutta), 1908, pp.30–56.
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45. Jump up to:a b c Gibbs, Vicary (Editor) (1912). The Complete Peerage, Volume III. St Catherine's Press. p. 326.
46. Curzon, G.N. Complete book online - British Government in India: The Story of Viceroys and Government Houses. Retrieved 22 March 2019.
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References

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• Mark Bence-Jones (1974). Clive of India. Constable & Robinson Limited. ISBN 978-0-09-459830-0.
• Chaudhuri, Nirad C. Robert Clive of India: A Political and Psychological Essay (1975).
• Faught, C. Brad (2013). Clive: Founder of British India. (Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc.).
• Harrington, Jack (2010), Sir John Malcolm and the Creation of British India, ch. 6, New York: Palgrave Macmillan., ISBN 978-0-230-10885-1
• Harvey, Robert A Few Bloody Noses: The American Revolutionary War. Constable & Robinson, 2004.
• Harvey, Robert. Clive: The life and Death of a British Emperor. Hodder and Stoughton, 1998.
• Alfred Mervyn Davies (1939). Clive of Plassey: A Biography. C. Scribner's sons.
• Michael Edwardes The Battle of Plassey and the Conquest of Bengal (London) 1963
• P. J. Marshall (1987). Bengal, The British Bridgehead: Eastern India 1740-1828. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-25330-7.
• Treasure, Geoffrey (2002). Who's Who in Early Hanoverian Britain, 1714–1789. Stackpole Books. ISBN 0-8117-1643-0.
• Bowen, H. V. "Clive, Robert". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5697.(Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Arbuthnot, Alexander John (1887). "Clive, Robert" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. 11. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Clive, Robert Clive, Baron". Encyclopædia Britannica. 6 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 532–536.
• Baynes, T.S., ed. (1875–1889). "Robert Clive" . Encyclopædia Britannica (9th ed.). New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

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The Pygmy Farm
by The Chronicles
January 13, 2005

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A group of people who called themselves the Pygmies discovered Rinpoche and started to hang out at the house. They had a commune east of Boulder, and their motto was, "We're bodhisattvas, and we live on East Arapahoe." They were long-haired and unkempt, and they lived in tents most of the year, which wasn't all that unusual for those times. There were a lot of people living pseudo-tribal lifestyles in those days. I don't know how the Pygmies lived in the winter, but they seemed quite cheerful in all kinds of weather. Some of them pitched their tents around the house for a while, as I remember [early 1971]. I became good friends with a number of them.....

To me, one particular occasion marks the change in my life that came with the birth of my first child. When Taggie was only two weeks old, Rinpoche left for several days to investigate buying a piece of land in the mountains above Fort Collins.

Before this, I almost always accompanied him when he traveled, and it was quite a shock when I realized that I was going to stay behind. Rinpoche would have welcomed my company, but tramping around in the snow in the Rocky Mountains in March with an infant made no sense. So I decided to stay home with Taggie. However, I felt abandoned and somewhat afraid of being home alone with the baby. When Rinpoche left, I was crying, sobbing actually. The house had been full of people ever since I'd arrived in Boulder. Now, for the first time, it was empty. A few people came by to visit and help out, but I was alone most of the time.

When Rinpoche came back, he said, "We're going to buy some land," and he was really happy about it. I was really happy to see him. I had no idea how significant it was that Rinpoche had located this land. The land he had discovered became the future home of the Rocky Mountain Dharma Center, now renamed Shambhala Mountain Center. In his mind, establishing a rural practice center in Colorado was a crucial step. He wanted a place in the western United States, similar to Tail of the Tiger in the east, where he could teach intensive seminars outside of the speed and confusion of the city. He also wanted a center with a lot of land where his students could do intensive group practice as well as solitary retreats. Later, he talked about the establishment of Rocky Mountain Dharma Center as the key to making meditation the foundation of his students' experience.

