ABSTRACT
The only discernible pattern or progression which overlays the perpetual round of village rites and seasonal begging tours, dreams and miracles, which punctuated the whole of Pemalingpa's life was the gradual movement that took him away from close involvement in the mechanics of revealing his "treasure" and towards the extensive patronage brought to him by the dissemination of that treasure. Despite the persistent accusations of charlatanry already noted, they tail off in his autobiography and this must surely reflect his growing triumph. In his later years he became a supremely confident and popular figure of the religious establishment. Nine thousand people attended one of the public initiations he gave in Tibet the year before his death, a number which must represent practically the entire population of the district where this event took place and many from beyond too.1 6 0
Pemalingpa's early and unsuccessful marriage to the daughter of the lama of Rimochen seems to have produced no children, but he went on to beget six sons by three different ladies in a span of just eleven years between 1499 and 1509: he was as old as forty-nine when the first was born and fifty-nine when the last was born. There was also a daughter, but nothing is known about her except her name: Ugyen Zangmo. These details are gleaned not from the autobiography but from other surviving sources which deal with his progeny.1 6 1 Of his three consorts, we know two of them were at his deathbed in 1521, though only one is named: Budren, the mother of his third and fourth sons and perhaps others too.1 6 2 The names of the other two consorts are found elsewhere; Trimo, mother of his first son, and Sithub whose children cannot be identified among the remaining sons.163
