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Jun 8, 2009

Paro Rinpung Dzong

PARO RINPUNG DZONG

Paro Rinpung Dzong is a large Drukpa Kagyu Buddhist monastery and fortress in Paro District in Bhutan. It houses the district Monastic Body and government administrative offices of Paro Dzongkhag.

In the fifteenth century local people offered the crag of Hungrel at Paro to Lama Drung Drung Gyal, a descendant of Pajo Drugom Zhigpo. Drung Drung Gyal built a small temple there and later a five storied Dzong or fortress which was known as Hungrel Dzong.

In the seventeenth century, his descendants, the lords of Hungrel, offered this fortress to the Drukpa heirarch Shabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, in recognition of his religious and temporal authority. In 1644 the Shabdrung dismantled the existing Dzong and laid the foundations of a new Dzong. In 1646 the Dzong was reconsecrated and established as the administrative and monastic center of the western region and it became known as Rinpung Dzong.

A great annual festival or tsechu is held at Rinpung Dzong from the eleventh to the fifteenth day of the second month of the traditional Bhutanese Lunar Calander. At the break of dawn on the morning of the fifteenth day, a great sacred Tongdrol banner depicting the Eight Manifestations of Guru Rinpoche is displayed for the public.

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