Rinpoche had great faith in the students from those early days. He always saw their workability. He invited the Pygmies to move to RMDC and help settle the land, because he could see their strength and their resilience. They were used to difficult living situations without many amenities, so they took to the land quite easily. They built a number of houses there, some of them quite strange, idiosyncratic constructions that are still there. They weren't great meditators at that time, but many of them have become so. In part, this is because he believed in them. He saw so much potential in everyone.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian

In the late 1960s a group of friends from various parts of the country met in San Francisco and (when one of them happened to find a cheap farm for rent) moved to Boulder where they evolved into a communal family in the style of the day. By the time Rinpoche arrived in the fall of 1970, the Pygmies (as they became known) were well established in the hippy-American dream: They had a garden, made and sold leather goods, dabbled in yoga and meditation, and their numbers where growing. I found these rare photographs of the Pygmies in Michael McLellan’s photo album when I visited him at his home in Dedham, Massachusetts last week. These shots were taken at the Pygmy Farm east of Boulder in 1969 or 1970, before they met Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche.


The Pygmy Farm east of Boulder, circa 1969.

Soon after he arrived in Boulder, Rinpoche accepted an invitation to dinner at the Pygmy Farm. He sat on the floor with the tribe as they all held hands and chanted OM (very loudly) before dinner. Most of the Pygmies became early students and Rinpoche put their youthful communal energy to good use. When they lost their lease on the farm, he helped them look for a new home — a search that ended with the purchase of a remote mountain valley, now known as Shambhala Mountain Center. How this land was found and settled, and how Rinpoche worked with the Pygmies to establish a practice and retreat center is a really interesting story that I’m looking forward to researching further.


Some of the Pygmies at home.

Happily off the road (for now),
Walter

PS. If you have a photograph of the Pygmies, please send me a scan or a copy or just let me know you have it. (We can figure out how to copy it later.)

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Gold Lake Oil
by Tom Bell
December 12, 2006

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CT Business Card for Gold Lake

A sangha-owned oil and gas company

It’s been twenty-five years since Gold Lake Oil folded and Rinpoche said, at the end of our last meeting: “I still have faith that something will happen in the future, but maybe our ambition killed the whole thing.” In this article, I would like to begin to tell the story of Gold Lake Oil. Needless to say, this is my own version of events that took place, and I hope others will chime in, correct any errors and add memories of their own.

Gold Lake Oil started quite simply. At the first Kalapa Assembly, Rinpoche gave a commentary on the Letter of the Golden Key Which Fulfills Desire, one of the root Shambhala texts, which he received as terma. In his talk on October 15, 1978, he introduced the notion of yün or inherent richness. During the question period for this talk he was asked to speak further about yün, and as part of his answer Rinpoche said:

Maybe we should have an expedition to go hunting for yün—and if we dig further, we might find oil. It’s possible, you know. I have already found water at Karme Chöling. That actually was based on the same principle. It’s projecting, looking for yün. Remember the story? Maybe we should tell people. Maybe Bill should tell it.

William McKeever: When we were building the extension at Karme Chöling, and we needed a new water system for the added population, we employed about three well companies in the area to find the proper spot. None of them agreed, but they began digging—at seven dollars a foot. And after three dry holes and several thousand dollars, somebody thought of asking the Vajracarya where we should dig the well. He picked a spot when he was there, and said to go down about two hundred feet, I believe, and that we should get a lot of water. Well, we went down about two hundred feet and hit next to nothing, and thought of stopping. The well drillers had their pride and wanted to find another hole. I happened to be out in Boulder at the time, and the Vajracharya said, “I think you should go a little further,” which sounded like the usual advice. So we decided to give it a try, and went about twenty feet further and hit one of the highest producing wells in the whole county. The well drillers couldn’t quite figure it out: it was about fifteen feet from a site they had drilled previously and hit nothing. But it seemed to have worked quite well. I asked Rinpoche how he picked the spot and he said it was very easy. He said that just as we can see an emotion on somebody’s face, he could just look at the land and see where the water was. It is hard to understand, but it seemed to work quite well.

-- Excerpted from COLLECTED KALAPA ASSMBLIES, page 66. Used here by permission of Vajradhatu Publications and Diana Mukpo. © 2007 by Diana J. Mukpo.

John Roper was in the audience for this talk and called me the next day. I returned his call from a pay phone in South Texas. He knew that I had just found work in the oil business and thought that I might be interested in exploring for oil with Trungpa Rinpoche. I immediately said that I would try to help through my connections with Craig Thompson, who is a fellow sangha member and a friend, and his father, John R. Thompson, who is quite successful in the oil and gas exploration business in Texas. Internally my reaction to making the commitment to explore for oil was something like panic (actually it was panic) as I had just found work that looked like it would provide a good, steady income for my family (which included our son who was born at RMDC and was soon to include a new baby girl) and now I had agreed to start actually exploring for oil instead of simply getting paid to help others explore for oil. Now I had to start thinking in terms of hundreds of thousands of dollars instead of thousands of dollars. Suddenly the risks were much larger.

