Geshe Sangay was born at Amdo Ngawa in Eastern Tibet. As a young child, he knew he wanted to become a monk, and enrolled at Drepung Gomang Monastery. His studies there were disrupted by the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, when he and many other monks from the monastery fled to India. He remained at the transit camp for refugees at Buxar in Northeast India until 1970, furthering his own Buddhist studies and taking on new students.

 

Despite the great hardships of life as refugees, and the enormous change in environment, the monks worked hard to survive and to preserve their religion and culture. In 1969, the Indian government granted 42 acres of land near Mundgood to the monks of Drepung Gomang, and Geshe Sangay moved to South India to re-establish the monastery there.

 

Originally the Discipline Master - responsible for all the monks at the monastery - he later served several times as Chief Director of the monastery's administration. Geshe Sangay is a senior and revered teacher, and has been in a large part responsible for the survival and continued success of the Drepung Gomang Monastery in its mission to educate and train monks in the Buddhist philosophy of wisdom and compassion.