Milarepa's Cave or Namkading Cave is a cave where the

Tibetan Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Darjeeling, Sikkim, and Arunachal Prades ...

philosopher, and

Vajrayana ''Vajrayāna'' (; 'vajra vehicle'), also known as Mantrayāna ('mantra vehicle'), Guhyamantrayāna ('secret mantra vehicle'), Tantrayāna ('tantra vehicle'), Tantric Buddhism, and Esoteric Buddhism, is a Mahāyāna Buddhism, Mahāyāna Buddhis ...

Mahasiddha Mahasiddha (Sanskrit: ''mahāsiddha'' "great adept; ) is a term for someone who embodies and cultivates the "siddhi of perfection". A siddha is an individual who, through the practice of sādhanā, attains the realization of siddhis, psychic and ...

Milarepa Jetsun Milarepa (, 1028/40–1111/23) was a Tibetan , who was famously known as a murderer when he was a young man, before turning to Buddhism and becoming a highly accomplished Buddhist disciple. He is generally considered one of Tibet's most fa ...

(c. 1052–c. 1135 CE) spent many years of his life in the eleventh century. It is located north of the town of Nyalam at Gangka village. It is on the slope below the China–Nepal Friendship Highway and above the Matsang river in

Nyalam County Nyalam County ( zh, s=聂拉木县; ) is a county in Shigatse, Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the ...

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

.Dorje (1999), p. 304.

Phelgyeling Monastery

Milarepa-statue-made-by-root-student-rechungpa

A path leads down from the roadside through the village and down a hillside where there is a small monastery (

gompa A Gompa or Gönpa or Gumba ("Five Breathtaking Gumbas Around Kathmandu", ''OMG Nepal'', https://omgnepal.com/five-breathtaking-gumbas-around-kathmandu/ "remote place", Sanskrit ''araṇya''), also known as ling (, "island"), is a sacred Buddhist ...

) named Nyanang Pelgye Ling Monastery, or Phelgyeling which is built around the cave. The monastery's assembly hall has the statue, in height, of

Shakyamuni Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

in the center. The monastery used to be a Kagyupa but later was converted to a

Gelugpa 240px, The 14th Dalai Lama (center), the most influential figure of the contemporary Gelug tradition, at the 2003 Bodh_Gaya.html" ;"title="Kalachakra ceremony, Bodh Gaya">Bodhgaya (India) The Gelug (, also Geluk; 'virtuous')Kay, David N. (20 ...

by the

5th Dalai Lama The 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (; ; 1617–1682) was recognized as the 5th Dalai Lama, and he became the first Dalai Lama to hold both Tibet's political and spiritual leadership roles. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fif ...

. Later, Phelgyeling Monastery was affiliated with the Gelugpa

Sera Monastery Sera Monastery ( "Wild Roses Monastery"; ) is one of the "great three" Gelug gompa, university monasteries of Tibet, located north of Lhasa and about north of the Jokhang. (The other two are Ganden Monastery and Drepung Monastery.) The origin ...

Lhasa Lhasa, officially the Chengguan District of Lhasa City, is the inner urban district of Lhasa (city), Lhasa City, Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China. Lhasa is the second most populous urban area on the Tibetan Plateau after Xining ...

. A separate ''Nyanang Phelgye Ling Monastery'' was set up by the

Tibetan diaspora The Tibetan diaspora is the relocation of Tibetan people from Tibet, their land of origin, to other nation states to live as exiles and refugees in communities. The diaspora of Tibetan people began in the early 1950s, peaked after the 1959 Tibe ...

Nepal Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...

in foothills of

Swayambhunath Swayambhu Maha Chaitya (Devanagari: स्वयम्भू स्तूप; Nepal Bhasa: स्वयंभू; Swayambhu Great Stupa, or ''Swayambu'' or ''Swoyambhu'') is an ancient religious complex atop a hill in the Kathmandu Valley, west ...

Kathmandu Kathmandu () is the capital and largest city of Nepal, situated in the central part of the country within the Kathmandu Valley. As per the 2021 Nepal census, it has a population of 845,767 residing in 105,649 households, with approximately 4 mi ...

