537
Bhutan’s western most large town of Paro, this matrix of opposites struggling to
form an unbiased union is palpable to the tens of thousands of pilgrims who make
the four-mile roundtrip trek to an altitude exceeding 10,236 feet throughout the
year, commencing from a busy parking lot down in the forest. There was no parking
lot in 1974 when I (mt) first journeyed there with my good friend, Tenzing Norgay,
a person from the Sherpa cultural matrix in the Solo Khumbu district of Nepal (the
first documented human, along with New Zealander Edmund Hillary, to summit
Everest, Chomolungma in Tibetan, Sagarmatha in Hindi). Tenzing used to express
his doubts to me regarding the wisdom of having gone to that sacred summit. He
and I would have similar late-night discussions about the wisdom of encouraging
tourism, in whatever small numbers, to Bhutan. For it was that Winter that we had
brought one of the very first groups of westerners to the country, as the reclusive
nation struggled with the concept of ecotourism and had decided to let 30 people
from the outside world across its borders.
In subsequent years, the government would deem an annual number of 300 outsiders a sustainable number of fleeting visitors, with a total of one hotel in the country at that time (in Paro). By various turns, and over coming years, economics would
factor into the tourism agenda. And today, 45 years later, that number exceeds
300,000, the majority driving in from India, though flights from various points—
including New Delhi, Kolkata, Dacca, Kathmandu, Bangkok, and Singapore—also
bring tourists daily to the single international airstrip in Paro (opened for business
as of January 1983), just a ten-minute drive from the road up to the parking lot at
Taktsang (“the tiger’s lair”).
One can hear, and on occasion even see, the flights of Bhutan’s national airline,
the meticulous Druk Air (the best, safest airline in the world), approaching or
departing the Paro airstrip from Taktsang, which remains the most revered, internationally recognizable sacred place in all of Bhutan. It is uncannily spectacular: that
spot where the “Second Buddha,” Guru Rinpoche, or Padmasambhava—a renowned
“Tantric master”—came to live with his consort, Yeshe Tsogyal (who adopted the
form of a tigress for the occasion). The Guru arrived in the form of one of his eight
manifestations, the powerful Dorje Drolo. And there, with his companion tiger, he
lived in a cave on the cliff for over 39 months and subdued through continuous
meditation any and all malevolent spirits inhabiting the area.
3
In the early twelfth century the famed Tibetan poet/siddha, Jetsun Milarepa,
composed one of his archetypal reveries adrift the overpowering walls of Taktsang,
with its smooth-waltzing cliff swallows. A temple was built adjoining one of the
sacred caves on the cliff in 1684 during the rule of the Shabdrung, the great “unifier”
of the country who managed to largely merge religious and political factions.
4
3 See “Paro Taktsang: The Breathtaking Himalayan Cloud Monastery,” by Bryan Hill, August 3,
2015, Ancient Origins, https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/paro-taktsang-breathtaking-himalayan-cloud-monastery-003532, Accessed May 30, 2020.
4 See “A Tiger’s Nest In The Land Of The Thunder Dragon,” by Katherine Anne Paul, Sacred Sites
International Foundation, May 4, 2020, http://www.sacred-sites.org/saved-sacred-sites/taktsangtaktshang-goemba/a-tigers-nest-in-the-land-of-the-thunder-dragon/. Accessed May 30, 2020.
57.1 The Anthropology of the Sacred and Profane
Bhutan’s western most large town of Paro, this matrix of opposites struggling to
form an unbiased union is palpable to the tens of thousands of pilgrims who make
the four-mile roundtrip trek to an altitude exceeding 10,236 feet throughout the
year, commencing from a busy parking lot down in the forest. There was no parking
lot in 1974 when I (mt) first journeyed there with my good friend, Tenzing Norgay,
a person from the Sherpa cultural matrix in the Solo Khumbu district of Nepal (the
first documented human, along with New Zealander Edmund Hillary, to summit
Everest, Chomolungma in Tibetan, Sagarmatha in Hindi). Tenzing used to express
his doubts to me regarding the wisdom of having gone to that sacred summit. He
and I would have similar late-night discussions about the wisdom of encouraging
tourism, in whatever small numbers, to Bhutan. For it was that Winter that we had
brought one of the very first groups of westerners to the country, as the reclusive
nation struggled with the concept of ecotourism and had decided to let 30 people
from the outside world across its borders.
In subsequent years, the government would deem an annual number of 300 outsiders a sustainable number of fleeting visitors, with a total of one hotel in the country at that time (in Paro). By various turns, and over coming years, economics would
factor into the tourism agenda. And today, 45 years later, that number exceeds
300,000, the majority driving in from India, though flights from various points—
including New Delhi, Kolkata, Dacca, Kathmandu, Bangkok, and Singapore—also
bring tourists daily to the single international airstrip in Paro (opened for business
as of January 1983), just a ten-minute drive from the road up to the parking lot at
Taktsang (“the tiger’s lair”).
One can hear, and on occasion even see, the flights of Bhutan’s national airline,
the meticulous Druk Air (the best, safest airline in the world), approaching or
departing the Paro airstrip from Taktsang, which remains the most revered, internationally recognizable sacred place in all of Bhutan. It is uncannily spectacular: that
spot where the “Second Buddha,” Guru Rinpoche, or Padmasambhava—a renowned
“Tantric master”—came to live with his consort, Yeshe Tsogyal (who adopted the
form of a tigress for the occasion). The Guru arrived in the form of one of his eight
manifestations, the powerful Dorje Drolo. And there, with his companion tiger, he
lived in a cave on the cliff for over 39 months and subdued through continuous
meditation any and all malevolent spirits inhabiting the area.
3
In the early twelfth century the famed Tibetan poet/siddha, Jetsun Milarepa,
composed one of his archetypal reveries adrift the overpowering walls of Taktsang,
with its smooth-waltzing cliff swallows. A temple was built adjoining one of the
sacred caves on the cliff in 1684 during the rule of the Shabdrung, the great “unifier”
of the country who managed to largely merge religious and political factions.
4
3 See “Paro Taktsang: The Breathtaking Himalayan Cloud Monastery,” by Bryan Hill, August 3,
2015, Ancient Origins, https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-asia/paro-taktsang-breathtaking-himalayan-cloud-monastery-003532, Accessed May 30, 2020.
4 See “A Tiger’s Nest In The Land Of The Thunder Dragon,” by Katherine Anne Paul, Sacred Sites
International Foundation, May 4, 2020, http://www.sacred-sites.org/saved-sacred-sites/taktsangtaktshang-goemba/a-tigers-nest-in-the-land-of-the-thunder-dragon/. Accessed May 30, 2020.
57.1 The Anthropology of the Sacred and Profane