ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the mummified or whole-body relic of Kalu Rinpoche or Karma Rangjung Kunkhyab (1905–1989), housed in the Sandrub Dharjay Choeling Monastery, which was founded in 1983 in Sonada, Darjeeling. It locates this particular eschatological mode of commemoration within the larger Tibetan Buddhist material cultural practices of the Himalayas. It explores how the material relic object not only becomes an embodiment of the deceased master, but also serves to continue his sacred biography. From existing hagiographical accounts, this chapter reconstructs a critical biography of the Kalu Rinpoche and examines the processes through which he is fashioned as a trulku or a high incarnate lama. It thereafter interrogates his apotheosis in the form of a corporeal relic and explores how both biography and relic become important modes of sacralisation playing off each other.
