Padma Gurmet

Sowa-Rigpa, the Buddhist medical tradition practised by amchi healers, has long served remote villages in the Himalaya ^[2]. Padma Gurmet has spent his career reviving and organising it. In 2026 he was named for the Padma Shri in the field of medicine, from Ladakh ^[1].

A family of healers

Gurmet was born on 15 April 1971 into a family of Sowa-Rigpa practitioners and learned from his father, Amchi Tashi Rabstan Onchung, as a child ^[2]. He later earned a formal Sowa-Rigpa degree from the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies in Leh ^[2].

Research

In 1997 he joined the Central Council for Research in Ayurveda and Siddha as a research officer in its small amchi medicine unit in Leh ^[2]. His work helped get it upgraded in 2009 into the National Research Institute for Sowa-Rigpa ^[2]. His projects have catalogued more than 1,500 Sowa-Rigpa texts, documented 525 medicinal plants of the trans-Himalaya and about 1,200 formulations, and digitised old manuscripts ^[2].

He was a leading figure in the push for Sowa-Rigpa’s formal recognition as an AYUSH system, and prepared the dossier nominating it to UNESCO as intangible cultural heritage ^[2].

A national institute

After he asked the Prime Minister for a dedicated institute, a National Institute of Sowa-Rigpa in Leh was announced in August 2019, and he became its first director ^[2]. He has also set up a ten-hectare trans-Himalayan herbal garden ^[2]. As president of the Ladakh Amchi Sabha, he has trained more than 200 practitioners and pushed for Sowa-Rigpa clinics in government health centres across Ladakh ^[2].