Rumtek Monastery – Sikkim

New Monastery

Rumtek Monastery (The Dharmachakra Centre) is a must visit, if you are travelling to this part of the country. It is situated 24 KM away from Gangtok, the capital of Sikkim. There are two monasteries in the locality- the old monastery which was built in the sixteenth century under the guidance of the ninth Karmapa and the new one. In fact when I visited the Rumtek Monastery for the first time, I was not aware of the existence of the old monastery, just two KM away from the new one, down the road.

Prayer Wheels

The new monastery was built in the 1960s (the construction began in1962 and inaugurated on the Tibetan New Year day in 1966) under the guidance of the Sixteenth Karmapa who fled Tibet in 1959 during the Sino-Tibetan conflict.  Sikkim had a long-standing relationship with the successive lines of Karmapas in Tibet and the old monastery was built in Rumtek under the patronage of Sikkim king (Chogyal-The Dharma King). He invited the 9^th Karmapa to build monasteries and one of which was established in Kagyu lineage in Rumtek.

Prayer time

The new monastery is bigger than the old one and it is a Tibetan architectural marvel with colourful paintings on the walls. Also you see a wall painting of Lord Ganesha which is a rarity. We were told that the Karmapa had a dream and he instructed to have a painting of Lord Ganesh there. The Golden Stupa that contains the relics of the 16th Karmapa, Karma Shri Nalanda Institute for Higher Buddhist Studies are the other major attractions here. And you can spin the prayer wheels which are fixed on a wall, clockwise, while climbing down to the entrance. The recent earthquake destroyed some parts of the monastery and repair work is going on.

Veg Cafe run by monks

There is a vegetarian cafe near the monastery; you will get coffee, thukpa, momos, etc there. The beauty of the cafe is that its windows open to the scenic mountains and you can see mist playing hide and seek while you sip your hot coffee. And the coffee is served by the monks (they run the cafe) 

Young monks playing with local 

children outside the new Monastery

 Of course, one word of caution. It is a routine for the tourists who visit Sikkim to visit the monastery too (It is a part and parcel of the tour, I heard). But then you know how people behave in a typical tourist place. There are boards requesting visitors to maintain silence. Either they do not read it or they do understand what they read; or it could be that they do not care for it. They talk so loudly despite seeing people meditating there.  Children run around uncontrollably.  I have made three visits to the monastery and onall the occasions this was the story.

Old Monastery 

But down the road, just a couple of kilometres away, where the old monastery stands, it is absolute serenity and in the midst of thick misty forest. Thank God it is not in the tourist map. Hardly anybody visits there. A local friend took us there for the first time and I fell in love with the place. The 16^th century monastery is not a gigantic structure (compared to the new one) but it has a charm. Monks walk around in their burgundy robe silently. Inside the monastery some of them were chanting prayers. I liked the old one for its simple but magnificent structure, ineffable peace and the eternal silence. The paintings on the wall depicted hell (which was a bit scary) and there was the idol of God of destruction and our friend told us that the monks pray for peace and to prevent destruction.

A Young monk at old Monastery 

We spent a lot of time in the old monastery, had our food (carried from home) under the kiosk and walked towards the forest in a meditative mood. There is a tree adjacent to the gate of the monastery and the local friend told us to look at the tree through the camera lens and surprisingly it looked like Buddha in his meditating posture. But my son told me that he could not make out anything. May be that image is a creation of my mind and the mood at that time. May be Siddhartha’s eternal travel, searching for answers to the mystery of life was blowing in the wind that slightly shook the trees. I shivered a bit; not due to cold but thinking that love, lust, anger and frustrations still rule me.

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