Saturday, February 22, 2014

Chogyam Trungpa: Dege, Tibet & Mt Pago-punsum

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"My birthplace was a small settlement on a high plateau of north eastern Tibet. Above it, the celebrated mountain Pago-punsum rises perpendicularly to more than eighteen thousand feet, and is often called the 'the pillar of the sky'. It looks like a tall spire; its mighty crest towers under perpetual snows, glittering in the sunshine."….Chogyam Trungpa…Born in Tibet

"….Derge (also Dêgê, Tibetan སྡེ་དགེ་, Wylie: sde dge) is a town in Dêgê County in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in China's Sichuan province. It was once the center of the Derge Kingdom of Kham or Eastern Tibet…..Derge was formerly the seat of the kings of the kingdom of Derge, whose 1300-year lineage was broken with the death of the last male heir in the 1990s…The town also contains several historic Tibetan monasteries, notably Palpung Monastery, Gongchen Monastery, Kathok Monastery, Palyul Monastery, Shechen Monastery and Dzogchen Monastery….

"I have kept the name Mukpo as my family name, my identity, my pride." (Trungpa:1984..pg 94)

"The Hengduan Mountain Range, which mostly runs north to south, extends through much of Garnze prefecture. The Yangtze, Meokong and Salween Rivers all cut deep gorges through this rugged range. The highest mountain in this range, and the highest mountain in Garnze prefecture, is Minya Konka མི་ཉག་གངས་དཀར་རི་བོ་, known in Chinese as Gongga Shan. This glaciated peak rises to 7556 meters. There are many other mountains in the prefecture that rise above 6000 meters, notably Trola Mountain in Dege county, which rises to 6168 meters and Mt. Chenresig in Dabpa county (Daocheng), which rises to 6032 meters."

"Que’er Shan (aka: Chola Mountain), is a prominent mountain in a virtually untouched region of Western Sichuan. This is a mountain covered year round in snow and ice. Chola Mountain is the highest peak in a glaciated range of peaks, many of which are unclimbed…..

Chola Mountain or Trola Mountain、Chola Shan、Que'er Mountain、Que'er Shan (simplified Chinese: 雀儿山; traditional Chinese: 雀兒山; pinyin: Què'ér Shān) is a mountain range in western Sichuan Province,China. Chola or Trola is Tibetan name, which means the big bird's wing. The highst peak share the same name ( Tibetan name : Rongmai Angzha ) is 6,168m. However, others claim, CHOLA is just another name for snow mountain, given by local Tibetans. The Chinese phonetic transliteration for CHOLA uses two characters: Que Er, and written so on official maps. Hence, many foreign guide books use the literal translation of the Chinese Characters: Sparrow. So, mistakenly CHOLA became "Bird Mountain". Another view presented on the origin of "Chola" was given by Sir Richard Temple in the Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society and monthly record of Geography, Volume 3, 1881. Lake Region of Sikkim, on the Frontier of Tibet, by Sir Richard Temple(p. 334). By Royal Geographical Society (Great Britain). According to him, ...Tso is a common termination in Tibetan names, meaning water, and is sometimes pronounced tcho; in fact, Europeans cannot tell whether natives are saying tso or tcho. It mealy means a lake. Nimyetso is Nimye Lake. And I ought to take this opportunity of mentioning that the termination la means a pass, so that Chola, or Cho-la mealy means lake-pass, and Yakla, or Yak-la, is nothing more than the pass of the Yak, the famous Tibetan cow....

Yilhun Lhatso…(aka: ), located at the foot of Chola Mountain (Que’er Shan)……The turquoise glacier lake peacefully lies at the foot of the 6187m Mt. Chola (chin. Que'er Shan) in the county of Derge.

Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (Tibetan: དཀར་མཛེས་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ་; Chinese: 甘孜藏族自治州) — is an autonomous prefecture occupying the western arm of Sichuan province, People's Republic of China. It is sometimes spelled as "Kardze" and Garzin by non-government sources……

"The concentration of Bonpo monasteries and communities in the eastern part of Tibet is attributed to the Buddhist persecution of the religion in Central Tibet during the imperial period."

