Gendün Chöphel

Gendun Chompel or Gendün Chöphel was a Tibetan scholar, thinker, writer, poet, linguist, and artist. He was born in 1903 in Shompongshe, Rebkong, Amdo. He was a creative and controversial figure and is considered by many to have been one of the most important Tibetan intellectuals of the twentieth century.
Chöphel was a friend of the Indian scholar and independence activist Rahul Sankrityayan. His life was the inspiration for Luc Schaedler's film The Angry Monk: Reflections on Tibet. He is best known for his collection of essays called The Madman's Middle Way: Reflections on Reality of the Tibetan Monk Gendun Chophel. and Grains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Pilgrimage, written during his time in India and Sri Lanka in between 1934 and 1946. These essays were critical of modern Hinduism, Christianity, and British imperialism. While condemning places and events like the Black Hole of Calcutta and the Goa Inquisition, he praised certain British colonial practices of legislations.
His erotic classic, Treatise on Passion, was completed in 1939, though it was first published posthumously in 1967.