Dorje Drak Monastery

Along with Mindroling Monastery, Dorje Drak is one of the two most important Nyingmapa monasteries in Northern Tibet. With a remote and romantic location, it is less accessible than Mingdroling and consequently gets few western travelers.

 

Dorje Drak was forcibly relocated to its present site in 1632 by the kings in Tsang and then sacked by the Dzungar Mongols in 1717. The monastery is headed by a line of hereditary lamas known as the Rigdzin, named after the first Rigdzin Godemachen, who are thought to be reincarnationsof Guru Rinpoche. The 10 the Rigdzin Lama currently resides in Lhasa.

 

The main assembly hall has statues of Guru Rinpoche and Pema Trinley, the fourth Rigdzin. The Samsum Namgyel Gonkhang to the right has five butter sculptures representing the chapel’s five protectors. A cabinet holds the monastery’s treasures, including a fragment of a staff belonging to Milarepa that was smashed in the Cultural Revolution. The upstairs chapel sells lovely ground juniper incense.