Naming Mattered: How was Zhemgang, Trong, Dangkhar and Pam Named.
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| Dangkhar Village |
On other hands, the popular myth did not do any good (other than covering it for the sake of the mythical story). It was negatively connoted to ancestors, children, family, and people of Kheng and these communities.
Many other friends and I was victimized in schools by teachers and friends from such an untrue myth. Of many, recently, a couple of students from village texted me via Facebook about it. She was asked and questioned by readers and educators-her own teacher on this myth. She was questioned ‘Did our ancestors really killed Lama Zhang as everyone keeps on saying that we killed the Lama’. A Civil Servant from the community shared, she was also pinpointed by her teacher in school as people who murdered Lama Zhang. During one of my Rovers Scout camping in 2008, I was asked to narrate about the assassination of Lama Zhang and to relate it Trong, Dangkhar and Pam Communities. Surprisingly these are questioned and stated by educators and scholars.
At people’s height of idiocy have even compared and related remoteness, poverty and underdevelopment of Zhemgang to such myth. This is too irrational and stupid. This statement even does not deserve an argument. It can be falsified both in layman and scientific perspective.
Therefore, this piece is intended to make sure that people are rightly informed. I wish to share other parts of story opposing to popular ‘hurting’ connotation of the narration. In the purview of harmonizing community, especially in boosting children’s psychological morality and confidence of those communities. I will cover briefly about Lama Zhang, Founder of Zhemgang and original account of naming Trong, Dangkhar, and Pam. It aims to share what it means to name the community rightly.
Does naming matters?
Some might argue what is in the ‘name’, after all. Yes, it is just a sound but it carries a meaning in living and letting it live. There are a lot in it!
Definitely, names do matter. Research has proven it. Names carry first sound and energy to heard and seen. It can implicate to boost on the historical account, cast, and creed, emotional complexity and happiness of a person or individual. A name had influenced the complexity of child in schools, meetings, and gatherings. Names in the west have heavily influenced the chances of being called for interview and get employment.
Any existential object (plant, animal or human) from individual, community, country, and businesses have name/s. All chosen to be auspicious, helpful, harmonizing and advantageous. ‘Drukyul’ ‘Druk Gyalkhap’ or ‘Palden Drukpa Choglay Namgyal’ names for Bhutan. It identifies nation-state and cannot be expected to hurt or harm Bhutanese merely from its name. Such a name of our country gives us the great sensation of identity, pride, and energy. It is obvious that what we hear can impact on how we feel. we must make sure that the names of our community or country or anything that ought to be nomenclature, must be called in such a way that it reverberates in everybody’s day to day lives.
Besides identity, names give culture and life to an individual, community, and nation. A name must inspire. Give life to survive, secure, succeed and signify. It must develop a passion and pride of sense of belongingness as an individual or to that group or a community. Names should include everyone than diverging community. It must elevate the spirit for development both in mindset and physical development.
For sure, do anyone really like to be called by the worst name of your child? Many of us have even opted to call it by three names if not four or more names connected to spirituality, modernity, wishes and what you expect your child to be. We prefer it to be soothing and pleasant. Contrarily, exasperating names or wrong names can be negative and harmful. Therefore, names/naming do matter! Having said this, wrong, inauspicious and cursing names, symbols and identity are insignificant and bad for our small country like Bhutan! It must be avoided in any form for converging community and pride.
Who was Lama Zhang of Tibet and Kheng!
I have covered a part of Lama Zhang’s story in the last post. Here, I will try to briefly account further on 1st Lama Drogyen Zhang.
The First Lama Drogyen Zhang Rinpoche (1123-1193) was the 5th Century great Tibetan yogi of Boed-Zhang, Tibet. He was Great Mahasiddha called by the name Yudakpa Tsundru Drakpa whose lineage originated from The Tsalpa (Tshal Pa) Kagyu of Gompopa Sonam Rinchen. Lama Zhang’s main teacher Wangom Tsultrim Nyingpo, a student of Gampopa, who founded The Tsalpa Kagyu tradition.
Dan (2012) narrates that the first Lama Zhang, was called by so many names. At worst because of his yogic nature and personality, he is called ‘Beggar-monk Zhang.’ His veneration was even admired for having ordained Gyalwa Tshangpa Jarey and is highly respected by 1st Karmapa and 5th Dalia Lama.
