K'anpo Rimpoche
K'anpo Rimpoche was a Time Lord who, forsaking life on Gallifrey, decided to live the life of a Buddhist abbot on late 20th century Earth.
Biography
As a youth, the Doctor knew K'anpo Rimpoche as the Hermit, a wise Time Lord who lived on the side of a mountain behind the house where the Doctor lived as a young boy (DW: The Time Monster), near the Prydonian Academy where he studied at the time (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation). The Hermit used to tell stories to the young Gallifreyans, like the Doctor, on Mount Cadon. The Hermit would tell ghost stories about the Fendahl, Great Vampires, the Legions of the Sphinx and the Grandfather Paradox to the Doctor when he met him, the stories about Great Vampires and the Legion of the Sphinx would excite the Doctor, however, the stories of the Fendahl and the Grandfather Paradox would terrify him and give him nightmares. He'd also tell stories about Omega, Salyavin. These Time Lords would be the Doctors heroes. (NA: Lucifer Rising) He acted, for lack of a better word, as the Doctor would later say, as his guru. In the time of the Doctor's greatest despair, he showed him hope in a simple yellow flower (DW: The Time Monster) called a sarlain. Once the Hermit told the Doctor to fast for 3 days and 3 nights to make supplications to the Menti Celesti. (NA: Timewyrm: Revelation). Towards the end of the Doctor's first life, K'anpo helped him prepare for his upcoming regeneration (ST: The Three Paths).
The Doctor next met him as the abbot of a Buddhist meditation centre located in England with his assistant Cho Je. It seems that Cho Je only existed as a future projection of K'anpo Rimpoche or a creation of his mind. When K'anpo was struck down by the Eight Legs possessing his own meditation students as Human hosts, Cho Je faded into nothingness and then re-appeared taking the place of K'anpo Rimpoche. He had regenerated.
After the Doctor's confrontation with the Great One in her cave, he began to die as a result of the radiation contained there. Once the Doctor had returned in the TARDIS to UNIT HQ, K'anpo Rimpoche teleported to him in order to give the Doctor "a little push" enabling him regenerate into his next incarnation. (DW: Planet of the Spiders)
Behind the scenes
- The Third Doctor mentions the hermit to Jo Grant in The Time Monster. He does not give his Galifreyan name.
- While George Cormack appeared as K'anpo Rimpoche as a Caucasian, as Cho Je, Kevin Lindsay wore makeup and adopted a faint accent to portray him as apparently Tibetan. As the new regeneration of K'anpo Rimpoche, Kevin Lindsay continued to wear the makeup and employ the accent.
