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Rongbuk Monastery and its great Chorten precede the
Abode of Snows.
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Rongbuk Monastery
by Jeanne-Marie Gilbert
On the north side of the Himalaya sits the partially
reconstructed Tibetan Buddhist monastery of Rongbuk, once the
largest monastic center in the region. Rongbuk is the power
place through which all seeking the highest peak via the North
Face must pass. It is the sacred threshold to Mount Everest,
with the most dramatic views in the world. One of the first
British explorers to see it, John Noel, described it: "Some
colossal architect, who built with peaks and valleys, seemed
here to have wrought a dramatic prodigy—a hall of
grandeur that led to the mountain." Often shrouded in clouds
and mist, the great peak was alternately described as "a
preposterous triangular lump" (by Mallory) and "a glittering
spire of rock fluted with snow" (by Odell), with "an imposing
head of granite and ice," (Noel) and it looms large over the
Rongbuk glacier, shining white at its feet.
The Rongbuk monastery, situated half-way up the mile-wide,
20-mile long valley at 16,500 feet, is accessible today by
vehicle over an obscure, rough track that crosses frozen
streams and deep dry washes. In the days of Mallory and
Irvine, it took a five-week walk from Darjeeling, in the
Indian foothills of the Himalaya, to arrive at this spot. One
gradually gains altitude on the high Tibetan plain and, on
crossing the last pass, one's entire view is filled with a
panorama of the mythically charged horizon: Shishipangma,
Mount Everest, and Cho Oyu are among the great peaks that lie
ahead.
Ruins of the Lhakhang of Rongbuk
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Rongbuk Monastery was founded in 1902 in an area of meditation
huts that had been in use by nuns and hermits for over 400
years. Hermitage meditation caves dot the cliff walls all
around the monastery complex and up and down the valley. Mani
walls and stones, carved with sacred syllables and prayers,
line the paths. The founding Rongbuk Lama, also known as the
Zatul Rinpoche, had a reputation of being a remarkable
individual, very wise and intelligent and much respected by
the Tibetans. Even though the Rongbuk Lama viewed the early
climbers as "heretics," he gave them his protection and
supplied them with meat and tea while also praying for their
conversion.
At Rongbuk, there is a beautiful, large, round chorten, a
reliquary with religious significance embedded in its terraced
structure and crown of emblems of the sun and moon,
symbolizing the light of Buddha's teaching. The chorten
dramatically marks this last human dwelling place before one
heads up the stark valley to Base Camp. In previous times, the
Rongbuk Monastery became very active with the teachings at
certain times of the year. It was a site of special pilgrimage
during the annual ceremonies with masked dancers. Throngs of
the faithful would come from far and wide—some from
Nepal and Mongolia—and sit on every level of all the
many-tiered flat roofs of the monastery to watch the masked
dancers in the great open courtyard. Cymbals clanged amid the
ceaselessly overlapping thunder of the long Tibetan trumpets
played in relay to accompany the monk dancers in their ritual.
These ceremonies were shared with the satellite monasteries
across the Himalaya also founded by the Rongbuk Lama. The
ceremonies survive to this day, notably at the Sherpa
monastery at Tengboche. Rongbuk's vast treasury of books and
costumes, which had been taken for safekeeping to Tengboche,
were tragically lost in a 1989 fire.
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Life reduced to the bare elements near the terminus
of the Rongbuk glacier.
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Love of adventure and expression of the dauntless human spirit
was less intelligible to the Rongbuk Lama than pilgrimage, so
the early explorers told him they were on pilgrimage, couching
the term to themselves as on a pilgrimage of adventure. But
pilgrimage it becomes, up on this old glacial moraine so far
from the norm of modern life. After receiving the blessing of
the lama, your mind becomes more focused, perhaps channeled by
the gods who dwell in the Abode of Snows. By the time Base
Camp is reached, the land has become progressively more
sterile, more elemental: rock, sky, ice, wind. Everest looms
above, a sacred space with its own draw, its own inexorable
pull on the human spirit.
Photos: (1, 2) Peter Tyson; (3) Liesl Clark.
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| Updated November 2000
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