Those times, The 5th Dalia Lama has even entrusted Lama Zhang as Mayor of Lhasa where he skillfully displayed crazy yet extraordinary political and spiritual leadership traits. The historical account says that Lama even tortured his attendants and slammed animals and local Tibetans. He even spanked H.H. Karmapa, who regarded as a blessing when H.H. Karmapa’s disciples wanted to avenge. You can find stories in the following links: https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/treasury-lives-kagyu-founders-part-3-first-karmapa-and-lama-zhang/
According to Dan, Lama recited and taught following profound prayers at the age of 4:
ཐུགས་རྗེ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ཡོན་ཏན་ཀུན་ལ་ཁྱབ། །
thugs-rje rgya-mtsho yon-tan kun-la khyab;
The ocean of compassion covers all sentient beings,
ལྷ་དང་ཀླུ་ཡང་བདེན་པའི་བཀའ་ཉན་སྟེ། །
lha dang klu yang bden-pa'i bka' nyan-ste;
Even deities and nagas hear the words of truth,
རང་གིས་སེམས་ཉིད་སངས་རྒྱས་ཡིན་ཤེས་ན། །
rang-gis sems-nyid sangs-rgyas yin shes-na;
if one knows oneself to be a Buddha,
དཀོན་མཆོག་གསུམ་ནི་གཞན་ནས་བཀུར་མི་དགོས། །
dkon-mchog gsum ni gzhan-nas bkur mi dgos
One need not venerate the Three Jewels in any other way.
As Dan Martin, (2012), acknowledges the massive contribution of Lama and categories as (Bka'- 'bum), Partial Works (Bka' 'Thor-bu), and the sealed teachings (Bka'-rgya-ma) of Zhang G.yu- brag-pa Brtson-'grus-grags-pa.
As Dan admit, some of his works are remarkable for taking the ultimate vantage point of the Mahāmudrā teachings as their main focus. I was fortunate to get access to his work, "སྐྱེ་མེད་ཞང་རིན་པོ་ ཆེས་མཛད་པའི་ཕྱག་རྒྱ་ཆེན་པོའ་ལམ་མཆོག་མཐར་ཐུག་བཞུགས་སོ/The path of Ultimate profundity" whose lines reflects the essence of “Choying Dzod” by Kuenkhen Longchen Rabjam. The very text was timely found when we were just trying to find what should be placed on the recently built lama Zhang statue. Today, if you visit the newly constructed Lama Zhang statue in Zhemgang Dzong, you can find the text printed on Edgeworthia/dhe-sho (traditional paper) holding on the right hand of the statue. (I have both English and choekey text. Let me know if anyone needs a copy of it)
Today there seems to have dedicated, rather completely focused institution and researchers who collected the works of Lama Zhang in Tibet. The scholars regard the works of Lama Zhang as backbone Tibet’s spiritual, political, cultural history.
Bhutan’s Lama Zhang
I could not find any detailed account narrating Lama’s visit to Bhutan. However, there is high regard of an incarnation of Lama Zhang visited Bhutan, in particular, Kheng Zhemgang in 12th Century. He visited as Lama Sacha Yoezer.
There are the symbols and statues of Lama in temples and monasteries around Bhutan indicating his visits. One such narration was about a Lama Zhang statue at Tango Monastery as shown below. The statue was narrated to be spoken to sculptor/artisan to leave his face as it when the artist was about to re-mold.
I also heard about a story of Lama Zhang’s presence around Punakha, Lhuntshe and Wangdi Phodrang and other parts of Bhutan in propagating Buddhism.
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Amongst various places in Bhutan. The incarnation of 1st Lama Zhang Tsundru Drakpa, Zhang Sacha Yoezer lived mostly with people of Kheng-rig-nam-sum around the 12th century. He was believed to be the founder of name, place and spiritual welfare of people of Kheng. Lama Sacha Yoezer was a true Buddhisattva (jangchub sempa) who never thought, spoke or even acted as obstacles to Khengpas. Lama Zhang was referred to as ‘Drogyen’ in Tibet and Zhemgang as a protector of beings. Therefore, Lama Zhang Sacha Yoezer was Khengpa’s most revered native Lama Zhang.
