Punakha Dzong
Interesting facts
- According to legend, the architect Zowe Palep saw the dzong's full plan in a dream after sleeping beside a small Buddha shrine, and built it without drawing anything on paper.
- In 1639 a chapel was built to hold the weapons captured from a Tibetan army defeated here, and the Punakha festival still re-enacts that victory.
- The Seventh Dalai Lama donated a brass roof for the dzong in the 18th century.
- It is the second oldest and second largest dzong in Bhutan, and one of 16 dzongs founded by the Zhabdrung.
- The Zhabdrung's embalmed body rests in the Machey Lhakhang, a sealed chapel whose casket is never opened.
- Kings of Bhutan and each new Je Khenpo, the head of the clergy, visit the Machey Lhakhang to seek blessings before taking office.
- The two rivers meeting at the dzong are fed partly by glaciers, and glacial lake outburst floods have repeatedly struck it; one in 1994 killed 23 people.
- In 1910 a treaty signed at Punakha gave Britain control of Bhutan's foreign affairs while promising not to interfere in its internal ones.
- At the end of the festival, 136 dancers dressed as warriors perform in the courtyard, and the Je Khenpo throws oranges into the river as an offering to water spirits.
- The head of Bhutan's clergy and his monks traditionally spend the winter in the dzong, where the low valley is warmer than Thimphu.
Why it is worth it
Punakha Dzong rises at the meeting of two rivers in the warm, low Punakha valley of western Bhutan, and few buildings anywhere sit so gracefully in their landscape. The Pho Chhu, the "male" river, and the Mo Chhu, the "female" river, join at its prow, and the fortress-monastery stretches along the tongue of land between them: long whitewashed walls rising in tiers, small windows framed in carved and painted wood, and golden-roofed towers above. Reflected in the green water of the rivers, with forested hills behind, it is one of the loveliest scenes in the Himalaya. Its formal name translates roughly as the palace of great happiness.
The dzong was built in 1637–38 by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, the lama and statesman who unified Bhutan, with the master builder Zowe Palep. It served as the seat of government and the capital of the country until 1955, when the administration moved to Thimphu. Six storeys high and around 180 metres long, it is laid out around three courtyards. The dzong guards the most precious relics of Bhutan, including the sacred Rangjung Kharsapani and the mortal remains of the Zhabdrung himself and of the treasure-revealer Pema Lingpa.
Its history has been punctuated by fire and flood, from blazes in the 18th and 19th centuries and again in 1986 to floods in 1957, 1960 and 1994, and each time it has been restored in traditional style with timber and stone. The dzong is bound up with the monarchy: every king of Bhutan since the first, Ugyen Wangchuck, in 1907, has been crowned here, and in 2011 the present king married Queen Jetsun Pema within its walls. Each year in late winter or early spring the Punakha festival brings masked dances and a historical re-enactment to its courtyards. A traditional wooden cantilever bridge, completed in 2008, spans the Mo Chhu, with a free span of 55 metres, and is the classic approach.
Getting there
The dzong stands just outside the small town of Punakha, about 2 km away. The road from Thimphu crosses the Dochula pass, about 30 km from the capital, and continues down into the Punakha valley; the drive takes around two and a half to three hours. Paro International Airport (PBH), Bhutan's international gateway, is about 48 km away in a straight line, a drive of roughly four to five hours via Thimphu.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
The Punakha Dzong, also known as Pungthang Dewa Chhenbi Phodrang, is the administrative centre of Punakha District in Punakha, Bhutan. Constructed by Ngawang Namgyal, 1st Zhabdrung Rinpoche, in 1637–38, it is the second oldest and second-largest dzong in Bhutan and one of its most majestic structures. The dzong houses the sacred relics of the southern Drukpa Lineage of the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism, including the Rangjung Kharsapani and the sacred remains of Ngawang Namgyal and the tertön Pema Lingpa.
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