The Takthok (Thagtok) Monastery in Ladakh
Why did so many gompas start out as caves? Tak-Thok (also Thag-Thok, literally “rock roof”) gompa has come up around a cave where Padmasambhava, or the Guru Rinpoche, is said to have meditated during his travels to Ladakh in the 8th century.
The cave, called Duphug (or Tu-Phuk) Lhakhang, is a popular pilgrimage. Buddhists visit to be blessed by dubchu, the sacred water that oozes from its ceiling. A constant drip. Even in winter, when the world freezes over. The ceiling is a greasy black with emissions from the butter lamps that burn nonstop. Devotees have stuck offerings of banknotes and coins all over. Gold-plated statues of Padmasambhava’s eight manifestations occupy pride of place. [continue reading…]
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Guru Rinpoche,
Ladakh,
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Nyingma,
Padmasambhava,
TakThok,
Thagthok
This street vendor is one of many – selling vegetables during season in the main market in Leh, Ladakh. One has to wonder – how many Ladakhi winters has this woman weathered?
[This post was contributed by Vijay Ramanathan - a Technology/Gadget enthusiast and Blogger. You can follow his tweets at http://twitter.com/tekdude & his blog at http://tekdude.wordpress.com/ ]
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Ladakh,
Leh
Hemis Monastery, Ladakh: If you walk up this track, will you spot flying lamas?
If you walk up the mountains from Hemis monastery, you’ll reach Gotsang cave, about 2 km away. Buddhist monk Gyalwa Gotsangpa meditated there in the 13th century.
Monks do so even today. Anyone will tell you this. But Tashi, a local cabbie, has more to tell. These lamas, called Tubas according to him, meditate for years on end, wearing nothing even in the icy winter. This intense discipline gives the lamas the shakti (‘power’) to fly, flit about from peak to peak. Has Tashi seen these aerial acrobatics? No, but he knows people who have. [continue reading…]
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Chemde,
Chemrey,
Flying,
hemis,
Ladakh,
lamas,
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Chemrey Monastery, Ladakh
Many monasteries in Ladakh were plundered by invaders over the centuries. The one at Chemde, or Chemrey stayed safe. How? A tale worth telling.
Seems the Mongols laid siege on Chemde in the late 17th century. He was outnumbered but that didn’t stop the head lama from outsmarting the outsiders. From afar, he shot the Mongol king’s tea cup with a rifle. Stunned, the king thought Goddess Kali ruled over the gompa and he made peace with the monks. A temple to Kali stands at the base of the hill on which Chemde nestles. [continue reading…]
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Chemrey,
hemis,
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Stagsang Respa
Amused Buddhist Nuns at Hemis Monastery, Ladakh
This shot of Buddhist nuns was captured during the annual festival of the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh. Click on the image for a larger view. You can view and order more such images at the Kunzum Gallery.
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festival,
hemis,
Himalayas,
Ladakh,
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Nuns
Dancer in Yellow Mask with Flag at Hemis Monastery Festival, Ladakh
This photograph of the masked dancer was taken at the annual festival of the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh. It has also been selected for a permanent display at the Museum of Cannes, France.
Click on the image for a larger view. You can view and order more such images at the Kunzum Gallery.
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Tibetan Argalis on way to Tso Moriri in Ladakh
As you drive towards Pangong Tso and Tso Moriri, you enter Changthang Eco Zone. It is an extension of Changthang, the Northern Tibetan Plateau, and covers about 15,000 square km. The elevation varies from 13,000 – 23,000 feet and the region is dotted by wide valleys amidst rolling hills and the occasional mountain lake. It’s a cold desert that gets very little rainfall and very high solar radiation. Summer temperatures range from 0 °C to 30 °C but the winter is hostile, with the land freezing over at -20 °C to -40 °C.
The region is strikingly beautiful but very desolate too. You wouldn’t want to be stranded here. There are few permanent human settlements. What motivates people to lead such meagre lives in these harsh conditions, virtually cut off from the world? And still be happy? The only other people you see are the nomadic Changpas who pitch tents wherever their livestock find pastures. [continue reading…]
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Pangong Tso,
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Tibetan Argali,
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Tibetan Wolf,
Tso Kar,
Tso Moriri
Tso Moriri in Ladakh
Ladakh’s lakes should figure among the world’s must-see natural wonders. They stun you out of your senses. Tso Moriri is an unending expanse of sheer azure. You can sit and stare at its blue waters and the peaks all around for hours on end.
Sitting pretty at 15,100 feet, it is 25 km long, 5-7 km wide and 40 m at its deepest. Originally a glacial lake, it had outlets to Sutlej river. Now it’s a huge enclosed basin fed by three streams. In the desert-like climate, due to surface evaporation, what was a freshwater lake first turned brackish and finally saline. [continue reading…]
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Tso Moriri
- ~ 14,000 Feet above sea level
- 134 km long
- Around 5km at the widest point
- Roughly 6o% of it is in China and the rest in India
- An Endorheic Lake – meaning it is a closed drainage basin that retains water without any outflows to rivers or oceans
- The lake freezes completely in the winter in spite of being salt water!
A Dramatic Drive
The Journey
The 150km distance takes around 5-1/2 hours. Getting out of Leh (11,500 feet), the scenery unfolds. Within a short drive, one passes through the summer residence of the Dalai Lama, thebeautiful Sindhu Ghat next to the Indus River, the centuries old monasteries of Shey Palace and the Thiksey Gompa. These monasteries are perched on hilltops offering a place for monks to embark on a life of learning in the most serene environments. Then comes the climb into Zingral, ChangLa; the descent into Dubruk, TangTse, Lukung & finally Pangong Tso.
