Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo is remembered as a master whose very identity was shaped by lineage in more than one sense. In the strictest sense of reincarnation and spiritual identity, he is regarded as part of the Khyentse tulku line, an emanation of Manjushri, and the rebirth of the great Nyingma master Jigme Lingpa. This tulku identity situates him within a stream of wisdom figures associated with the Nyingma tradition, including connections to Longchen Rabjam and other principal Nyingma masters. Such a reincarnation lineage is not merely biographical detail; it frames the kind of authority and responsibility he was understood to bear within the Tibetan world.

At the same time, his life is best understood through the breadth of the lineages he held and transmitted. He became a central figure of the Rimé, or non-sectarian, movement, and in that role received and preserved major transmissions from all the principal Tibetan Buddhist traditions. From the Nyingma school he held important Dzogchen and “heart-essence” cycles, including Longchen Nyingtik and related teachings. From the Kagyu traditions, he received Karma Kagyu and Drukpa Kagyu transmissions; from the Sakya tradition, he held major tantric and Lamdré lineages; and he also studied and transmitted significant teachings from the Gelug and Jonang traditions. His connection with the Khön lineage and the Lamdré teachings further underscores the depth of his Sakya affiliations, even as his activity consistently transcended sectarian boundaries.

Seen in this light, his “lineage” cannot be reduced to a single institutional affiliation. On the one hand, there is the tulku lineage of Khyentse, rooted in the visionary and wisdom-oriented stream of Manjushri, Jigme Lingpa, and Longchen Rabjam. On the other hand, there is the living web of practice and transmission lineages he gathered, safeguarded, and passed on across Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya, Gelug, and Jonang. His role in the Rimé movement shows how these diverse currents were not merely accumulated but harmonized, so that the richness of Tibetan Buddhism could be preserved without falling into narrow partisanship. In this way, his lineage is both a specific reincarnational thread and a vast, non-sectarian tapestry of teachings.