Gyurme Dorje

Gyurme Dorje (1950 – 5 February 2020) was a Scottish Tibetologist and writer.

In the 1980s Gyurme returned to the UK and in 1987 completed his 3 volume doctoral dissertation on the Guhyagarbhatantra and Longchenpa's commentary on this text at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London. From 1991 to 1996 Gyurme held research fellowships at London University, where he worked with Alak Zenkar Rinpoche on translating (with corrections) the content of the Great Sanskrit Tibetan Chinese Dictionary to create the three volume Encyclopaedic Tibetan-English Dictionary. He wrote, edited, translated and contributed to numerous important books on Tibetan religion and culture including The Nyingma School of Tibetan Buddhism: Its Fundamentals and History (2 vol.) (Wisdom, 1991), Tibetan Medical Paintings 2 vol. (Serindia, 1992), The Tibet Handbook (Footprint, 1996), the first complete translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and A Handbook of Tibetan Culture (Shambhala, 1994).

In the 1970s he spent a decade living in Tibetan communities in India and Nepal where he received extensive teachings from Kangyur Rinpoche, Dudjom Rinpoche, Chatral Rinpoche, and Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche. In 1971 Dudjom Rinpoche encouraged him to begin translating his recently completed History of the Nyingma School (རྙིང་མའི་སྟན་པའི་ཆོས་འབྱུང་ ) and in 1980 his Fundamentals of the Nyingma School (བསྟན་པའི་རྣམ་གཞག ) - together this was an undertaking that was to take twenty years, only reaching completion in 1991.