"….The 2,412km long Sichuan-Tibet Highway starts from Chengdu of Sichuan on the east and ends at Lhasa of Tibet on the west. The road stretches into Lhasa passing Ya’an, Garze and Chamdo. …..Chengdu-> Xiaojin-> Danba-> Daofu-> Luhuo-> Garze-> Manigango-> Dege-> Gyamda-> Chamdo-> Bongda-> Baxoi-> Bomi-> Nyingchi-> Bayi-> Gongbo Gyamda-> Lhasa…….2412km in length with the highest point at Queer Mt. of 4916m…..Derge ……As the cultural center of Tibet, Derge has the famous Dege Printing House. A plenty of spectacular hiking possibilities exist in the backcountry. The origin of Tibetan woodcarving and engraving printing technology, Yinjing temple keeps the most delicate, complete and oldest printing procedures. Temple of Babang, Zongsa and Zuqing are also famous. Natural scenery includes New Luai, Axu Grassland…..

"Resting in a valley on the upper reaches of the Jinsha and Yalong Rivers and bordering Tibet, Dege (Derge) is the westernmost city in Sichuan before a ragged mountain trail heads to the vast Tibetan highland. It remains one of the least-explored regions of China. …..Dege was named after the Dege clan, which means 'land of mercy' in Tibetan. Historically, Dege was one of three ancient centers of Tibetan Buddhism culture, together with Lhasa in Tibet and Xiahe in Gansu. In the 17th and 18th centuries, the influence of the Dege clan covered several counties at the juncture of present-day Sichuan, Tibet and Qinghai. Dege County today sits at the heart of this ancient domain……Dege is of great historic significance as the birthplace of Khampa culture, the hometown of Gesar King and an important stop along the ancient Tea-Horse Caravans Road….."

The town of Gengqing on the reaches of the Sequ River is 500 years old, and is now the county seat of Dege. The 30-kilometer river valley was the original preserve of the Dege clan. Gengqing became a holy site in Tibetan Buddhism because it had a printing house for turning out scriptures."….Dzongsar Monastery…. located in a remote valley of southern Dege. It has a long history of progressive thinking in the Buddhist world. The monastery was founded 1200 years ago, first as a Bon monastery promulgating Tibet's traditional animist faith, later changed to the Nyingma sect, then Kagyu. 500 years ago the valley was wrested from the hands of King Gesar's generals and attached to the then-ascendent Dege Kingdom. In 1959 the most important temples were destroyed during a political movement against Liu Shaoqi, a rare instance of destruction of a Tibetan monastery prior to the Cultural Revolution….

Sichuan (Chinese: 四川; pinyin: About this sound Sìchuān, known formerly in the West by its postal map spellings of Szechwan or Szechuan) ….significant minorities of Tibetans, Yi, Qiang and Naxi reside in the western portion that are impacted by inclement weather and natural disasters, environmentally fragile, and impoverished. Sichuan's capital of Chengdu is home to a large community of Tibetans, with 30,000 permanent Tibetan residents and up to 200,000 Tibetan floating population.

The full moon calendar 1939.....
Thursday, 5 January 1939....
Saturday, 4 February 1939,....
Sunday, 5 March 1939....
Tuesday, 4 April 1939....

"..... the expedition visited Samye, which was surrounded by a three-meter-high, whitewashed wall on top of which were 2,300 small clay chörten. They were impressed by the cleanliness of the monastery, its location making Samye seem to them one of the most beautiful places in Tibet. The main temple had been renovated a few years previously under the direction of the provincial governor, making it among Tibet’s most beautiful and valuable buildings. By their estimate, the population was about 300 to 400 people, including the monks....Not far from Samye they were amazed as they approached the five white chörten of Zunggar.... “These miraculous figures, artfully sculpted out of the cliff, were still intertwined with the original stone.”.....Tibet in 1938–1939: The Ernst Schäfer Expedition to Tibet

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