ABSTRACT
This paper explores Tibetan understandings of character, personal identity, and questions of authorship, when the life story and spiritual writings involve persons linked by a line of incarnation. The focus is the 20th-century Dudjom Rinpoche (bDud 'joins 'jigs bral ye shes rdo rje, 1904-1987), his immediate predecessor, Dudjom Lingpa (bDud 'joms gling pa, 1835-1904), along with a seventeenth-century lama, Dudul Dorje (bDud 'dul rdo rje, 1615-1672). While Tibetan accounts of reincarnating lamas sometimes emphasise continuities, stories of the two Dudjoms make no secret of the contrast between them in terms of their characters and behaviour. Dudjom Rinpoche's main textual work is his important contributions to the Nying ma literature of previous generations. It is clear that the identification between these three lamas gave Dudjom Rinpoche a specific responsibility in this case.
