CHIMI LHAKHANG

Chimi Lhakhang, also known as Chime Lhakhang or Monastery or temple, is a Buddhist monastery in Punakha District, Bhutan. Located near Lobesa, it stands on a round hillock and was built in 1499 by the 14th Drukpa hierarch, Ngawang Choegyel, after the site was blessed by the “Divine Madman” the maverick saint Drukpa Kunley (1455–1529) who built a chorten on the site.

The Lhakhang is located 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) from Punakha near a village called Sopsokha from where a 20 minutes walk along muddy and dusty path through agricultural fields of mustards and rice, leads to a hillock where the monastery and the chorten are situated. Prayer flags are lined all along the road from the tiny village hamlet known as Yowakha, along a drain or stream to the monastery. All houses in the village have paintings of phalluses on their exterior walls. The lama Kunley had called the hillock where the monastery exists as the breast of a woman because of its round shape.

The Lhakhang is of modest size, square in shape with a golden spire. It is a golden yellow roofed building. It has a row of prayer wheels and its exterior walls are embedded with slates carved with images of saints. Near the entrance to the Lhakhang, there is this small chorten which marks the location where the demoness was subdued by Lama Kunley. The prayer hall in side the monastery has tantric paraphernalia, thangkas, bells, drums, horns, dorjis and a kangd. The statue of Kunley, in a monk’s robe, is centrally located at the altar here, in a reclining position with a ceramic statue of his dog Sachi. Images of Zhabdrung, Sakyamuni Buddha and Chenresig are also deified in the monastery.

Women who come to the monastery seeking blessings of children get hit on the head by the presiding Lama with a 10 inches (25 cm) ivory, wood and bone phallus. They also make the pilgrimage to get the name of the child to be born. They do this by picking bamboo slips placed in the altar inscribed with names of boys and girls. It is also said that the small chorten at the altar was made by Kunley himself. There are also frescoes painted on the walls of the monastery depicting the Mad saint’s colourful life.