At an altitude of 2,680 metres, the Chhairo Gompa sits in a juniper grove on the eastern bank of the Kali Gandaki River near the tiny village of Chhairo. For at least 300 years through the middle of the 20th century, Chhairo Gompa flourished, serving as a monastic centre for Buddhist learning and art as well as the religious centre for the local ethnic Thakali community. Local belief holds that Chhairo Gompa, also known as Sanga Choling, was established in the 8th Century by the Tibetan Lama Sangye, but its origins are uncertain. Its existence in the early 1800s is confirmed by royal edicts issued by Bhimsen Thapa, Prime Minister of Nepal from 1806 to 1837.
Since 2004, a local Nepali community group, an American volunteer tourism NGO and an Anglo-Nepali architectural/engineering firm have been working together to restore the Chhairo Gompa, an historic Buddhist monastery located along the ancient salt trading route in the Lower Mustang region of Nepal’s Himalayas.
At an altitude of 2,680 metres, the Chhairo Gompa sits in a juniper grove on the eastern bank of the Kali Gandaki River near the tiny village of Chhairo. For at least 300 years through the middle of the 20th century, Chhairo Gompa flourished, serving as a monastic centre for Buddhist learning and art as well as the religious centre for the local ethnic Thakali community. Local belief holds that Chhairo Gompa, also known as Sanga Choling, was established in the 8th Century by the Tibetan Lama Sangye, but its origins are uncertain. Its existence in the early 1800s is confirmed by royal edicts issued by Bhimsen Thapa, Prime Minister of Nepal from 1806 to 1837.
Wealthy patronage
For much of its history, Chhairo Gompa benefited from the patronage of wealthy Thakali clans, including the Bhattachans, from the nearby village of Tukuche, the administrative and commercial centre for the trans-Himalayan salt trade. During the 19th and early 20th Centuries, the Thakali families accumulated substantial fortunes, having obtained customs contracts from the Nepali government that gave them control over the importation of salt from Tibet.
Although their monopoly on the salt trade was abolished in 1928, the Thakali families continued to prosper from the still-thriving trade with Tibet in salt, grain and other goods. In 1959, however, after the Tibetans’ unsuccessful rebellion against the Communist occupation, the Chinese closed the Nepal-Tibet border at the Mustang passes so that the traditional trade through Tukuche, the lifeline of the region, all but ceased. As economic conditions deteriorated, Thakalis began migrating to Kathmandu and beyond, leaving the once magnificent village of Tukuche a moribund collection of proud but derelict buildings. With its patronage gone, Chhairo Gompa too was gradually abandoned and left to the elements.
A lamentable state
By the 1990s, Chhairo was in a lamentable state of disrepair, and many of the roofs and walls had collapsed. Fortunately, around this time, a group of younger Thakalis, moved by stories of Tukuche’s past glory and encouraged by Lama Sashi Dhoj Tulachan, an internationally known thangka artist from a prominent Tukuche clan, instigated a movement to repair and re-establish Chhairo Gompa.
The Chhairo Gompa complex follows the traditional flat roof structures of the Mustang region with fortress-like stone walls and consists of (1) a temple compound, (2) the Tulkhu’s (head lama) quarters and kitchen and (3) the monks’ quarters and stables. The architects designed a three-phase restoration plan: Phase IA – emergency repairs and rehabilitation of the temple compound; Phase IB – recreate as near as possible the original layout and appearance of the Tulkhu’s quarters and kitchens while improving and upgrading the accommodations; and Phase II – rebuild the monks’ quarters and stables for development as a training centre for Buddhist arts.
Phase IA – The Temple Compound
The temple compound has two religious structures – the Lhakhang (temple) and the adjacent Padmasambhava Chapel – that look inward onto a stone-paved courtyard that was bounded on the other three sides by two-story verandas from where visiting guests could view dance rituals. Only the north side verandas are still standing. The Lhakhang rises above the remaining structures and is capped with a small central lantern providing the temple’s only source of light. The temple is dominated by an altar with a clay statue of the Buddha flanked by smaller images of his disciples and Chhairo Gompa’s past lamas and benefactors.
The interior walls were decorated with wall paintings, which date from the early 1800s, and the interior of the lantern was panelled with inscribed slates. The Padmasambhava Chapel is adjacent to the Lhakhang on its north side and is also capped by a small lantern. Its walls were most recently decorated with wall paintings attributed to Kamal Dhoj Tulachan, a famous painter of Mustang area monasteries and the father of Sashi Dhoj Tulachan. The wall paintings in both chapels are blackened with dirt and smoke from centuries of burning butter lamps and incense and have also suffered significant damage from water seepage.
