The Rainbow Palace

Tenzin Choedrak, was the personal physician to his Excellency, the Dalai Lama. In this incredible autobiography he describes his upbringing as a poor orphan and as a student of Tibetan medicine, the rich, beautiful and peace-loving culture and philosophy of Tibet, so much of which was to be so cruelly destroyed by the Communist Chinese, as well as the unique therapeutic practises of Tibetan medicine. He details the cruel Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, which had been until then a free and independent nation. Choedrak provides a first hand, eye witness account of the terror, violence and injustice sowed by the Chinese, and their evil and brutal campaign to completely destroy Tibetan culture and identity, in which over a million Tibetans have been murdered. The natural resources of Tibet were destroyed, the artwork removed from the monasteries of which almost all of the thousands were destroyed, monks were burned alive, nuns raped, young girls sterilized and women forced to abort. The aim of the Chinese was both to destroy Tibetan culture and identity and to reduce the Tibetan population, while flooding Tibet with millions of Han Chinese settlers. From 1959 to 1980, Choedrak was a prisoner in the horrific Chinese prison and death camps, experiencing starvation and the most horrific tortures. The Communists, as describes in this book, beat the prisoners with electric truncheons, jabbing them in the mouth, the anus, or placing them in the genitals. Daily the Communists authorities exercised their right to kill children and women whose only crime was to be born or give birth without the authorization of the occupying administration. Thousands of Tibetans were murdered and their organs sold by the Communist authorities. He was one of the very few Tibetans who survived these Laogais (Chinese gulags), where the Communists tried to force their sick and twisted world view on the Tibetan population, branding the democracies such as the USA. Britain, India, Japan and France as "imperialist" and wantonly destroying Tibet's animal life almost completely for no material purpose at all, other than to completely strip Tibet of all she held dear. As Choedrak describes "Today part of our territory serves as a depository for nuclear waste; the flora and fauna in these parts has been destroyed. That is of extreme gravity. Everything that was the basis of the Tibetan people's pride, everything the extraordinary richness of our country, that constituted it's unique culture is in the process of disappearing." Choedrak, died in 2001, three years after completing this book. He predicted in this book he would never return to Tibet. The horrors and atrocities of the Chinese destruction and oppression of Tibet continues today, with no sign f freedom for this ancient country. That is because very few in the world care.

Tenzin Choedrak, was at the time of the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950 the personal doctor to the dalai lama. Unfortunatley, for him, he was dedicated to his calling and chose to stay in Tibet to look after his paitents.This opened him up to over 25 years of reprisals and mistreatment by the Chinese soley because he had been connected to the dalai lama before his flight.Tenzin grew up in a very poor part of Tibet and it was only through personal persistance and sacrifice that he managed to become a first class doctor of Tibetan medicine and carry on it's ancient traditions. His childhood was hard, but it was mild in comparison to the horrors inflicted upon him by the Chinese after the invasion.In this book you will read about practices, that in sheer evil, match anything the Nazis did in WW2. You see the systematic repression of an entire people and their culture, which would not be too harsh to be called genocide. There has also been a corresponding destruction of the physical landscape, with forests and animals that had been preserved for generations willfully destroyed.A depressing and illuminating book at times about man's inhumanity to man, but also a book of miraculous survival. It brings home that fact that all "things" can be taken away from you but knowledge is our true treasure in this life and it also brings home the buddist view of impermanance as a fact rather than religious doctrine.