SGAM PO PA (GAMPOPA). Sgam po pa Bsod nams rin chen (Gampopa Sönam Rinchen, 1079–1153), also known as Dvags po lha rje, "the doctor from Dvags po," was the figure most responsible for systematizing the doctrines and founding the institutions of the Bka' brgyud (Kagyu) sect of Tibetan Buddhism.

According to traditional biographies, he was born in Gnyal, in south-central Tibet, one of several sons of a local doctor. He became a physician in his teens, and later married; he may have fathered one or more children. When he was barely twenty, however, his immediate family died in an epidemic, and he turned his back on worldly affairs. At twenty-five he joined the Buddhist monastic order under the ordination name Bsod nams rin chen, and went to Central Tibet to study with masters of the Bka' gdams (Kadam) sect, founded a half-century...