Page 4 - Bhutan Destination Guide - Alluring Asia

suggested by historians as origins of the name Bhutan, In A.D. 747, a Buddhist saint, Padmasambhava (known which came into common foreign use in the late in Bhutan as Guru Rimpoche and sometimes referred nineteenth century and is used in Bhutan only in to as the Second Buddha), came to Bhutan from India English-language official correspondence. The at the invitation of one of the numerous local kings. traditional name of the country since the seventeenth After reportedly subduing eight classes of demons and PAGE 3-7 century has been Drukyul - country of the Drokpa, the converting the king, Guru Rimpoche moved on to Population | Time | Visas History | Religion Dragon People, or the Land of the Thunder Dragon - a Tibet. Upon his return from Tibet, he oversaw the reference to the country's dominant Buddhist sect. construction of new monasteries in the Paro Valley and PAGE 8 set up his headquarters in Bumthang. According to Language Some scholars believe that during the early historical tradition, he founded the Nyinpmapa sect -- also PAGE 9 period the inhabitants were fierce mountain aborigines, known as the 'old sect" or Red Hat sect -- of Mahayana Climate the Monpa, who were of neither the Tibetan or Mongol Buddhism, which became for a time the dominant stock that later overran northern Bhutan. The people religion of Bhutan. PAGE 10 The Land of Monyul practiced the shamanistic Bon Religion, which emphasized worship of nature and the existence Rivalry among the Sects PAGE 11 of good and evil spirits. By the tenth century, Bhutan's political development The People | What to Pack | was heavily influenced by its religious history. PAGE 12 Arrival of Buddhism Following a period in which Buddhism was in decline Currency | Credit Cards The introduction of Buddhism occurred in the seventh in Tibet in the eleventh century, contention among a Changing Money | Tipping century A.D. when Tibetan king Srongsten Gampo number of subsects emerged. The Mongol overlords of Insurance (reigned A.D 627-49) a convert to Buddhism, ordered Tibet and Bhutan patronized a sequence of subsects PAGE 13 the construction of two Buddhist temples, at Tumthang until their own political decline in the fourteenth Etiquette | Safety & theft in central Bhutan and at Kyichu in the Paro Valley. century Buddhism replaced but did not eliminate the Bon PAGE 14 Communications | Media religious practices that had also been prevalent in Tibet Theocratic Government: 1616-1907 until the late sixth century. Instead, Buddhism In the seventeenth century, a theocratic government PAGE 15 absorbed Bon and its believers. As the country independent of Tibetan political influence was Shopping | Customs developed in its many fertile valleys, Buddhism established, and premodern Bhutan emerged. The Bartering matured and became a unifying element. It was theocratic government was founded by an expatriate PAGE 16 Buddhist literature and chronicles that began the Drukpa monk, Ngawang Namgyal, who arrived in Food & Drinks recorded history of Bhutan. Bhutan in 1616 seeking freedom from the domination PAGE 17-21 of the Gelugpa subsect led by the Dalai Lama (Ocean Culture & The Arts | Religion Lama) in Lhasa. After a series of victories over rival subsect leaders and Tibetan invaders, Ngawang Namgyal took the title Shabdrung (At Whose Feet One Submits, or, in many Western sources, dharma raja), becoming the temporal and spiritual leader of Bhutan. Administrative Integration and Conflict with Tibet, 1651-1728 To keep Bhutan from disintegrating, Ngawang Namgyal's death in 1651 apparently was kept a carefully guarded secret for fifty-four years. Initially, Ngawang Namgyal was said to have entered into a religious retreat, a situation not unprecedented in Bhutan, Sikkim, or Tibet during that time. During the period of Ngawang Namgyal's supposed retreat, appointments of officials were issued in his name, and food was left in front of his locked door.