A Bhutanese Buddhist Master’s Treasure House

In 1476, at the age of twenty-six, a blacksmith was foraging for mushrooms in the forest when he paused to rest. A monk wearing tattered robes awakened him, handing him a scroll with instructions to visit a nearby cliff on an upcoming full-moon night. After some consideration, the man decided to go. He arrived at the cliff edge, which overlooked a deep riverine pool. Suddenly overcome, the man plunged into the water and reemerged holding a chest he had retrieved from a submerged cave. This marked the first of scores of such discoveries he would make throughout Bhutan and southern Tibet, and he would ultimately become known as Pema Lingpa (1450–1521), one of the Five Great Treasure Revealers of the Ancient (Nyingma) tradition. His appearance in the world had been prophesied by the Indian master Padmasambhava (ca. eighth century).

As Pema Lingpa continued to reveal hidden treasures (terma), he also accrued more patrons and greater renown, and his sphere of influence expanded far beyond his birthplace in Bumthang’s Tang Valley, reaching well into the Lhodrak region of southern Tibet, where he gave numerous teachings and conducted initiations and rituals. After nearly a quarter century of accumulating treasures and offerings, and despite having given away many tangible objects to his disciples, he shared in his autobiography that he still had significant holdings. In his words, “I realized that [having received] so many alms, I should assemble the necessary things to make a shrine.”1 The text describes his subsequent discussions with the local leader, wherein they came to an agreement on who would provide the labor. The local leader suggested a building site, saying, “Tamshing offers a good place for the consecration. The ground in front of it is a good place for horse races.”2 Local tradition attributes another actor in the temple’s founding—the enlightened female deity Dorje Pakmo, who is believed to have manifested as a sow that began rooting in the ground, turning the earth to indicate where the temple cornerstone was to be placed.3

The foundation was laid in the female iron bird year (1501), and the temple would become the seat of Pema Lingpa’s activities for the rest of his life (fig. 1). Tamshing serves as a storehouse for his legacy—it consolidates terma he withdrew from around the region, displays mural paintings of powerful deities unique to his tradition (fig. 2), holds sculptures consecrated with sacred substances provided by the master himself, and hosts ritual dance performances he received through visions. Local oral tradition maintains that his arm span was used as the building’s unit of standard measurement, so that the structure itself reflects his physical proportions and, by extension, his continual presence within it.

Pema Lingpa’s autobiography describes the artists commissioned to provide the temple’s paintings and sculptures. The sculptor Lama Chogyam is credited with shaping statues in the ground floor shrine and inserting consecratory materials such as precious and semiprecious stones, medicinal herbs, and coins, while Pema Lingpa consecrated the main image, a skyward-gazing Padmasambhava. His biography lists over a dozen objects—among them texts, small sculptures, relics of other Buddhist masters, and pieces of clothing from Padmasambhava and his consort Yeshe Tsogyel—that he inserted within the sculpture.4 Among the consecratory objects were terma that he had extracted locally as well as farther afield, for example, from Samye in central Tibet. Pema Lingpa is also credited with sculpting a self-portrait currently housed in Tamshing’s upper story. By consolidating the treasures that he withdrew from throughout the region, Pema Lingpa was demonstrating his sphere of influence while also supporting his claims to legitimacy, as the objects directly connect him with the activities he undertook at many important sites.

Pema Lingpa’s autobiography describes the temple as a “palace of images” and the murals of the courtyard as the respective realms of the deities and masters depicted, imagery that he states is being provided to adherents to support their eventual liberation from the cycle of death and rebirth.5 Multiple artists, including Tshepa Tshering, Kharwa Tshering, and Kuntrey, are credited with drawing and painting the murals, using pigments and materials that were gifts from Tibetans, including the Seventh Karmapa, Chodrak Gyatso.6 Quite unusually, Pema Lingpa relates that he inserted consecratory scrolls into the plaster upon which the assembly hall murals were painted, an act rarely attested in the history of Himalayan architecture.7 For followers, his vivifying the wall paintings and consolidating important treasures inside sculptures exponentially increases their spiritual power and efficacy.

