The Vidyadhara Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche (VCTR) Labrang Collection is a treasury of the belongings of Trungpa Rinpoche, consisting of several thousand objects. Labrang refers to residence of a high lama or monasteries where they reside and conduct their duties.
The collection includes robes and religious relics that he hand-carried out of Tibet, as well as many objects both secular and religious that he purchased or received as gifts. It is traditional for students to maintain these belongings as sacred objects, viewing them as revealing the enlightened activity of the teacher.
“The monumental objects should be cherished and kept. The household articles should be treated as special…. I have never conducted myself frivolously, so all my collections should be regarded as objects of learning.”
During his lifetime and for several years after Rinpoche’s death, close students who were personal attendants of the Vidyadhara were the caretakers of these objects. In the mid 1990s, responsibility for the Collection was transferred to the Shambhala Archives and has been maintained by the Archives through the donation of time and funds by students of the Vidyadhara.
At present the Collection is kept in the Relics Room at the Shambhala Archives, where it is looked after by the Archives staff., but the temperature and humidity in the storage room is not currently controlled by a reliable system. This situation puts the Collection into jeopardy, since environmental control is critical to protecting it from deterioration.
Much remains to be done. Many items need additional archival quality storage, and treatment by a professional art conservator. Funds for an environmental control system for the storage space is critical.
Catalog, Inventory, Requests for Exhibits
Parinirvana 2012 exhibit, Halifax Shambhala Centre
Lineage relics and Rupas from the Vidyadhara’s shrine
Every year since 2005, we have had the good fortune to deceive a grant from either the provincial or Canadian government to hire a qualified student for the summer. As a result, we’ve been able to continue to research, describe, photograph and catalogue these precious objects. Now that the inventory of all the objects is complete and they are safely stored in new boxes, 2/3’s of the objects have been entered into our database. Recently, we began a re-organization of the storage space to facilitate requests for exhibits.
