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Kardang Monastery or Gompa is a famous
Drukpa Lineage The Drukpa Kagyu (), or simply Drukpa, sometimes called either Dugpa or " Red Hat sect" in older sources,
monastery, and is the most important monastery the
Lahaul The Lahaul and Spiti district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh consists of the two formerly separate districts of Lahaul () and Spiti (; or ). The present administrative centre is Kyelang in Lahaul. Before the two districts were merge ...
valley, India. The associated village of
Kardang Kardang is a village in the Lahaul region of Himachal Pradesh, India. It is 5 km away from Keylong. It was once the capital of Lahaul and has the biggest monastery of the area, situated on the left bank of the river Bhaga.
was once the capital of Lahaul. The monastery is a huge white building bedecked with prayer flags. It is situated on a ridge below the 15,000 foot (4,572 metres) Rangcha peak, at an altitude of 3,500m on the left bank of the Bhaga River, facing the town of
Keylong Kyelang (also spelled Keylong) is a town and the administrative centre of the Lahaul and Spiti district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, north of Manali via Atal Tunnel and from the Indo-Tibetan border. It is located along the Manal ...
,http://www.buddhist-tourism.com/countries/india/monasteries/himachalpradesh/kardang-monastery.html about 8 km away. Kardang is well connected by the road via the Tandi bridge which is about 14 km from Keylong. The monastery was featured on the 7 November 2010 episode of the
History Channel History (formerly The History Channel from January 1, 1995 to February 15, 2008, stylized as HISTORY) is an American pay television network and flagship channel owned by A&E Networks, a joint venture between Hearst Communications and the Dis ...
TV series
IRT Deadliest Roads ''Ice Road Truckers'' (commercially abbreviated ''IRT'') is a reality television series that premiered on History Channel, on June 17, 2007. It features the activities of drivers who operate trucks on seasonal routes crossing frozen lakes and r ...
, where trucker
Rick Yemm ''Ice Road Truckers'' (commercially abbreviated ''IRT'') is a reality television series that premiered on History Channel, on June 17, 2007. It features the activities of drivers who operate trucks on seasonal routes crossing frozen lakes and ...
delivered a large golden
Buddha statue Much Buddhist art uses depictions of the historical Buddha, Gautama Buddha, which are known as Buddharūpa (literally, "Form of the Awakened One") in Sanskrit and Pali. These may be statues or other images such as paintings. The main figure i ...
to the monastery and was greeted by the monastery's head, Lama Paljor Larje.


History

The monastery is believed to have been built in the 12th century and houses a large library of Buddhist literature, including the
Kangyur The Tibetan Buddhist canon is a loosely defined collection of sacred texts recognized by various schools of Tibetan Buddhism, comprising the Kangyur or Kanjur ('Translation of the Word') and the Tengyur or Tanjur ( Tengyur) ('Translation of Trea ...
and Tangyur scriptures in the Bhotia or
Sherpa language Sherpa (also Sharpa, Xiaerba, or Sherwa) is a Tibetic language spoken in Nepal and the Indian state of Sikkim, mainly by the Sherpa. The majority speakers of the Sherpa language live in the Khumbu region of Nepal, spanning from the Chinese ...
. There is also a good collection of fine
thanka A ''thangka'', variously spelled as ''thangka'', ''tangka'', ''thanka'', or ''tanka'' (; Tibetan: ཐང་ཀ་; Nepal Bhasa: पौभा), is a Tibetan Buddhist painting on cotton, silk appliqué, usually depicting a Buddhist deity, scene, ...
s, musical instruments such as lutes, drums, horns, as well as old weapons. There are colourful frescoes and murals. The monastery was in ruins until it was renovated in 1912 CE by Lama Norbu Rinpoche (died 1952), who, with Lama Kunga, turned it into "a proper educational and training establishment." In the first room is a 4 foot (1.23 metres) high silver
chaitya A chaitya, chaitya hall, chaitya-griha, (Sanskrit:''Caitya''; Pāli: '' Cetiya'') refers to a shrine, sanctuary, temple or prayer hall in Indian religions. The term is most common in Buddhism, where it refers to a space with a stupa and a rounded ...
or chorten preserving the skull and ashes of Lama Norbu. To the right of it are statues of
Padmasambhava Padmasambhava ("Born from a Lotus"), also known as Guru Rinpoche (Precious Guru) and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna, was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from India who may have taught Vajrayana in Tibet (circa 8th – 9th centuries)... According ...
and
Tara (Devi) In Hinduism, the goddess Tara ( sa, तारा, ) is the second of the Dasa (ten) Mahavidyas or "''Great Wisdom goddesses''", and is a form of Adishakti, the tantric manifestation of Parvati. Her most famous centre of worship is the temp ...
, and in the back, one of Tagden Shakyashree, guru of Lama Kunga. 103 volumes of the
Kangyur The Tibetan Buddhist canon is a loosely defined collection of sacred texts recognized by various schools of Tibetan Buddhism, comprising the Kangyur or Kanjur ('Translation of the Word') and the Tengyur or Tanjur ( Tengyur) ('Translation of Trea ...
are kept here, while behind are 64
tantra Tantra (; sa, तन्त्र, lit=loom, weave, warp) are the esoteric traditions of Hinduism and Buddhism that developed on the Indian subcontinent from the middle of the 1st millennium CE onwards. The term ''tantra'', in the Indian ...
books on various subjects. The second room is the main Prayer Hall with an eleven-headed statue of Avalokitesvara. On a high pedestal at the right are some of Lama Norbu's castoff garments and with a skull in front. In the third room is a six foot wooden prayer wheel with a brass bell on it. There are now about thirty monks and nuns (''chomos'') in the monastery, and two British nuns have studied, meditated, and been initiated in recent years.Maitra (2002), pp. 43-44. The monks and nuns have equal rights, and the monks have permission to marry. The monks spend the summer with their families working their fields, in the winter they return to the monastery. There is a huge prayer drum in the monastery with the sacred six-syllable mantra,
Om mani padme hum ' ( sa, ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ, ) is the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra particularly associated with the four-armed Shadakshari form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. It first appeared in the Mahayana ''Kāraṇ ...
, written a million times on strips of paper. It also has a ''Narbo'' as its head
lama Lama (; "chief") is a title for a teacher of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. The name is similar to the Sanskrit term ''guru'', meaning "heavy one", endowed with qualities the student will eventually embody. The Tibetan word "lama" means "hig ...
. Because the monastery is on the southern bank of the Bhaga River, it gets very little sun, while Keylong on the opposite side gets far more as it is facing south. Because of this the Moravian Christian mission, which was established here in 1857,Handa (1987), p. 3. was later moved across the river to Keylong.


