Bhutan 2014: Sangchhen Dorji Lhuendrup and Punakha Dzong

After lunch in Khuruthang we drove up to the Sangchhen Dorji Lhuendrup, a nunnery and temple complex that's only a few years old. Nuns and visiting artisans were bustling around the grounds, picking up trash, planting greenery, erecting poles for prayer flags, and such, because the Shabdrung Kuchoe holiday was in three days (May 9th). The Shabdrung (also spelled Zhabdrung) Ngawang Namgyal first unified Bhutan in the 17th Century, and established the system of parallel civil and religious administration. The tenth day of the third month in the Bhutanese calendar is the observation of his death, which was kept a secret for 54 years to forestall the return of regional warlords. The official pronouncement was that he was on retreat and in meditation.

The nunnery sits prominently above rivers and valleys. This image looks to the east.

Looking west Joan and I saw many burnt trees from a 2012 fire that came perilously close. In this picture nuns are planting more trees in advance of the Shabdrung Kuchoe. The road up to Dochu La is on the far side of the valley.

The central grounds of the complex include not only the requisite temple, but a chorten/stupa patterned after the famous Boudhanath stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal. This aerial image (from Google Maps) shows the stupa near the center.

I neglected to take a picture of the stupa, but here is one of the temple. A minor architectural feature we didn't see elsewhere are the rain chains; rather than being a series of links, they are a series of cups or small pots.

The shrine of every lhakhang (temple) features a large central figure with smaller flanking statues. The focal statue is chosen from the personages most important to the Bhutanese and to the temple sponsors. Probably the most frequent is Guru Rinpoche, known in Sanskrit as Padmasambhava, who brought Buddhism to Bhutan in the 8th Century, converting the deities, demons, ogres, and ogresses of the Bon religion to Buddhism and enlisting them as protectors of the Dharma. On our trip we also saw the place of prominence given to the Shabdrung, the historical Buddha Shakyamuni, the Buddha of the future, Maitreya, and bodhisattvas such as Chenrezig. Here at the Sangchhen lhakhang the central figure is Chenrezig, known in Sanskrit as Avalokiteshvara.

English is taught in the Bhutanese schools, along with the offical language, Dzongka, and both of these are likely in addition to the local language spoken by the family. Some failures of the ear to distinguish sounds are understandable.

Joan suspected that this visit to Sangchhen was suggested by Tshering to "vamp for time." We now backtracked to the Punakha dzong, and indeed, it turned out to be a great time of day to visit.

I took this picture as we crossed the cantilever bridge.

We weren't the only ones on an outing today.

Some visitors were relaxing among the jacaranda blooms.

Bees live here, in hives like beards hanging from the dzong. Individual bees cover the hive, darkening it. They are not disturbed in this Buddhist land.

Before entering the dzong I took another jacaranda photo.

I held back while Joan and Tshering climbed the stairway into the dzong. Tshering is wearing a kabney, a large scarf that's almost a shawl. The kabney is worn by men on special occasions or when entering a dzong. The color of the kabney signifies rank, such as member of parliament, local judge, and so forth. White is for commoners, and only the Kings and Je Khenpo can wear yellow.

If you look closely at the women at the top of the stairs (click to enlarge), you'll see that they are each wearing a narrow embroidered sash directly over the left shoulder, known as the rachu, which serves a parallel purpose to the kabney.

An image of the Shabdrung graced the central courtyard with the Shabdrung Kuchoe only three days away. His remains are still guarded over within the dzong.

Let's zoom in.

Dominating another face of the courtyard is the entrance to the large, multi-story temple of the most important dzong in the religious landscape of Bhutan. Large ceremonies with hundreds of monks can take place here. Tshering used the scenes on the walls therein to give us a rundown on the life of the Buddha.

Then the three of us (Tshering, Joan, and I) decided to do a kora, or circumambulation, of the dzong on the outside. We soon encountered a young man whitewashing part of the wall, suspended in a open-weave rope basket and belayed from above and below. This would not pass an OSHA safety inspection.

Another lovely jacaranda in the back.

We couldn't identify this tree, but the yellow-orange stems are striking close up and at a distance.

We admired this oriental magpie robin during our kora.

After completing the circumambulation we returned to the Uma Punakha for dinner, and to pack for tomorrow's drive to Trongsa.

There are more descriptions and photos of the Punakha Dzong and its extended environs in this post from our December 2009 visit.