Certainly not unique to Bhutan, the devout circle the central area of a monastery, clutching prayer beads, spinning the prayer wheels and reciting mantras.
‘There is, besides, in use at these buildings a religious instrument with which all classes may amuse themselves, a sort of whirligig, or barrel set upright to turn on a spindle. The inside is filled with a roll of paper, printed all over with the above word [the mantra, om-mani-padme-hum]…every devout passenger, as he goes by, may give it a twirl…the meaning of the word is said to implore a blessing, and they mutter it over as the Catholics do their ‘Ave Marias,’ dropping a bead at each repetition!’
- Extract from the Diary of Samuel Davis, who visited Bhutan in 1783.
A choir gathers outside the monastery gates to greet a visiting dignitary.
‘They were attired in togas of Chinese silk brocade caught up at the waist with a girdle, whence they fell loosely to the knee. The colours of these garments were as varied as they were vivid – blues of the brightest turquoise and the deepest sapphire, rose pinks, scarlets, plums, greens and yellows …over eighty dancers, the creations, one could only imagine, of a mind lost in the spectral abysses of acute delirium – inhabitants of a world half animal, half human, biped stags, monkeys, elephants, hawks, and parrots pirouetting and curtseying to kindred monsters for which human language provides no names.’
The Earl of Ronaldshay (1923), Lands of the Thunderbolt: Sikhim, Chumbi & Bhutan
Early morning at the market in Thimphu, Bhutan’s capital.
‘[The potato] is said to have been introduced to Bhutan in 1775 by the Scotsman George Bogle, who led the first official European mission to Bhutan… The tuber grew fairly easily and the Bhutanese took an immediate liking to it so that in 1776 the dzongpön of Punakha even requested Bogle to send some more as they had eaten them all without leaving any seed. He sent Bhutanese pears to Bogle as his gift.’
- Karma Phuntsho (2013), The History of Bhutan
Porting potatoes to stalls inside the market. Thimpu, Bhutan.
‘The most interesting highland people in the eastern part of Bhutan are herders in the areas of Merak and Sakteng … they are supposed to have come from Tibet guided by the female deity Ama Jomo after they rebelled against a despotic ruler … commanding his subjects to cut off a hilltop, which was blocking the early sun from shining on his residence. In the course of the forced labour to demolish the hill, an intelligent woman sings a song implying that it is easier to chop off the ruler’s head than cut off the hill head … they assassinate the ruler but rebellion leads to exodus of the Brokpa people from their land.’
- Karma Phuntsho (2013), The History of Bhutan
‘The [Bhutanese] worship images and consider the Dhurma Raja as a god. They will not kill any animal even for food, but will eat carrion, or what has been killed by any other person. They eat the flesh of every sort of animal except that of the pigeon; but if any one should eat any that he will not lose caste, but will merely exposed to ridicule.’
- Extract from Kishen Kant Bose’s Account of Bootan who visited in 1815.
‘[Bose’s] accounts are largely distorted and at times preposterous … Perhaps, his informants enjoyed pulling the legs of a credulous visitor.’
- Karma Phuntsho (2013), The History of Bhutan
Mornings in Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu.
‘Were there any traffic or change of commodities among the natives worth mentioning, it would appear at this annual report to Tacissudon [in today’s Thimpu], in the likeness of a market or fair; but there are seen only about a dozen loads of trifling things exposed to sale in a corner of the palace … the gylongs [monks] and zeen-caabs [zingups, i.e. palace staff] receive their food and raiment from the public stores; even their swords or daggers, which the latter wear as finery in their girdles, are in general only lent to them from the palace; and the wants of the common people, besides their daily sustenance, are small indeed.’
- Extract from the Diary of Samuel Davis, who visited Bhutan in 1783.
So the story goes, this happened at Kurjey.
‘As [Padmasambhava] enters into deep meditation to use his psychic power to subdue the evil spirits, Shalging Karpo, chief of the spirits, remains in hiding … however, on the seventh day, the guru miraculously creates a magnificent spectacle on the ground in front of the cliff. [Karpo] is persuaded by his followers to see the unprecedented show … Karpo shyly reveals himself in the form of a lion and instantly the guru swoops down on him in the form of a garuda bird and suppresses him. Such stories of miracles, contests, and subjugation of the evil forces form the main thread of Padmasambhava’s career in Bhutan and Tibet.’
- Karma Phuntsho (2013), The History of Bhutan
As most are, I was allowed to keep my phone when I lived in a monastery. I’m not sure it was the wisest thing.
‘[The monkhood] receive from time to time boys taken from the most respectable families in the country, and from others who have interest to procure their children to be admitted … the far greater part of them pass their time with perfect insipidity. Between the intervals of devotion they are generally seen lolling over the balconies of their apartments, not being allowed to stir out of the castle except on every eighth day, when they walk out one by one in a line … to an island in the river to bathe.’
- Extract from the Diary of Samuel Davis, who visited Bhutan in 1783.
In the Phobjikha Valley, where immense flocks of cranes migrate every year.
‘The immortality of the [Bhutanese] Dhurma is not so well known as that of the Lama of Thibet, it is nevertheless equally true … the chief test of the authenticity of the infant in whom the Dhurma condescends to leave the regions of Ether for those of gross spirits consists in his recognizing his former articles of wearing apparel .. this child is bound to assert that they are actually his own. If it does so, surely it is satisfactory evidence. The infant Dhurma may as well be found in the hut of the poorest peasant as in the residence of an officer of high rank. But I dare say if the truth were known he is usually made for the occasion.’
- Dr. W. Griffiths, Journal of the Mission to Bootan, who visited in 1837-38
‘Informal recognition of a person as the rebirth of someone from the past existed long before the beginning of the trulku institutions in the thirteenth century. The trulku institution was novel in officially claiming the child to be the spiritual successor and thus the legal heir to properties, rights and entitlements of the deceased person…the procedures [for determining whether a person was a reincarnation of someone] were highly unclear and flexible and they often left the process of ecclesiastical succession prone to abuse and manipulation.’
- Karma Phuntsho (2013), The History of Bhutan
The architectural symbols of Bhutan, dzongs represent the centre of religious and political governance. The tradition of theocratic rule, symbolised in one structure.
‘Within the dzong, [the Zhabdrung, who created the first historically-recorded ruling dynasty in Bhutan] established his dual system of ‘the religious law which gets tighter like a silken knot’ and ‘the secular law which gets heavier like a golden yoke’. By introducing these two systems, he brought, to put it in the idiomatic phrase of the time, ‘law to the lawless south and handle to the handleless pot’.’
- Karma Phuntsho (2013), The History of Bhutan