Ketchen Dzong Reborn, Or Something I Wrote for Class

The following is from 2 October 2011:

Ketchen Dzong Reborn

“From the plains below, the old royal fortress of Ketchen Dzong appears as a corpse, lifeless and forsaken; for centuries, left to wither atop an otherwise barren hill overlooking Lo Manthang, or so it would seem…”

Gusting up through the Kali Gandaki Gorge like the kamikaze of Japanese lore, the relentless Mustang wind blows over Thak Khola and sweeps through the furthest reaches of Lo, past the Chinese border checkpoint and on into Tibet. This great lung (Tibetan རླུང་, wind) is just about the only thing the Chinese can’t stop from crossing the border. Like clockwork, as the sun approaches its zenith, the wind picks up and does not yield until the sun is again below the jagged horizon. To those who do not know otherwise, Ketchen Dzong (Tib. རྫོང་, fortress) and the ruins below look as though they may be from the time of ancient Sumeria. Yet, in only a few centuries, the blistering winds have done to Ketchen Dzong what five millennia on the Giza plateau could not do to the Great Pyramids of Egypt. This once unassailable fortress of the kings of Lo has been ground down to its foundations, a few walls managing to have weathered the elements thus far.

To reach Ketchen Dzong is no easy feat, especially for those unused to the altitude. Figures are unreliable, but the settlement of Lo Manthang, the capital of Upper Mustang, sits around an altitude of 3600 meters above sea level. From Lo Manthang, it is at least a three kilometer walk as the crow flies, ascending roughly half a kilometer over its course from the river crossing on the outskirts of town to the hilltop upon which the largest remnant of the dzong still stands. There is no real path leading from the plains to the hill tops, so any ascent must ultimately be improvised on the faces of the hill that are not so steep as to be unnecessarily impractical. The only company one can expect on such ascents, besides the interminable howl of the wind, are the crows that occasionally swoop along the hill side and seldom a vulture, effortlessly riding the thermals up to the heavens.

Ketchen Dzong, like so much else in this trans-Himalayan desert, is a pertinent reminder of impermanence (Tib. མི་རྟག་པ་, mitakpa). In the Four Noble Truths (Tib. འཕགས་པའི་བདེན་པ་བཞི་, pakpé denpa shyi), Śākyamuni Buddha (Tib. སངས་རྒྱས་ཤཱཀྱ་ཐུབ་པ་, śakya tubpa) taught that all compound phenomena are ultimately impermanent. Even the towering 8000m peaks of Annapurna (Nep. अन्नपूर्णा, Goddess of the Harvests) and Dhaulagiri (Nep. धवलागिरी, Dazzling White) that dominate the Southern horizon, will eventually turn to dust. The truth of impermanence becomes readily apparent climbing the slopes to Ketchen Dzong. With each step further, the hillside crumbles beneath the weight of one’s boot; dislodged pebbles and rocks cascade down the slope as wisps of dust and sand are swept skyward by the wind. On these loose slopes, the movement of but a single large rock can trigger a dramatic chain reaction, sending vast swathes of earth tumbling down the hillside and into the plains below. It makes for an apt demonstration of the Buddha’s teaching on the interdependence (Tib. རྟེན་འབྲེལ་, tendrel) of all phenomena. That the carcass of Ketchen Dzong, the peaks which surround it, the Kali Gandaki River, and indeed all of Mustang will eventually cease to exist seems less a stretch of the imagination and merely a matter of time upon reaching the base of the dzong itself.

In Buddhist ontology, the finality of death is held to be an illusion. Rather, death is an intricate aspect in the endless cycle of samsara (Tib. འཁོར་བ་, khorwa), for death marks the genesis of new life: rebirth. In Buddhism, perception is paramount. Flawed perception causes suffering (Tib. སྡུག་བསྔལ་, dukngal) and traps beings in samsara, only through right perception can beings achieve awakening (Tib. བྱང་ཆུབ་, chang chub) and realize nirvana (Tib. མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་པ་, nya ngen lé dé pa). Flawed perception is why, from the plains below, the old royal fortress of Ketchen Dzong appears as a corpse, lifeless and forsaken; this however, could not be further from the truth. For once inside the dzong’s battered walls, it becomes readily apparent, that the old royal fortress has taken a new rebirth. What appeared to be the withering skeleton of a once glorious past is actually a blossoming lotus of Buddhist faith.

Triumphantly, long wooden poles adorned by victory banners (Tib. དྷར་ཆོ་, dar cho) pierce the sky, hoisting dazzling strands of prayer flags (Tib. རླུང་རྟ་, lung ta) into the roaring wind. Printed on the victory banners and prayer flags are innumerable mantras (Tib. སྔགས་, ngak), sacred combinations of syllables that when recited, reverberate throughout the universe, purifying obscurations and generating tremendous merit. In Tibetan lore, the flag’s mantras are spread by the winds, riding the gusts over the land and up to the heavens, where they go to the benefit of all sentient beings. Securing the victory banners in place are massive piles of mani stones, large rocks on which Buddhist mantras have been ornately carved. These mani stones and the five meter high wooden poles they anchor were not found atop the dzong; they were carried up the wind-beaten slopes by individuals driven through a profound faith in the Buddha’s teachings, the Dharma (Tib. ཆོས་, chöe). The sheer number of fresh prayer flags and ritual scarves (Tib. ཁ་བཏགས, khatak) is a testimony that Ketchen Dzong is again very much alive. The innumerable mantras riding the ferocious Mustang wind, combined with the sincere efforts of those who have completed the arduous journey to consecrate the hilltop, have spiritually charged the dzong. Endowed with a new religious life, Ketchen Dzong has indeed taken a most fortunate rebirth.

Ketchen Dzong Reborn