When Rinpoche arrived in Colorado in the fall, his students rented a small cabin for him in the mountains above Boulder, near an old mining town called Gold Hill. It was quite spartan, almost what you would call a stone hut. There was no indoor plumbing, just an outhouse. Rinpoche hadn't lived in a place like this since he'd left Tibet more than ten years ago. People may have thought a Tibetan lama would be more comfortable in a simple mountain setting. This might have been more a reflection of his students' hippie aspirations than an accurate reading of who he was at this point. On the other hand, it was by no means a hovel, and he told me that he enjoyed himself there. The house was on a beautiful piece of property, with a view of the Continental Divide in the distance. It was owned by a family that had spent years in the foreign service in Asia. This was their summerhouse, which they named Gunung Mas, which is Burmese, I believe.

-- Dragon Thunder: My Life with Chogyam Trungpa, by Diana J. Mukpo with Carolyn Rose Gimian

Actually, the oil and gas industry was the last thing I thought would become a part of my life. In 1966, six years before I became a Buddhist, I dropped out of graduate school, rejected an offer from the U.S. State Department to become a Foreign Service Officer, and became a full-time activist—working for peace, civil rights, and the environment. Yet here I was being invited into the oil and gas industry as more than just an employee and hearing myself say “yes” without much hesitation. What had changed? I (like most of my friends in the community) was eager to work more closely with Rinpoche, to be a part of his vast project of bringing dharma to the West. So I suppose you could say it was a mixture of devotion and ambition. In any case, I was already working within the system that I had rejected during my activist days, and now I was about to move much more deeply into that world.

John Roper was my good friend, and also a Vajradhatu board member and the lawyer for the organization. He was willing to help with the legalities of exploring for oil and he was also willing to invest in the idea. He became the attorney for our exploration company, soon to be called Gold Lake Oil, and he did the legal work to set up a limited partnership with a group of investers who wanted to share in the journey, and were willing to take on part of the financial risk.

Within our business activities, Trungpa Rinpoche asked us to refer to him simply as Mr. Mukpo, his family name. He said that this would be in keeping with business tradition. On February 12, 1979, Mr. Mukpo hosted a group of sangha members at his home, the Kalapa Court, in Boulder. These were people who had expressed an interest in investing with Gold Lake. This meeting followed the first Gold Lake exploration trip to West Texas. At that time, Mr. Mukpo said:

Obviously, it is based on, as far as I am concerned, my own intuition and faith and delight in getting into this particular business . . . I would like to say that I feel extremely good about the oil business. Also, I would like to say that I have had my resistance in the past in connection with this kind of project, which seemed to be based on abusing the land and becoming rich quick. All sorts of neurosis could be involved with those kinds of situations. But by visiting the particular land that we have seen, I felt extremely good because I feel that our project and our endeavor is real. We are not particularly abusing anything at all. It is like cutting flowers and putting them in a vase.

There still is that sense of moral question, however. There is still the issue of how much we abuse the land and try to get as much as we could and then just leave pure garbage behind. That is my basic and very, very main concern. A lot of examples of Americana have happened in that way, not only in abusing land but how we abuse people at the same time. When people are useful they are cherished and when they are lacking inspiration and useless we kick them out and they may become unemployed. So there is a big concern overall about the whole thing—how we work with our land, how we work with our particular project connected with the land. It is like when we built retreat huts at Karme Chöling and Rocky Mountain Dharma Center. We tried to build those huts as best we could so that we did not rape the land but rather so that we could somehow balance the situation together with what exists in the environment.

On that particular idea, that you are not abusing the land but you are cherishing and bringing something out of the land, that was one of my passionate feelings when we went to Texas and were looking at these oil fields. The whole thing was extremely good. That particular place we saw with the juniper bush was a very interesting experience. It was very uplifting and felt good. You are making a relationship with earth. However, that may be philosophy. The intuition that is involved with that is not particularly 100% security for your investing in it. I should say that definitely. So please be careful, considerate. Still, the atmosphere when you open your mind to oil and the possibilities of it, instead of aggression and depression, I felt extremely uplifted and fresh, very fresh and extremely good, extremely good.