The walls are on average one metre thick and are built of snapped random stone with almost a dry construction. A timber ring beam acts as a good tie about one metre beneath the roof structure. The walls of the Lhakhang and the Chapel facing the courtyard are mud plastered and coloured with reddish clay for the Lhakhang and white clay for the Chapel. Each structure has a flat roof construction with a central grid of four columns supporting the lantern. The joists are supported off simple timber beams and project beyond the wall, allowing rainwater to fall clear of the walls. The split timbers support the roof covering, which is made of a special clay found about two hours walk from Chhairo.
The windows and doors are modelled after the standard Newari style found in the Kathmandu Valley. They are all modestly carved but have been heavily over painted. The three upper windows to the Lhakhang incorporate standard Tibetan details creating the lintels to the openings. The Lhakhang’s main doors have embossed knobs and are decorated with Tibetan inscriptions. A pair of carved images fixed to the Lhakhang’s inner door jambs are said to be Dvarapala or guardians to the temple.
The main work of Phase IA, which involved replacing the roofs, rebuilding the lanterns, replacing floors, conserving and restoring the chapel interiors, repaving the courtyard and improving drainage, is largely completed, except for restoration or repainting of the wall paintings and rebuilding the southern verandas. Restoring the wall paintings will be a long and drawn out process but will not delay the rest of the project. Volunteers will be working on the wall paintings this year.
Phase IB – The Tulkhu’s Quarters and Kitchen
Structures housing the Tulkhu’s quarters and the gompa’s original kitchen enclose the courtyard opposite the Lhakhang. The cookery area, built on a section of higher ground off the northeastern corner of the courtyard, was composed of three rooms: a cooking/eating area, a storeroom and a room for washing. The adjacent Tulkhu’s quarters are on the same level but took advantage of a sloping site and were built as an upper floor above ground level stables. In the remaining space there were sleeping quarters for attendants.
Combined the kitchen and Tulkhu’s quarters measure approximately 12 by 26 metres and are of simple construction with a flat roof and walls of random split stone. The outer walls remained generally sound, but the Tulkhu’s quarters, which consisted of an apartment for the Tulkhu and a general sitting/waiting room for the monks, had completely collapsed, providing limited information of its former layout. Restoration work, therefore, drew heavily upon traditional building designs and techniques to determine the course of action.
Phase IB is nearly 90% completed, with the Tulkhu’s quarters completely rehabilitated so that Sashi Dhoj Tulachan is able to reside there for part of the year. The project received a substantial boost in 2012 with the completion of additional sleeping quarters, allowing the Gompa to admit seven young monks to study under Lama Sashi Dhoj.
Phase II – The Monks’ Quarters and Stables
The monks’ quarters and stables are to the east of the Tulkhu’s quarters and, for the most part, are in a state of total collapse, although the foundation walls are largely intact. This part of the complex originally consisted of two open courtyards divided by a central spine wall running east-west. The wall divides the space into two separate, approximately square courtyards measuring 20 by 20 metres The northern section is a single-story structure built on the high ground. An interior platform around the northern courtyard built of stone and earth created a place for the occupants to sit outside their quarters. The southern courtyard complex is built on lower ground and is generally two stories, allowing space for livestock to be housed in the lower floor and space for living quarters on the upper level. Doors gave direct access from the courtyards to the exterior. The roofs and walls were built in the same manner as the rest of the complex. The floors were rammed earth with timber joists and planking laid over.
Although this section of the complex is the most dilapidated, it is the section that is most suitable for development and possible expansion. Plans call for converting the former ground level stables into habitable space, thereby having the monks’ living quarters surround the southern courtyard on both levels. It is anticipated that the structures around the northern courtyard will be used as classrooms and studios for an artists’ training centre although consideration is also being given to turning this section into a centre for Buddhist retreat or a crafts centre to help revitalize the local economy.
Chhairo Gompa is a unique architectural masterpiece of great historical significance that had almost reached a state of no return. Now, thanks to both local and international efforts, it is well on its way to again becoming a meaningful religious and cultural centre.
In addition to restoring an architectural and cultural treasure to its former glory, the on-going project also seeks to revive the monastery as a religious and community centre and revitalize the local economy. The key collaborators on this project are: the community-based Chhairo Restoration Group, led by the Bhattachans, a prominent local family long associated with Chhairo Gompa; Restoration Works International (RWI), a California-based NGO that provides major funding for the project through the recruitment of volunteer/donors to travel to Nepal to assist in the restoration; and John Sanday Associates (JSA), a Kathmandu firm long involved with the conservation and repair of traditional and historic architecture in Nepal and elsewhere in Asia. RWI is also partnering with Adventures in Preservation to bring volunteers to the site to do hands-on conservation work.
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References:
Tine, Donald. 2013. “Restoring a Buddhist Monastery on the Trans-Himalaya Salt Route”. Past Horizons. Posted: January 11, 2013. Available online: http://www.pasthorizonspr.com/index.php/archives/01/2013/restoring-a-buddhist-monastery-on-the-trans-himalaya-salt-route
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