During the time of the 13th Dalai Lama Thupten Gyatso, Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche was the Abbot of the Tantric College of Gyumey. Among his students were high lamas such as Jampa Chodak, who held the post of the 90th Gaden Tripa. Jampa Chodak was also the student who wrote a biography of Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche.

Pabongka Dechen Nyingpo was also a student of Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche, receiving teachings and initiations that may have well been passed down to many of the most prominent Gelugpa lamas in the world today. In fact, it was from him that Pabongka Rinpoche received the initiation of the Vajrayogini’s tantra in the tradition of Ngulchu Dharmabhadra.

Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche was born in a large town known as Ganzey located in the Eastern part of Tibet, in the Trehor region of Kham. He was also known by the name of Lobsang Tsultrim Denpay Gyaltsen. The name “Trehor” originates from Mongolia, from the time when the Mongols under the rule of Gushri Khan established themselves in the Kham region after defeating the King of Beri. As a young monk, Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche studied the Five Great Treatises at Drepung Loseling College in Lhasa and went on to become the seat holder at Ganzey Monastery. Eventually, he ascended the prestigious and respected position as abbot of Gyumey.

Among the texts written by Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche, we find notable commentaries on the First Stage of Yamantaka, Quick Path Lamrim, the Profound Path of the Six Yogas of Naropa, the Kalachakra Tantra and the Profound Guru Puja. In particular, there is also a specific series of texts on the Kalachakra written by Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche that are still being used to this day.

Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche was also known to have written rituals specifically to protectors. In the fourth volume of Trehor Kangsar Rinpoche’s collected works, we find protector rituals for invoking Dorje Shugden, Setrap and Nechung oracles that were written as a “tangrang” (thanksgiving) for the deities’ activities following auspicious oracle invocations.

In the short request for activity to Dorje Shugden, the Protector is described as riding a snow lion, a description missing from earlier Gelug descriptions. The text also mentions the role of Dorje Shugden as the protector of Manjushrigarba, which is the name of Lama Tsongkhapa’s incarnation in Tushita land. The short request for activity also contains a reminder to protect the Dharma and a request to protect the practitioners from illnesses, for them to have long lives and to be assisted on their path to gain attainment of realisations.

Some contemporary scholars claim that the practice of Dorje Shugden arose and was promoted predominantly by Pabongka Rinpoche. However, the discovery of texts like those written by Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche and other Lamas before him prove that the practice was very much alive and propitiated long before Pabongka Rinpoche.

Later, Pabongka Rinpoche composed the kangsol to Dorje Shugden at the request of a lama of the Kham area, and not on a personal initiative. This alone denotes that Dorje Shugden’s practice and rituals were already established in the region prior to the arrival of Pabongka Rinpoche, countering these scholars’ assertions.

Further, Trehor Khangsar Rinpoche writings referenced the fact that oracle invocations of Dorje Shugden were very much practiced at the time, contrary to later claims that Shugden was restricted by the 13^th Dalai Lama and established only by Pabongka in the mid 20th century.

The catalogue of Lobsang Tamdin lists this particular work, which also means that Dorje Shugden’s practice had found its way to Mongolia. The practice was not confined only to Tibet, but by this time, there were many lamas who had also brought Shugden, as well as other Gelugpa teachings, into Mongolia where it was also flourishing.

In ancient times and throughout history, an oracle is a person or agency considered to be a source of wise counsel or prophetic opinion. It may also be a revealed prediction or precognition of the future from deities, that is spoken through another object or life-form (e.g.: augury and auspice).

In the ancient world, many sites gained a reputation for the dispensing of oracular wisdom: they too became known as “oracles,” and the oracular utterances, called khre-smoi in Greek, were often referred to under the same name — a name derived from the Latin verb o-ra-re, to speak.

Tibet

In Tibet, oracles have played, and continue to play, an important part in religion and government. The word “oracle” is used by Tibetans to refer to the spirit that enters those men and women who act as media between the natural and the spiritual realms. The media are, therefore, known as kuten, which literally means, “the physical basis”.

The Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in northern India, still consults an oracle known as the Nechung Oracle, which is considered the official state oracle of the government of Tibet. The Dalai Lama has, according to a custom that has endured for centuries, consulted the Nechung Oracle during the new year festivities of Losar. Before fleeing from Tibet however, he consulted the oracle of Dorje Shugden.

Another oracle he consults is the Tenma oracle, for which a young Tibetan woman is the medium for the goddess. The Dalai Lama gives a complete description of the process of trance and spirit possession in his book Freedom in Exile.

China

Oracles were common in many civilizations of antiquity. In China, the use of oracle bones dates as far back as the Shang Dynasty, (1600–1046 BC). The I Ching, or “Book of Changes”, is a collection of linear signs used as oracles that are from that period. Although divination with the I Ching is thought to have originated prior to the Shang Dynasty, it was not until King Wu of Zhou (1046–1043 BC) that it took its present form.

In addition to its oracular power, the I Ching has had a major influence on the philosophy, literature and statecraft of China from the time of the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC – AD 256).

Egypt

The earliest known oracle was in the renowned temple of Per-Wadjet. This was an important site in the Pre-dynastic era of Ancient Egypt, which includes the cultural developments of ten thousand years from the Paleolithic to 3100 BC.

The temple was dedicated to the worship of Wadjet and may have been the source for the oracular tradition that spread to Ancient Greece from Egypt. The Per-Wadjet tradition continued through the entire history of the Ancient Egyptian culture. The later Greeks called both the goddess and the city, Buto.

The remains of the oracle temple of “Amun” at Siwa Oasis.

Another oracle of note lay in Egypt during the Eighteenth dynasty (1550–1292 BC), is a temple dedicated to Amun, a god who rose to importance during that time. The Greeks associated him with Zeus. Alexander the Great once visited it, and although no record of his query remains, the oracle is thought to have hailed him as Amun’s son, influencing his conceptions of his own divinity.

Greece

The earliest tradition of oracular practice in Hellenic culture is from the archaic period shortly after arrival of the Hellenes in their current place of settlement c. 1300 BC. The oracle was associated with the cults of deities derived from the great goddess of nature and fertility, the pre-eminent ancient oracle — the Delphic Oracle — who operated at the temple of Delphi.

Oracles were thought to be portals through which the gods spoke to man. In this sense they were different from seers (manteis in Greek) who merely interpreted signs sent by the gods through bird signs, animal entrails and other various methods.

The Pythia, the oracle at Delphi, only gave prophecies the seventh day of each month out of a nine-month working period; thus, Delphi was not the major source of divination for the ancient Greeks. Many wealthy individuals attempted to bypass the hordes of people attempting a consultation by making additional animal sacrifices to please the oracle lest their request go unanswered. As a result, seers were the main source of everyday divination.

The temple was changed to a center for the worship of Apollo during the classical period of Greece, and priests were added to the temple organization — although the tradition regarding prophecy remained unchanged. The apparently always-female priestess continued to provide the services of the oracle exclusively. It is from this institution that the English word, oracle, is derived.

The Delphic Oracle exerted considerable influence throughout Hellenic culture. The Greeks consulted her prior to all major undertakings, wars, the founding of colonies, and so forth.

The semi-Hellenic countries around the Greece world, such as Lydia, Caria, and even Egypt also respected her and came to Delphi as supplicants. Croesus of Lydia consulted Delphi before attacking Persia, and according to Herodotus was told, “If you cross the river, a great empire will be destroyed.” Believing the response favorable, Croesus attacked, but it was his own empire that ultimately was destroyed by the Persians.

She allegedly also proclaimed Socrates to be the wisest man in Greece, to which Socrates said that, if so, this was because he alone was aware of his own ignorance. After this confrontation, Socrates dedicated his life to a search for knowledge that was one of the founding events of western philosophy. This oracle’s last recorded response was given in 393 AD, when the emperor Theodosius I ordered pagan temples to cease operation.