The consecrated murals line the walls of the sutra courtyard, where monks and patrons assemble to receive the master’s teachings. Originally painted between 1503 and 1505, the compositions provide their intended viewers—initiates into Pema Lingpa’s tradition—with content Pema Lingpa selected, and may reflect what he considered the most salient practices from his teachings. Protective figures appear at the beginning and end of the circumambulatory path. Pilgrims enter and move clockwise past the first protective figures before turning right, where they encounter a mural of an enthroned Pema Lingpa surrounded by his previous incarnations (fig. 3).

Following are successive compositions dedicated to the Seventh Karmapa Chodrak Gyatso (1454–1506), Yeshe Tsogyel (ca. eighth century), Padmasambhava (ca. eighth century), Garab Dorje (ca. sixth century), and Buddha Vajradhara, who together constitute an extremely condensed lineage of Great Perfection transmissions. The next subset of images begins with Vajrasattva, a deity whose practice is a purificatory step made prior to undertaking higher-level meditations. Following are the Five Buddha Families—Amoghasiddhi, Amitabha, Ratnasambhava, Vairochana, and Akshobhya—and a composition depicting the primordial buddha of the Nyingma tradition, Samantabhadra, in union with his consort Samantabhadri. This grouping provides initiates with a condensed map of the qualities that must be fully realized in order to experience enlightenment. In short, initiates may undertake the preparatory Vajrasattva practice prior to meditations associated with the Five Buddha Families, each of which provides avenues to cultivate of specific insights and overcome particular obstacles, a process intended to facilitate higher levels of awareness. Should the meditators completely master all aspects of these practices, their nature becomes indistinguishable from that of the primordial Buddhas Samantabhadra and Samantabhadri; in other words, they reach enlightenment. This wall, therefore, provides initiates with both an accounting of Pema Lingpa’s lineage and a path toward higher accomplishment.

At this point, visitors may enter the main shrine or continue along the circumambulation path that passes around and behind it. The murals along the path show the sixteen arhats, their attendants, and the Seven Universal Buddhas, some of which reveal overpainting. Visitors emerge on the opposite side of the sutra hall, where the mural compositions include practices unique to Pema Lingpa’s tradition. He described the paintings’ creation in his autobiography, referring to several compositions as “heavens”:8

The lines [for the paintings] were added to the left side of the sutra hall. Senior artist Tshering began making the arrangement of the newly arisen [images]: the Buddhas of the Three Times, the heaven of the Great Compassionate One, the Lamp that Dispels Darkness. Starting from there [successively are] the Highest and Most Secret Buddha of Long Life, [and] the Highest and Most Secret Horse-headed One. After that, peaceful Samantabhadra with consort and the forty-two deities of [the mandala], the landscape of the Five Blood-drinking Heruka Families, [then, further is] Highest and Most Secret Vajra-holder. Then is the heaven of the Gentle-voiced One and his retinue, the Perfection of Wisdom, and the rest of the paradises of the Buddhas of the ten directions, and the Indestructible Dagger, the Most Secret and Unsurpassed Kila, with ten wrathful ones encircling [him].9

Ranging from exoteric (Manjushri and Prajnaparamita) to esoteric (deities in union) (fig. 4), this side of the hall illustrates practices aimed at higher levels of accomplishment alongside those that provide protection, remove obstacles, and help navigate the state between death and rebirth. As a whole, the sutra hall mural program fulfills multiple functions: it ensures protection of the teachings, establishes sacred space, situates Pema Lingpa within the Nyingma tradition, and provides initiates with tools for everyday concerns and enhanced practice. Pema Lingpa’s autobiography attests that he selected the mural’s content, carefully recording their creation along with his intent that they support generations of Buddhist adherents.

Throughout his life, even as Tamshing and its images were being created, Pema Lingpa continued to be called by his patrons nearby and farther afield to give initiations, conduct rituals, oversee funerals, and resolve disputes. With numerous demands on his time, Pema Lingpa consolidated many of his treasures and teachings at Tamshing, thereby providing future generations of adherents with a continual source of blessings, and scholars with a body of texts, objects, and images that offer a window into his motivations and intent. In 1521, after decades of activities throughout the region, Pema Lingpa passed away at Tamshing. In the late seventeenth century, many of his practices were incorporated into official Bhutanese state monastic curricula, including dances and rituals that continue to be performed throughout the country and beyond, reflecting the fact that Pema Lingpa’s legacy has disseminated far beyond the walls of his home temple.