. Many holy relics were brought from Tibet by fleeing monks during the

1959 Tibetan uprising The 1959 Tibetan uprising or Lhasa uprising began on 10 March 1959 as a series of protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, fueled by fears that the Chinese government planned to arrest the Dalai Lama. Over the next ten days, the demonstratio ...

, which was suppressed by the Chinese government. The Kathmandu monastery was constructed in 1972. The relocated relics are now safely kept in this monastery.

Description of the cave

Milarepa's Cave, which overlooks the entrance to the hidden valley of Lapchi Gang, is entered from the gompa's vestibule. The path is flanked by pilgrim's offerings of decorated stones and sweet-smelling herbs and wild flowers growing all around. The cave itself is kept as a shrine by two monks, guarding a statue of Milarepa enclosed in a glass case. In the cave is an impression in the rock attributed to Milarepa's sitting meditation posture and a handprint said to have been created when Milarepa helped Rechungpa (1083/4–1161 CE), his student, use a boulder to prop up the ceiling. There are images of Milarepa,

Tsongkhapa Tsongkhapa ( Tibetan: ཙོང་ཁ་པ་, '','' meaning: "the man from Tsongkha" or "the Man from Onion Valley", c. 1357–1419) was an influential Tibetan Buddhist monk, philosopher and tantric yogi, whose activities led to the format ...

, and

Shri Devi ''Shri'' (named after Palden Lhamo, a Buddhist deity) is an extinct genus of small dromaeosaurid dinosaurs that lived in what is now Mongolia during the Late Cretaceous. The genus contains two species; the first, ''Shri devi'', was described in ...

, a protectress whose mule is said to have left a footprint in the stone when she visited Milarepa in a vision. Restoration work within the cave and the monastery was undertaken by artists and craftsmen from

and was financed in the 1970s by the

Chinese government The government of the People's Republic of China is based on a system of people's congress within the parameters of a Unitary state, unitary communist state, in which the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) enacts its policies through people's ...

In art

The cave and the Pelgye Ling temple were the subject of

Richard Gere Richard Tiffany Gere ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began appearing in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in ''Looking for Mr. Goodbar (film), Looking for Mr. Goodbar'' (1977) and a starring role in ''Days of Hea ...

's artistic photo work, ''Milarepa's Cave, Nyelam Pelgye Ling Temple, Tibet'' (1993).

Associated caves

There are many more caves associated with Milarepa in Tibet and Nepal. There is the Milarepa Cave in Gandaki, Nepal on the

Annapurna Circuit The Annapurna Circuit is a trekking, trek within the mountain ranges of central Nepal. The total length of the route varies between 160–230 km (100-145 mi), depending on where motor transportation is used and where the trek is ende ...

just outside of the town of

Manang Manang () is a town in the Manang District of Nepal. It is located at 28°40'0N 84°1'0E with an elevation of . According to the preliminary results of the 2011 Nepal census, the district has a population of 6,527 people living in 1,495 individua ...

. Another notable one is close to Lar in the

Tsum Valley The Tsum Valley is a valley situated in Gorkha district of western Nepal at an altitude of . The valley lies inside the jurisdiction of the Manaslu Conservation Area which was established in 1998. The valley has 33 villages with 529 households an ...

at the border with Tibet, 28.52°N / 85.08°E, alt 3330 m. It features the print in rock of Milarepa's foot. It can be visited and there are two shrines on the site. Buddhist presence in this valley developed around Milarepa's time, as the gompa in Dephu Donma monastery, up the valley, dates back to the 12th century AD.

Footnotes

References

* Dorje, Gyurme (1999). ''Footprint Tibet Handbook with Bhutan''. Second Edition. Footprint Handbooks, Bath, England. . * Dowman, Das (1988). ''The Power-places of Central Tibet: The Pilgrim's Guide''. Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., London & New York. . * Mayhew, Bradley and Kohn, Michael ''Tibet''. (2005). 6th Edition. Lonely Planet. .

External links

gnya' lam 'phel rgyas gling
The Buddhist Digital Archives
cave, Lapchi kang

{{Xigazê Gelug monasteries in Tibet Buddhist temples in Tibet Tibetan hermitages Buddhist caves in Tibet