The Losel Doll Museum, located in Norbulingka’s West Wing, presents a unique collection of dolls representing Tibetan dress in all its forms. The project, which gathers 160 dolls dressed in Tibet’s regional, official, Opera, and Monastic dress, results from twenty years of research and crafting by the monks of Drepung Loseling. Kalsang Yeshi, Norbulingka’s Founder, was a monk at Drepung Loseling. When he returned to India from the US in 1979, he became aware of the difficult conditions that prevailed in his monastery, reestablished in Karnataka. A scholar at heart, he sought to improve their material condition to facilitate their study. His wife, Kim, who had noticed that some monks were also skilled craftsmen, came up with the idea to create dolls to illustrate the richness and variety of Tibetan costumes to raise funds for the monastery. Initially, the concept's reception was lukewarm, but the monks decided to give the idea a chance. In the spring of 1984, eight monks came to Dharamsala and lodged in the Founder’s house. They remained there for nineteen years, making over one thousand dolls that made their way to museums and collectors worldwide, the most extensive collections being in the Musee D’Ethmographie in Geneva and the Asia Pacific Museum in Pasadena, CA.

As a center for Tibetan art and culture, Norbulingka Institute seemed a natural place to house a collection of the Losel dolls. The dolls were the last to be crafted by the monks before the project closed in 2003.