Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Tsurphu Monastery
Elev 4480m
Around 65km west of Lhasa,
Tsurphu Monastery
(, Chǔbù Sì admission ¥40)
is the seat of
the Karma branch of the Kagyu order of Tibetan Buddhism. The Karma Kagyu (or
Karmapa) are also known as the Black Hats, a title referring to a crown given to the fifth
Karmapa by the Chinese emperor Yongle in 1407. Said to be made from the hair of
100,000
dakini
s (celestial beings, known as
khandroma
in Tibetan), the black hat, embel-
lished with gold, is now kept at Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, India. You'll see images of
the 16th Karmapa wearing the hat, holding it down with his hand to stop it flying away.
It was the first Karmapa, Dusum Khyenpa (1110-93), who instigated the concept of re-
incarnation and the Karmapa lineage has been maintained this way ever since.
The respected 16th Karmapa fled to Sikkim in 1959 after the popular uprising in Lhasa
and founded a new centre at Rumtek. He died in 1981 and his reincarnation, Ogyen Trin-
ley Dorje, an eight-year-old Tibetan boy from Kham, was announced amid great contro-
versy by the Dalai Lama and other religious leaders in 1992. More than 20,000 Tibetans
came to Tsurphu to watch the Karmapa's coronation that year. In December 1999 the 17th
Karmapa undertook a dramatic escape from Tibet into India via Mustang and the An-
napurna region.
Tsurphu has an annual
festival
around the time of the Saga Dawa festival, on the ninth,
10th and 11th days of the fourth Tibetan month (around May). There is plenty of free-
flowing
chang
(Tibetan barley beer), as well as ritual
cham
dancing and the unfurling of a
great thangka on the platform across the river from the monastery.
History
Tsurphu was founded in 1187 by Dusum Khyenpa, some 40 years after he established the
Karma Kagyu order in Kham, his birthplace. It was the third Karma Kagyu monastery to
be built and, after the death of the first Karmapa, it became the head monastery for the or-
der.
The Karma Kagyu order traditionally enjoyed strong ties with the kings and monasteries
of Tsang, a legacy that proved a liability when conflict broke out between the kings of
Tsang and the Gelugpa order. When the fifth Dalai Lama invited the Mongolian army of
