The Nechung Oracle (Tibetan: གནས་ཆུང་ཏ་བླ་མ, Wylie: gnas chung ta bla ma) is the personal oracle of the Dalai Lama since the second Dalai Lama. The medium currently resides in Nechung Monastery established by the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala, India. The Nechung Oracle was the designated head of the Nechung monastery in Tibet.

In Tibet and throughout the greater Himalayan region, oracles have played, and continue to play, an important part in revelation, religion, doctrine, and prophecy. In Tibet, the Nechung Oracle and other oracles on occasion, have also played principal roles assisting governmental decision-making and providing intelligence on pressing matters of state, and perhaps most importantly aid in the provision of security for the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.

There are a number of oracular traditions within the Himalaya of which the Nechung is but one. The word "oracle" is used by Tibetans to refer to the spirit, deity, or entity that temporarily (or various styles of periodic or ongoing possession depending on the tradition) possesses or enters those men and women who act as media between the phenomenal natural world and the subtle spiritual realms. These media are, therefore, known as kuten, which literally means, "the physical basis". Post-possession, the medium may require protracted convalescence.

According to Bell, "the cult of Pehar at Nechung Monastery experienced a meteoric rise in popularity in the seventeenth century primarily through the deliberate efforts of the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent Sangyé Gyatso."

The tulku of the institution of the Dalai Lama consults the oracle known as the Nechung Oracle, which is considered the Official State Oracle of the government of Tibet. The Nechung was formerly a Nyingma tradition. The fourteenth Dalai Lama gives a complete description of the process of trance and possession in his book Freedom in Exile.

After the fall of the Western Xia, the influx of Tangut refugees into Tibet led to the adoption of the Pehar deity into Tibetan Buddhism.

Pearlman frames the inauguration and installation of the tradition of the State Oracle by identifying key stakeholders:

"When Padmasambhava consecrated Samye Monastery with the Vajrakilaya dance, he tamed the local spirit protector, Pehar Gyalp, and bound him by oath to become the head of the entire hierarchy of Buddhist protective spirits. Pehar, later known as Dorje Drakden, became the principal protector of the Dalai Lamas, manifesting through the Nechung Oracle.
According to the Dalai Lama, "Tibetans rely on oracles for various reasons. The purpose of the oracles is not just to foretell the future. They are called upon as protectors and sometimes used as healers. However, their primary function is to protect the Buddha Dharma and its practitioners."