Temba Chöphel was born in Lhasa in January 1959. As a child he was denied schooling in the new Chinese social hierarchy because of his family’s reactionary background. His father taught him to read and write, and apprenticed him to the former head of the Tailor's Guild. He trained in appliqué and later studied Thangka painting. In 1972, he participated in the first restoration of the Jokhang Temple in Lhasa. He continued to train with various artists during the period of cultural rehabilitation that emerged in the late 1970s and refined his practice and style to reach a high level of accomplishment. In 1984, Temba Chöphel left Tibet for India, becoming a monk at Drepung Gomang Monastery, in South India. He joined Norbulingka Institute in 1989 and gradually assembled around him many of the apprentices he had worked with in Lhasa.