-- Unpublished remarks by Chögyam Trungpa used by permission of Diana J. Mukpo. Transcribed from recording of Gold Lake investors meeting, February 12, 1979.

Tom Bell and CT Mukpo in Abilene, TX

My wife, Jacquie, had just received a small inheritance from her grandparents and Craig and Karen Thompson had some money available so we decided to pool our resources and start to explore for oil with Rinpoche. We started by showing him maps of drilling prospects in the Abilene area of West Texas that had been leased by John R. Thompson’s company, along with maps showing the location of a drilling prospect that Craig Thompson had identified, without yet securing the drilling rights. Good traditional geologic arguments could be made for the existence of commercial levels of petroleum in the subsurface rock formations of each of these prospects. Rinpoche found the maps to be very interesting and wanted to go to the locations and walk on the land so that he could feel the energy of the place and see the land itself. His approach to finding oil and gas is hard to characterize, but it had a lot to do with relating to the fundamental energies of the land. At one point, he referred to this as invoking and following drala.


Tom Bell and CT Mukpo on an oil prospect in West Texas

We organized the first of what would become a series of oil exploration trips to the Abilene area of West Texas. There was one prospect that particularly interested Rinpoche. His interest was perked initially by the landowner’s name on the map. The name was “Bright”—Icy Bright, as it turned out. When we visited this land, he liked it very much. The land lay between two hills that seemed to make an appropriate formation and there was a juniper bush that was auspiciously placed. He told us, “Drill here.” We placed a stake in the ground at that exact spot, and he said, “Feels good.” He also selected drilling sites on two additional prospects during this first trip, but our initial efforts focused on what became known as the Juniper Bush/Two Hills prospect located on Bright family lands then owned by Mrs. Icy Bright of Tyler, Texas.

Everything seemed very ordinary on our exploration trips. Rinpoche would sometimes doze off in the car as we traveled from one prospect to the other. There did not seem to be any expectation that we would ask dharma questions, or engage in discussions about the teachings. Traveling with Rinpoche in this simple way was completely enjoyable. He made a point of giving a good tip at the diners where we would eat, and of being friendly with the people we would meet, such as the waitresses or the landowners. He talked about the importance of always telling the truth with our investors and in our business relationships generally. He had ideas for uplifted offices and a good logo for the company. It seems that all of these things were part of invoking and following drala, but that was not explicitly stated—these were simply the right ways to do good business.

If I had thought about it . . . if I had even had a glimpse of my own naivete in terms of both dharma and business, I might have been too afraid to even try to find oil in Texas. But at the time, I thought of myself as a good and devoted student. I was halfway through my Vajrayogini practice; I had been the head of practice and study at RMDC; I was a teacher and a meditation instructor. So, full of pride and ambition, with great faith in Mr. Mukpo’s ability to make things work, I found myself sitting on the ground with my stop watch, waiting to confirm the presence of oil thousands of feet below my bum.

At the signal from Rinpoche, Mr. Perks would detonate the explosives

I was sitting there engaged in a particular form of seismic testing that Rinpoche had invented for Gold Lake. After he would select a likely drilling location for oil, he would ask the company managers and investors who were traveling with him to sit with him in a circle on the ground around the possible drilling location. John Perks would place a circle of small explosive charges around the group with an electric wire connecting them so that they could be detonated simultaneously. At the signal from Rinpoche, Mr. Perks would detonate the explosives, creating an experience of instant nonthought for the entire group inside the circle, followed instantly by fear of hearing loss. We would then quickly start our stopwatches, focus on the feeling of our butts pressing against the earth, and wait for the sound vibrations to bounce off the oil reservoir and return to the surface where we could feel them. When these vibrations appeared, we would press the stopwatches again to record the elapsed time. If we mostly had the same elapsed time it would confirm our experience of the vibrations. The idea was that, if the location lacked oil, we would not feel any returning vibrations and that the longer the time it took for the vibrations to return, the deeper the oil reservoir was from the surface.


