Jonang Culture centre which is within Dzamthang. From the junction, we drove 15Km to Jonang culture centre through a beautiful valley with full of typical Tibetan styled houses whch are extremely beautiful. There are three monasteries at Jonang culture centre which are Tsechu, Choeje and Sangnga Gompa. Among them, the oldest monastery today is Choeji and the assembly hall of Choeji is old and it has many old Thangka and Statues. In the upper part of Choeji, an old statue of Shakyamuni. Underneath the statue, you can go and do clockwise direction around the pillar under the statue in order to get blessing and get rid of once’s bad karmic action. It is said that the statue is always not be able to be taken nice photos.
The three monasteries are all together and the most upper part or on the left side is Tsechu Gompa and the main statue is also Bhuddha Shykyamuni and an old statue of Dolpopa who is the main lineage of Jonangpa. The middle one is Choeji which is the oldest one. The last one or the biggest one is Sang Nga. It is a newly re-built monastery and there is a big tomb stupa of the monastery Lama who passed away. There are beautiful wall painting of Kalachakara and it’s attendents, Bhuddha’s life sotry. The forth floor chaple is dedicated to the great masters from different orders in Tibet. Fifth floor is the library and printing boards shelfs. The top floor is dedicated to a mandala of Tara. Next to this temple, there is a temple of a huge Maitreya Bhuddha. There are also a tantric college and philosophical college where they call Shedra and Drupdra nowadays. Joangpa order is said to be started from Dolpopa based on Bhudha Shakyamuni teachings. Dolpopa is the first lineage of Jonangpa and now they are 47th lineages. Dolpopa was born in Dolpo in Nepal. Jonangpa is mainly practising Tantra and they have a very deep source of Kalachakara practice and meditation. They are building a giant new mandala of Kalachakara which will be the world’s largest Kalachakara Mandala.
