Zang Dhok Palri Phodang
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Zangdok Palri Monastery or Zang Dhok Palri Phodang is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Nyingma school, located at Kalimpong in West Bengal, India. The monastery was founded by Dudjom Rinpoche in 1957[1] and built where Dudjom Rinpoche settled while in exile from Tibet, atop Durpin Hill. It represents Guru Rinpoche's palace, the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain.[1][2] In 1975, Dudjom Rinpoche then moved from Kalimpong to Nepal,[3] and the monastery was additionally consecrated in 1976 by the visiting Dalai Lama.
A series of important Nyingma school lineage transmissions given by Dudjom Rinpoche to the Tibetan exile communities were first held at Zangdok Palri in 1961.[1][4] The monastery houses many rare Tibetan Buddhist and specifically Nyingma lineage texts that were brought by Dudjom Rinpoche into Sikkim, India, then moved to Kalimpong[1] after the invasion of Tibet by China in 1949/1950. It also houses the 108 volumes of the Buddhist Kangyur translated into Tibetan. It is popularly known as the Durpin Monastery, and the view from the hill-top is breathtaking.
Dudjom Rinpoche was gifted another monastery in Kalimpong, the Jangsa Dechen Choling Monastery, where he trained lamas and students.[1] The Jangsa Gompa was built in 1692 by the government of Bhutan,[5] when Bhutan controlled Kalimpong, and was gifted to Dudjom Rinpoche by Bhutan's Queen Mother Choying Wangmo in the 1960s.[1]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f Joseph McClellan, "Dudjom Rinpoche Jigdrel Yeshe Dorje", Treasury of Lives, February 2024
- ^ Tashi Deki, "Zangdok Palri, the Lotus Light Palace of Guru Rinpoche", The Bhutanese, August 8, 2012
- ^ Yeshe Thaye, "A Short Life Story of His Holiness Kyabje Dudjom Rinpoche (1904-1987)", Dudjom Buddhist International
- ^ "Durpin Monastery", Treasury of Lives
- ^ " Introduction to Kalimpong", GuruSambhava Tours and Treks