The Gold Lake exploration crew at work

Rinpoche would have liked us to drill the Juniper Bush/Two Hills prospect first, but it turned out that the lease rights to drill a well on the prospect were not readily available. It took more than two years to put these leases together. In the meantime, we acquired a working interest in several other prospects that were drilled. One of these was completed for production but never produced commercial quantities of petroleum. Gold Lake was not the operator (the company that actually did the drilling) on any of these early prospects.

However, when the leases for the Juniper Bush/Two Hills prospect (later known as the Bright #1 Well) were finally secured, Gold Lake Oil served as the operating company. This gave us control over certain events that were important to us. We were able to make sure that the drilling took place on the exact spot Rinpoche asked us to stake during his first visit to the site. We were able to do a lhasang ceremony at the time when the ground was first being entered by the drill bit, and to put offering rice into the initial hole drilled for the surface casing. With this ceremony, we were formalizing our intentions. We were inviting the dralas to come to this place, to work with our machines, and to help by bringing forth the wealth of the earth for the benefit of all beings. Rinpoche composed a chant for this occasion. [See liturgy below.] The rice we put in the hole was given to Rinpoche by His Holiness the Sixteenth Karmapa for this express purpose. We were also able to camp on the site while the well was being drilled and to help catch and analyze the geological samples to see how the drilling was progressing, and if the samples contained petroleum.


© 2007 by Diana J. Mukpo, used here with her permission

It was an interesting kind of meditation retreat to live in a tent next to a drilling rig that operates twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The sounds that are associated with keeping the drill bit turning to the right become a way of life. Listening for subtle changes that indicate moving from one rock formation to another—formations with different densities and/or hardness—holds one’s attention like few other objects of meditation in my experience. The routine included watching the process while the drilling crew (commonly known as roughnecks) added another length of drill pipe every thirty feet as the well deepened. Watching this process, I got to know the roughnecks a bit and learned more about the drilling process from them. I learned, for example, that rattlesnakes are naturally attracted to the vibrations created in the earth by the drilling process, and that the roughnecks had a little side business of catching rattlesnakes and selling them for meat.

Our main target was the Gray Sandstone formation with a secondary target of the Morris Sandstone formation. Both of these rock formations were known to be porous and permeable enough to be good reservoir rocks for oil and gas in this area. These formations were also overlain by non-permeable rock formations that provided a good trap for the petroleum, so it could not leak upward out of the reservoir formation. Both of these formations had been found to give good production levels in the area where we were exploring. To get a producing well in these formations one needs to find a place which is like the top of an old hill, now buried under thousands of feet of newer rocks. We had the electronic logs from nearby wells that had been drilled both with and without finding commercial production. These logs showed the depth of the various formations that we would be drilling through and thus provided markers, like a vertical map, so that we could tell if we were running high or low to these marker wells. The samples that we gathered and analyzed helped us to confirm what formation we were drilling through at the time.

” …drill deeper…”

As we came near to the Gray Sand, our anticipation was a solid thing. We collected the samples and noted the change of drilling speed. Analysis of this showed that we were running high to nearby dry holes, but low to nearby producing wells. We had not hit oil or gas in our target formations but we had encouraging signs that we were drilling on the slope of these formations and that there might be “higher ground,” so to speak, if we went deeper. There was a largely unexplored potential below our target zones called the Ellenberger formation. The Ellenberger was starting to create interest in the area and some producing wells had been found there. We had the example of the water well at Karme Chöling where, by going deeper, excellent water had been found. Mr. Mukpo, who we talked with regularly by phone whenever we were drilling, thought it would be a good idea to drill deeper to the Ellenberger, which was right above the granite bedrock and therefore the deepest possible production zone in this area. It was about 4,500 feet below the surface. So we drilled deeper.

It was slow going as there was a conglomerate formation above the Ellenberger that was very difficult to drill through. It was taking at least ten minutes per foot to go through this rock. The drilling is measured on graph paper attached to a rotating drum. A mechanical pen draws a line across the graph each time the drill bit makes it through another foot of rock. There is a distinctive set of sounds associated with the process of the drill bit going deeper. By this time it was impossible for me to not hear that set of sounds standing out in the midst of all the myriad of other sounds of the rig. All of a sudden the rig started to drill at three minutes per foot. This would be the top of the Ellenberger, and it sounded porous. After three feet of this faster drilling I asked the driller to stop so that we could get a proper test of the top of the zone. It takes awhile for the samples to come up from 4,500 feet and it is good to look at them before drilling deep into the formation.