Dodona is another oracle devoted to the Mother Goddess identified at other sites with Rhea or Gaia, but is here called Dione. The shrine of Dodona was the oldest Hellenic oracle, according to the fifth-century historian Herodotus and, in fact, dates to pre-Hellenic times, perhaps as early as the second millennium BC when the tradition spread from Egypt. It became the second most important oracle in ancient Greece, which later was dedicated to Zeus and to Heracles during the classical period of Greece.

During the period, in Crete lay another important oracle, sacred to Apollo. It ranked as one of the most accurate oracles in Greece.

India

In ancient India, the oracle was known as Akashwani, literally meaning “voice from the sky” and was related to the message of God. Oracles played key roles in many of the major incidents of the epics Mahabharat and Ramayana. An example is that Kamsa, the evil uncle of lord Krishna, was informed by an oracle that the eighth son of his sister Devaki would kill him.

Mesoamerica

In the migration myth of the Mexitin, i.e., the early Aztecs, a mummy-bundle (perhaps an effigy) carried by four priests directed the trek away from the cave of origins by giving oracles.

An oracle led to the foundation of Mexico-Tenochtitlan. The Yucatec Mayas knew oracle priests or chilanes, literally ‘mouthpieces’ of the deity. Their written repositories of traditional knowledge, the Books of Chilam Balam, were all ascribed to one famous oracle priest who correctly had predicted the coming of the Spaniards and its associated disasters.

Nigeria

The Igbo people of southeastern Nigeria in Africa have a long tradition of using oracles. In Igbo villages, oracles were usually female priestesses to a particular deity, usually dwelling in a cave or other secluded location away from urban areas, and, much like the oracles of ancient Greece, would deliver prophecies in an ecstatic state to visitors seeking advice. Though the vast majority of Igbos today are Christian, many in Nigeria today still use oracles.

In Igboland of present-day Nigeria, many different oracles were regularly consulted. Two of these became especially famous: the Agbala Oracle at Awka and the Chukwu Oracle at Arochukwu.

Scandinavia

In Norse mythology, Odin took the severed head of the mythical god Mimir to Asgard for consultation as an oracle. The Havamal and other sources relate the sacrifice of Odin for the oracular Runes whereby he lost an eye (external sight) and won wisdom (internal sight; insight).

Source: Wikipedia

The Oracle taking trance in full regalia of wrathful Dorje Shugden

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Grand Audience for the public with Dharmapala Setrap and Dorje Shugden

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(from Ratna Shugden in dorjeshugden.com forum) I have typed out  Dorje Shugden’s prophecy to Shar Gaden Monastery as featured in the video, for the ease of reference for all who are here, enjoy!

Hri!
With karmas sowed and prayers made time and again;
kind masters and their scions rarer than the rarest;
This essence of the Dharma, the most profound of the profound;
Remember it’s hard to meet these again and again as now,
That part of the Joyful Monastery of the eight joys,
Split of it into an east and a west;
If this separation has been motivated by the will
to accomplish that ultimate goal of the sacred Dharma – Towards that aim of the vast Sangha assembly,
As divinities of a Mandala, or milk and water blending as one;
Accomplish this, and focus on hearing and contemplation.
To Strive towards this, in matters spiritual and temporal Seniors should guide, junior should comply, as in the precepts;
of seniority among ranks in the administration,
Look at the layer, of feathers, on a bird – If these are done, this and the future will be meaningful;
The required resources will increase as the summer sea;
Despair I have none in this,
If religion is on the lips, and politics in the heart, How can happiness both here and the future be possible?
That which is known as the ‘Teaching’ is the doorway To the ultimate objective, and towards benefit and joy of migratory sentient beings.
Not knowing this, not reflecting in this manner, with selfish aims
If the Dharma and the Sangha are impaired, I have no hesitation to command my hosts and Protectors of the Dharma to act.
Contemplate this.