Modern story by monastery head Lama Paljor Larje

The old monastery temple was fully destroyed by rain at 1998. The new temple was rebuilt at 1999-2009 by present monastery head Lama Paljor. The previous monastery head - Lama Apo rinponche came from Tibet about 1959. He became monastery head in 1970. Lama Paljor larje was his disciple since he was 13 years old. Khantse rimponche lead the monastery when Apo rimponche died in 1981. Lama Paljor Larje lead the monastery from 1999 onward. The new temple has two floors. Each floors have one room. The ground floor is place for laymen. It has a number of very old statues and paintings. When a laymen enters to temple he sees three main statues on the front: Buddha Shakjamuni statue on the middle, Buddha Vajradhara on the left and Buddha Padmasambhava on the right. On the right side of the main the laymen may see the statues including the following: # Buddha Amitabha # Tara # Maha sidha (siddha) Shakya Shri # Marpa - great buddhist text translator # Yogin Malarepa # Gampopa # Lama Norbu rinpoche - both statue and stupa with his relic There are some of statues on the right side: # Buddha Avalokiteshvara #
Heruka :''Heruka is also a name for the deity of the Cakrasaṃvara Tantra.'' ''Heruka'' (Sanskrit; Tibetan: ), is the name of a category of wrathful deities, enlightened beings in Vajrayana Buddhism that adopt a fierce countenance to benefit sentient ...
deity # Vajrayogini # Maha sidha (siddha) Shakya Shri # Yunjin rinpoche # Kunga rinpoche - both statue and stupa # Apo rinpoche - stupa, previous monastery head Painting The temple has a number of old cloth paintings: Tibtain tradition painting, Kalachakra deity painting, Buddha Jataka, Melorepa stories and so on. Molarepa story is estimated as 400 years painting. The ground floor ceiling has a number of traditional painting compositions. The Guru-yoga mandala on the right and Chakrasambara mandala on the left surround the Buddha Akshobhya figure. This painting as well as all new paintings in and outside the temple were made by Lama Paljaor himself, who is a master of traditional thangka painting. The monastery has a number of very old books and commentaries.


Footnotes


References

*Handa, O. C. (1987). ''Buddhist Monasteries in Himachal Pradesh''. Indus Publishing Company, New Delhi. . *Francke, A. H. (1914). ''Antiquities of Indian Tibet''. Two Volumes. Calcutta. 1972 reprint: S. Chand, New Delhi. *Maitra, Kiranshankar. (2002). ''The Enchanting Himalayas: A Pilgrimage to Lahul-Spiti.'' Mittal Publications. , .


External links


Buddhist tourism website
{{Buddhist monasteries in Himachal Pradesh Buddhist monasteries in Himachal Pradesh Drukpa Kagyu monasteries and temples Buddhism in Lahaul and Spiti district Buildings and structures in Lahaul and Spiti district Religious organizations established in the 12th century