It definitely looked like we had struck it rich.

The samples from the Ellenberger showed petroleum. It was time for a drill stem test. The roughnecks raised the drill pipe and lowered a test chamber down the hole. Before the test chamber was opened, a hose was run from the pipe to a bucket of water so that we could tell if the formation was allowing anything to come into the pipe. As soon as the test chamber was opened, bubbles began to escape from the hose. Then the hose was closed off and the pipe was opened out over the mud pits. Very quickly it blew oil over the pits followed by the screaming sound of natural gas. The testing crew lit the gas, and a very impressive flame roared and lit up the day. It definitely looked like we had struck it rich.


Flaming natural gas from Bright #1 drill stem test

The Bright #1 Well was primarily a natural gas well. We completed the well for production but could not start actually producing the gas until the well was connected to a natural gas pipeline system. It took about eight months to get the pipeline contract and to have the gas gathering company construct the pipeline to our well. The wells in the immediate area were oil wells producing from the Gray Sand so there was no gas pipeline in the immediate vicinity. The pipeline company built the line at their cost because they believed that the Bright #1 Well would produce sufficient quantities of gas to cover their investment. It also appeared that the Bright #1 Well represented a new discovery in the Ellenberger that would result in other gas wells in the area. The construction of this pipeline seemed to confirm the belief that Gold Lake Oil was now a financially successful exploration company. There remained one nagging question mark. There had been a slight draw down in pressure during the drill stem test. Experienced people at John R. Thompson’s operating company cautioned that this often indicates a limited reservoir, meaning that the well might not produce for long, but that there was no way to know for sure except to prepare the well for production and see what happened.


The directors of Gold Lake: CT Mukpo, Craig Thompson, and Tom Bell

It is difficult to make decisions such as whether or not to complete a well for production. There is some objective information, and there are uncertainties. Rinpoche stressed that the key issue in making these decisions is to always tell the truth—both to ourselves, and to the people who would be affected by our decisions. The owners, investors, and employees of Gold Lake Oil went on a journey of exploration together. We did our best to communicate openly and truthfully with each other. We maintained good looking offices and had a beautiful logo. We kept our financial affairs in good order and always paid the bills on time. We were generally kind and caring with each other, at least between klesha attacks of various kinds. Still, I think it is safe to say that everyone involved relied upon Rinpoche to be the one who embodied the dharma, and who invoked and followed drala. To one degree or another, the rest of us thought that we could benefit from his attainments without really doing the hard work of giving up our own self-clinging and personal ambitions.

As we waited for the Bright #1 Well to be connected to the natural gas pipeline there was a kind of muted euphoria within the company. We were confident that we were rich, so during our wait we started to explore further. We looked at prospects in Nova Scotia, Kansas, and Colorado and we designed a major lease play on the Ellenberger formation. We had an important discovery well in the Ellenberger, so it was only sensible for us to gather drilling rights in the area where this formation was known to be present and prospective.

We tried to keep up the production but kept getting more and more salt water.

When the Bright #1 Well was finally brought into production the initial results were positive. We were able to produce 100,000 cubic feet of gas per day. This meant that our well was bringing in about $300 per day for a projected $110,000 per year. This would not be a quick payout of the cost of drilling and completion, but it would eventually provide a good return on investment if it held up and other wells could be added to the field at a lower cost than the initial discovery well. However, the well started to produce some salt water along with the gas after a few weeks. We tried to keep up the production but kept getting more and more salt water. Now we knew that the draw down in pressure during the drill stem test did, in fact, mean that we had discovered a limited reservoir of natural gas. We were no longer rich, at least not in terms of dollars.

Around the time that we had to plug the Bright #1 Well, the price of oil started to drop dramatically. It went from a high of $42 per barrel in 1981 to $30 per barrel in 1982 and to $10 per barrel in 1986. Practically the whole oil and gas industry in North America stopped taking new, unproven drilling leases, and the number of rigs drilling for oil in the United States at any one time dropped from a peak of 4,500 in 1982, to 2,000 in 1983, and to 750 by 1986. The economics of the business changed dramatically in a very short time. Still, Gold Lake did not give up. We went ahead and drilled another well, the Hobbs #1, on leases we had acquired during our efforts to put together prospects in the Ellenberger. We were no longer very interested in the Ellenberger, but the Hobbs leases had other interesting target formations and Rinpoche had found a good location on the Hobbs lease.