[continue reading…]
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Ladakh,
Pangong Tso,
Road Signs
On way to Pangong Tso in Ladakh
As you descend the 17,586 ft high Chang La to get to Pangong Tso (‘lake’), you see a sign at Durbuk: ‘Welcome to the land of beautiful mountains and blue water lake.’
It’s a sweet spot. Maintained in an eco-friendly manner. There’s a bright green litter bin yet some visitors throw food wrappers along the lake. People!
On a rocky patch, there’s another sign, ‘Ice hockey, the sport of Eastern Ladakh, promoted by Army’. The area is also the world’s highest army habitat it seems; only the sign read ‘Arty Habitat’. Creative, eh? [continue reading…]
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Chang La,
Durbuk,
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Pagal Nala,
Pangong Tso
Karma with his wife and child at Spangmik Village near Pangong Tso in Ladakh
Karma’s life will never be easy. He lives in Spangmik village, beside Pangong Tso. At over 14,000 ft, summer is too short and barely warm while winter is endless and pitiless. He works as a cleaner in a government school in Durbuk, a couple of hours away by bus. If he can, he comes home on Sundays.
Home is his old father, teenaged sister (who doesn’t attend school), wife and a toddler son. They grow vegetables in the summer for themselves and sit idle in the winter, waiting for time to pass. Why don’t they move to a lower altitude, where life is more comfortable and where there are jobs for other family members? [continue reading…]
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Gyalwang Drukpa,
Karma,
Ladakh,
Pangong Tso,
Spangmik
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNmSMFyoPN0[/youtube]
Photographs by Kahini Ghosh Mehta & Shivang Mehta – wildlife photographers who run a camp in Corbett National Park and Rishikesh. Contact them at www.naturewanderers.com
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Imagine a school where you’re taught how to succeed in the modern world but never at the expense of your culture, your traditions, your rooting. Where you learn to cherish your environment. Where your buildings soak in solar energy instead of expending electricity, you recycle waste, you plant thousands of trees…
Just such a model school is Druk White Lotus School in Shey’s Naropa Palace complex. It was established by the Drukpa lineage in 2001. Students’ fees meet running costs and are also channelled into scholarships for the needy. Of the 506 students, 158 stay on campus. The school expands by one grade every year, and will have all 12 grades by 2014. [continue reading…]
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Druk White Lotus School,
Drukpa,
Education,
Ladakh
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It’s rare to see nuns conduct prayers at a Buddhist set-up. At Shey’s Naropa Palace, you’ll find this rarity.
About 50 nuns live in and manage the palace built just before the Ornaments of Naropa ceremony in 2004. This event, held every 12 years, was till then celebrated at Hemis but the need for a larger venue prompted the shift. [continue reading…]
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For 800 years, the Drukpa lineage has been the most popular Buddhist sect. But now, it’s transcending its traditional role. It’s engaging with society. It’s telling people to “Live to Love”. Its spiritual leader, His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa, says:
“Tibetan Buddhist masters have been perceived as a closed community, removed from communal happenings. However, we don’t live in this world on our own. Our religious practices require us to interact with others, regardless of faiths, nationalities and cultural backgrounds. We live to love, not to hate. It’s time to extend this energy of love to everyone. Live to love isn’t a new idea. Many Mahayana masters practise it. The Catholics are noted for it. With our existing resources, we can start work on the following: [continue reading…]
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Drukpa,
hemis,
Ladakh,
Live to Love
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Faith moves mountains, they say. And if you’re a follower of His Holiness the Twelfth Gyalwang Drukpa, you’ll probably scale mountains, following him on an overwhelmingly arduous 400-km, six-week trek.
This year, the pad yatra (walk by foot) on the world’s rooftop started at Manali in end-May to culminate in Hemis for the festival. The goal was to promote the values of the lineage and the causes of the environment, education, health and culture. [continue reading…]
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Drukpa,
hemis,
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Padyatra
It never rains at Hemis Tsechu (festival). Why should it? The annual festival, uninterrupted since its inception in the 1730s, falls on the 10th and 11th days of the fifth Tibetan month. These are usually the summer months of June/July, with negligible precipitation in this rain shadow area.
Seems the lamas didn’t consult their Oracles this year though, and thousands like me stood wet and freezing on festival day. The lamas, though, interpreted the rain and occasional snowflakes as heaven’s blessings! A few hours delay was inconsequential on this special day to commemorate Guru Padmasambhava’s birth. [continue reading…]
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His muse was a vulture’s nest. In the 13th century, Buddhist sage Gyalwa Gotsangpa (his name means ‘vulture’ [Got] ‘nest’ [Tsang]!) zeroed in on a lofty, secluded, secure location for Hemis Gompa, now Ladakh’s most revered monastery. Nestled amid towering mountains, it assured its monks of uninterrupted solitude. [continue reading…]
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Gyalwa Gotsangpa,
Hemis Monastery,
Ladakh,
Leh,
Sengye Namgyal,
Stagsang Respa
River Indus, it is said, originates from the mouth of a lion in Mansarovar, in China-controlled Tibet. Thus it is also called Sengge Tsangpo or Lion River. As it flows from Tibet to Ladakh to Pakistan before meeting the Arabian Sea, it symbolically binds the people of the three nations. It is a common lifeline. One only wishes these ties could secure peace between warring neighbours.
One of the earliest human civilisations settled on the banks of the Indus. Even now, as you come down Tanglang La, you spot the first permanent settlements and green zone after Jispa at Rumtse, located along one of its tributaries. [continue reading…]
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Sengge Tsangpo
