HISTORY OF THE FOUNDING OF BHUTAN
Bhutan. Quarrels arose, and Lhapha, after an unsuccessful attack on Cheri, was totally defeated, and had to fly. In his flight he came to the Am-mo-chhu Valley, where he was warmly received by the villagers, who submitted to him. Lhapha, however, treacherously betrayed them to the Tibetans, who thereupon seized the valley. Lhapha’s settlement is recognised in the valley to this day.
Having got rid of his rival, Duk-gom’s power increased greatly, and the conversion of the Bhutanese to Buddhism was further assisted by the advent of four other lamas, who belonged, however, to different sects, and were not Dukpas. But although so many saints visited Bhutan and settled there, founding temples and monasteries, yet they only served as heralds to symbolise or portray the final auspicious advent of the peerless Dukpa Rimpochi, Nawang Du-gom Dorji, who brought Bhutan under one ruling power and control.
Du-gom Dorji, better known as Shabdung Nawang Mamgyel, was the son of Dorji Lenpa Mepham Tempai Nymia, a man of noble lineage, by the daughter of Deba Kyishöpa, and showed remarkable intellectual precocity; even as a child his carvings were marvellous in beauty and symmetry of workmanship. The date of his birth is supposed to be 1534 A.D. He studied under the Dukpa lama, Padma Karpo, at Ralong, and bid fair to succeed to the Hierarch’s chair; but a rival claimant, Kerma Tenkgong Wangpo, backed by Deba Tsang-pa, was too strong for him, so the Shabdung, in disgust, started on a long, pilgrimage, and finally entered Bhutan by the Lingzi Pass in 1557 A.D., in his twenty-third year, and lived to be fifty-eight. During these thirty-five years he was continuously engaged in warfare and in consolidating his temporal as well as his spiritual power. The opposition of the Deba Tsang-pa, of the Ralong Hierarch, and of the descendants of the four lamas mentioned before constantly involved him in serious fighting. The Tibetans five or
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