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'Lobsang Trinley Lhündrub Chökyi Gyaltsen' (February 19, 1938 – January 28, 1989) was the 10th Panchen Lama of Gelug Buddhism. He was often referred to simply as 'Choekyi Gyaltsen' (which can be ''Choekyi Gyaltse'', ''Choskyi Gyantsen'', etc.), although this is also the name of several other notable figures in Tibetan history.
He was born on February 19, 1938 in today's Xunhua Salar Autonomous County of Qinghai, to Gonpo Tseten and Sonam Drolma and given the name Gonpo Tseten. On June 3, 1949, officials of the Ninth Panchen Lama recognized Gonpo Tseten as the tenth incarnation of the Panchen Lama. He was enthroned on June 11, 1949 in Amdo (Qinghai) under the auspice of Chinese officials after the Kuomintang administration approved the selection.^[1] He was not recognized by the Dalai Lama until the beginning of negotiations on the 17-Point Agreement in 1951.
In September 1954, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Erdeni went to Beijing to attend the first session of the first National People's Congress, meeting Mao Zedong^[2].
In 1956, the Panchen Lama went to India on a pilgrimage together with the Dalai Lama. When the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, the Panchen Lama decided to stay.
After a tour through Tibet, in May 1962, he met Zhou Enlai to discuss a petition he had written, criticizing the situation in Tibet. The petition was a 70,000 character document that dealt with the suffering of the Tibetan people experienced under Chinese rule. The initial reaction was positive, but in October 1962, the PRC authorities dealing with the population criticized the petition. Chairman Mao called the petition "... a poisoned arrow shot at the Party by reactionary feudal overlords." The Panchen's situation worsened when the Cultural Revolution began.
In 1968 he was imprisoned; in October 1977, he was released but held under house arrest in Beijing until 1982. After his release, he was considered by the PRC authorities to be politically rehabilitated and he then rose to important positions. He served as Vice Chairman of the National People's Congress.
In 1979, he married a Han Chinese woman and in 1983 they had a daughter (Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo, [1]), which was considered highly controversial behavior for a Gelug lama.
In 1989, the 10th Panchen Lama died suddenly in Shigatse at the age of 51, five days after delivering a speech critical of the Chinese occupation.^[3]

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References

1. UK Tibet Society http://www.tibet-society.org.uk/pbackground.html
2. ''Ngapoi recalls the founding of the TAR'', Ngapoi Ngawang Jigmei, ''China View'', 30 August 2005.
3. Panchen Lama Poisoned arrow