Bhutan House

import Media from './components/media'; import { Gallery } from './components/wrappers';

“Another Bhutanese place of worship is the European-looking Bhutan House, a palatial building belonging to the family of the former Bhutanese Prime Minister, Raja Dorje, who died in 1953. The chapel on the first floor is a gem of Lamaist ecclesiastical architecture. Wooden bookshelves round the walls carry the many volumes of the Kangyur, the Tengyur and other collected works. Offertory bowls stand before the gilded images of the gods on the altar, filled to the brim with old silver coins as big as the palm of the hand. The thangkas on the walls are choice examples of Tibetan and Bhutanese painting. But the most valuable object is the gorgeous throne in the centre of the chapel, over the back of which a wide ceremonial scarf of white silk, a so-called khatag, is draped. This is the throne used by the thirteenth Dalai Lama when he fled to Kalimpong, in 1910, after being driven from Lhasa by the Chinese.”

[Nebesky-Wojkowitz, René von. 1957a. Where the Gods Are Mountains: Three Years among the People of the Himalayas. Translated by Michael Bullock. New York: Reynal and Company, 77]