While drilling the Hobbs #1 Well we had a good drill stem test that flowed oil and did not draw down in pressure. It did not take long to complete this well as there was no need for a natural gas pipeline connection, but we were very aware of needing a successful well with long-term production. This time we were more skeptical about whether we were really rich, so we waited to see how the production would hold up before we tried to acquire any more leases in the area. The Hobbs #1 went to salt water even more quickly than the Bright #1. By now, both the managers and investors in the company were losing heart, and the drop in oil prices was making it hard for any company to justify further exploration.

“… maybe our ambition killed the whole thing”

At the final meeting of Gold Lake Oil, held in December of 1982, Mr. Mukpo said, “Well, I still have faith that something will happen in the future, but maybe our ambition killed the whole thing.” He only said it once, and he said it reflectively.

These words were a mind stopper when I heard them 25 years ago, and they continue to be a mind stopper when I read them now. It is certainly true that we were ambitious, and in retrospect, it wasn’t just your average garden-variety ambition for wealth and success. We had the added hook of spiritual ambition. To some extent, I think that we were naively drilling for some sort of spiritual goodies that seemed at the time to be inseparable from the promise of oil and gas. But in spite of everything—our financial losses and our foiled personal ambitions—I think it would be shortsighted to see Gold Lake Oil as a failure. He said:

” …I still have faith that something will happen in the future,…”

And it has. Many members of our community, including some of the original Gold Lake owners and employees, have gone on to be successful in the world of business—successful in terms of the bottom line, and successful by less conventional criteria as well. Some have even found oil and gas by applying what they learned from Mr. Mukpo. Personally I feel incredibly grateful to have been in business with Rinpoche—to have witnessed his attention to detail, to have heard his admonition to tell the truth, and to have had my own ambitions exposed so thoroughly by the prospect of sudden wealth.

Many of us—students of Trungpa Rinpoche who have been involved in business—are retired, or nearing retirement age. Perhaps it would be worthwhile at this point to step back and take a look at our collective experience. What do we have to say about being in business and being practitioners? How has this activity contributed to the project of planting dharma in the West? How has it helped and/or hindered the creation of an enlightened society? What are our measures of success? Perhaps we could use the Chronicles as a forum for this discussion.

Yours in the practice of the dharma and commerce,
Tom Bell,
Halifax
© 2006-2007 Thomas Bell

Tom Bell



Tom Bell joined Trungpa Rinpoche's community of students in 1972. He served as the head of practice and study at Rocky Mountain Dharma Center (now SMC) in the mid-to-late seventies, before entering the oil and gas business in 1978. In addition to Gold Lake Oil, Tom co-founded Colorado Gathering and Processing Corporation, which supplied natural gas to the city of Greeley, Colorado. He also co-founded the Colorado Natural Gas Assistance Foundation, which used profits from natural gas sales to help low income energy consumers pay their heating bills. Tom and his wife, Jacquie, and their children, Wilson and Victoria, moved to Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia in 1988, where he has been involved in a number of business and community projects. Most notably, Tom served as the general manager for the conversion of a former Canadian military base (CFB Cornwallis) into the village of Cornwallis Park. After serving as the Director of Karme Chöling from 2000 through 2003, Tom and Jacquie have returned to Nova Scotia where (recently retired) they study and practice the dharma between visits with their children and grandchildren.

Shastri Tom Bell became a student of the Vidyadhara in 1972, and has been active since then in direct service to both of the Sakyongs and also to the current Sakyong Wangmo. He was on the staff of RMDC (Shambhala Mountain Centre) in the mid,’70’s, was the director of Karme Choling from 2000-2003, and has been an active Shambhala teacher since 1976. He has worked to support his family through a career in business and economic development in Colorado and Nova Scotia. His immediate family now numbers fifteen, including his wife, three children, their spouses, and seven grandchildren. He was appointed as a Shastri for Halifax in 2015.

Shastri Tom Bell, by shambhala.org