Tudeng Nima (Alak Zenkar Rinpoche) was recognized as the reincarnation of Zenkar Rinpoche of Amdo in 1946. He was born in the 1943 in the Sichuan Province of the People's Republic of China.

Presently, he is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University in the East Asian Institute and is the Director and Founder of the Project for Searching and Making Available Rare Texts in Chengdu China. He is also the main editor and Co-Founder of the Project for the Compedium Dictionary of Tibetan Buddhist Terminology of Eight Different Schools, jointly with the Nitartha Organization of Vancouver, BC , Canada.

From 1978 to 1999 he has held a wide variety of positions including:

• Research Fellow at the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, London, United Kingdom where he compiled a dictionary of terminology of the eight schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
• Research Fellow - The University of London School of Oriental and African Studies, London, United Kingdom where he jointly compiled a Tibetan-English dictionary, working in collaboration with Dr. G. Dorje to extend the Great Tibetan-Chinese Dictionary into a Tibetan-Chinese-English dictionary.
• Vice Director and Chief Officer - Tibetan Scripture Compilation Bureau of the China Tibetology Research Center, Chengdu, Sichuan.Under Director Trashi Tsering, Director of the Sichuan Nationalities Commission, he set up and ran the office and organized and lead work team to compare different block print versions of the 225 volumes of the Tengyur (Commentarial Scriptures). He has completed twelve volumes of a new edition.
• Vice Director The Gesar Research Group, Chengdu, Sichuan where he collected, edited and prepared Gesar literature (folk books) for publication, organized the translation of a number of these books into Chinese, published in a quarterly journal in Chinese. In addition he compiled the Gesar dictionary - Tibetan and Chinese.
• Co-Founder, Vice-Principal and Professor of Tibetology, Sichuan Tibetan Language School, Chengdu, Sichuan where he established a school for advanced studies in Tibetan language and culture.

Among his numerous rewards and professional associations, in 1986, Rinpoche received a Gold Medal for the Tibetan Chinese Dictionary from the Wu Yuzhang Committee, Sichuan, People's Republic of China. Additionally, from 1988 to the present, Rinpoche has served as a Representative in the National People's Congress in the People's Republic of China, a Representative in the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress, Vice Secretary in the Sichuan Buddhist Association and is a Standing Member of the China Buddhist Association.

Among his numerous publications, in 2002 Rinpoche published the Mdo rgyud mdzod [Treasury of Sutra and Tantra] by Chos dbyings stobs ldan rdo rje, Chengdu: mi-rigs dpe-skrun-khang [Sichuan Nationalities Publishing House], 5 vols