My Left Foot - or how to deal with an evil ogress (Kyerchu Temple (Paro Valley, Bhutan))

Member Name: koshkha

Product:	Kyerchu Temple (Paro Valley, Bhutan)
Date:	28/06/09 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice little temple that illustrates many of the typical elements of Bhutanese buddhism

Disadvantages: It won't take you long to see everything - it's only small

Kyichu Lhakhang - or Kyichu Temple - is one of the most significant temples in the Paro area and in Bhutan as a whole. It can be found about 2 or 3 miles outside Paro town.

Legend says that Bhutan and much of the rest of the Himalaya mountain range had been besieged by a giant ogress who was lying across the area to prevent the spread of Buddhism. Whilst I say 'legend says' you will most likely find that any Bhutanese guide will present this as gospel truth since in their minds there really was a giant ogress and it's best when confronted with such a degree of faith to just nod and go along with it. In the 7th Century the Tibetan king gave orders to his people to build temples at key points on the ogress's body to sap her evil powers and Kyichu was believed to be the location of her left foot. You have to admit, it's a pretty good story and not a bad reason for a bout of temple building.

In total 108 temples were built because 108 is a very auspicious number in Buddhism, reflecting the number of beads on a Buddhist rosary. These temples were placed at strategic points around the body of the ogress. Several of the places we visited on our tour of Bhutan were connected with the evil ogress and Kyichu was our first experience of a Bhutanese Lhakang.

We arrived and parked our vehicle outside the temple walls and entered a pretty garden with neat grass, beautiful flowers and lots of dragonflies. In the first section of the garden we were introduced to the typical prayer wheels lining the walls. These must always be turned with the right hand in a clockwise direction, in the same way that all temples, chortens and other holy buildings must be circumnavigated in that direction.

We passed a small white chorten and saw a low single-storey building containing a bank of butter lamps. We learned that these lamps used to be in the main temple rooms but the smoke had damaged and discoloured the paintings as well as posing a serious fire risk. Since Bhutanese temples have a nasty tendency to get repeatedly burned down, it's now typical for Bhutanese temples to keep their lamps in a separate building to prevent fire damage. Like so many others, the main building at Kyichu has itself been rebuilt after a fire.

The two main temple rooms share a pretty inner courtyard with trees and flowers and an incense burner in the centre. Both temples have decorative metalwork covering the windows. The older of the two temples dates back to 659 and contains a Shakyamuni Buddha as the main icon along with the 11 headed figure with 1000 hands and 1000 eyes called Chenresig which was added in the 19th century. Shakyamuni is the image of the Buddha that most of us would recognise - the rather serene chap holding the small bowl.
The new temple was built by the new king's grandmother, Ashi Kesang, who commissioned its construction in 1968. This one has a 5m high statue of Guru Rinpoche, the father of Bhutanese Buddhism as well as a Tara statue and one of the Thangtong Gyalpo, known as the Iron Bridge Builder.

To get into the older of the two buildings, our guide had to present the caretaker monk with an official document from the government tourism office. A family of Indian tourists there at the same time as us were unable to get into the temple because they lacked the necessary documents. The monk gave us a blessing and poured holy water into our hands and then we left to look around the other temple buildings.

Out by the butter lamps again, we heard a strange flapping noise and turned to see a young monk sprinting past the chorten in his flip-flops, presumably late for his prayers. We sat down with several elderly ladies dressed in shades of red who we assumed were Buddhist nuns and their serene faces suggested they'd not run anywhere or got in a flap about anything for quite some time. They were chatting and laughing and saying their rosaries and seemed happy to let us take their photos.

We then continued on around the temple until we'd finished the clock-wise walk around all the buildings and headed back to our car. As our first Bhutanese temple, it was a very nice introduction to the religion and typical elements of the worship which we'd see again throughout our holiday.

Note - if you spotted that I've been calling this Kyichu and the listing says Kyerchu, please be reassured that I requested this temple, provided the source with the photos and I have no idea where dooyoo got the alternative spelling. However I can confirm the place I've written about and the place shown in their photo are one and the same temple.

Summary: If you go to Paro - and you almost certainly will if you go to Bhutan - this is a little must-see.