Lama's presence fostered names and places for the people of Kheng ༼ཁེངས༽ (Besides other meaning of Kheng ༼ཁེངས༽ in Dzongkha and Tibetan, it can be referred to ‘abundance’ ‘plenty’. Therefore, kheng is the place where biodiversity of ecosystem, flora, fauna and crops of more than nine varieties (Dru-na ghu) can be harvested.) Lama’s legend narrates a story of how Ngakhar was named and Lhakhang built there (http://www.zhemgang.gov.bt/index.php/about-district). Lama was said to have his long-term hermitage built at present site of Zhemgang Dechen Yangtsi Dzong teaching Buddhism to people of Kheng. It was his hermitage settlement that throughout the locality also gave the name Zhang-Khang་༼ཞང་ཁང༽ (hermitage of Lama Zhang at the valley hill-top). Later a one-storied fort was built to signify unity and harmony of khengrignamsum and followed with the present majestic construction of fortress commanded by His Majesty The Third Druk Gyalpo in 1955. Today, the place is called as Zhem-gang ༼གཞལ་སྒང་༽༼གཞལམ་སྒང་༽. However, the local khengkha dialect in lower kheng pronounce it as 'Jamjong' and upper pronounce it as 'Shamshong'. Its houses settled nearby is called as ‘C/Krong’, meaning a village (usually at hillock) which is at times spelled wrongly and frequently referred misguidedly as ‘Trong’ ༼བཀྲོངས༽ in national language (Dzongkha).
The spelled name and meaning were purely based on false myth and it is biased. This has seriously misinformed people in associating it to assassination to Lama Zhang. It did not do any good from such a myth. Rather it horrified and inflicted many. How in heaven and earth, any native disciples or devotees of Lama dare slay their own Founder/Teacher. On other hands, if the false myth still stands for some, it unfolds about 8.th Desi, Druk Rabgay called by the mythical name of Lango ( A man with bull’s head) and his courier encroached Zhemgang to surrender Lama’s life to his feast. To this line, Zhemgang was a place, where Khengpas was threatened, enslaved and snatched their native Lama’s live by a devilish leader and his army of those times. Lango and his army were the assassinators. Whatever the myth of this, I do not believe either ways of this myth but the actual narrative I heard living lamas, khenpos, and importantly elderly of today.
Here is what actual narrative of the village and association of Lama Zhang was unfolded to many until now.
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Correct Spelling and Understanding of Trong:
If one has visited present Trong Village, it is located opposite to Dechen Yangsi Dzong, which was the hermitage settled by Lama Zhang. There are about 27 uniquely clustered houses standing as it is to what you see today. All these houses are located at elevated crest rising equal to Dzong’s (Lama Zhang’s hermitage) zenith https://ugyenlhendup1.blogspot.com/2017/05/my-village-my-dream.html. The then this village was called as C/Krong and not Trong ༼བཀྲོངས༽. Meaning, C/Krong in the local dialect (Khengkha) and nearby dialect (Mangdip) is referred to a group of houses settled forming a ‘village at hillock’༼ཀྲོང༽. The same logic for Mangdip Crongsar/Trongsar ༼ཀྲོང་གསར་༽ was spelled and meant to a ‘village at hill-lock’ after Yonzin Ngagi Wangchuk settled there in a hermitage. Today, there are places and villages around Bhutan referred to as Trong, not necessarily to meant or spelled for assassination but to associate it with a valley or hilltop-based village.
However, on serious contrary, rather unfortunately, despite native believe and understanding of the village as C/Krong, the local term ‘C/Krong’ did not stand too long for outsiders and visiting public servants from district and central government to understand it as ‘village at hilltop’༼ཀྲོང༽ for present Trong Village. It was dissimilated from understanding from naming Trongsa and local language. The spelling and meaning became the problem and a concern henceforth. Firstly, the word ‘Crong’ was too grim to be spelled correctly in Dzongkha. Secondly, there were not much-versed government/census record officials then who could relate it well to its native local dialect and meaning. It is even difficult to spell ‘Crong’ in Dzongkha now. As a result, without a second thought of its implication to children, people, culture and community of that village, it ended up to spell derogatively as ༼བཀྲོངས༽ and not ༼ཀྲོང༽ for ‘C/Krong’ associating it erroneously to its actuality and legitimacy.
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| Trong Hritage Villgae |
Constitutionally, the Election Commission of Bhutan has legally concluded and meant to spell it as ༼ཀྲོང༽ in relation to a constituency, gewog and thromde delimitation. http://www.ecb.bt/namesofDemkhongs/NamesOfVillagesUnder1044Chiwogs.pdf and http://www.ecb.bt/2011/finaldelimitation/Zhemgang.pdf I feel for now the communities actual meaning and ECB’s stance must socially and legally prevail both in spelling and meaning at least for ‘Trong’ for all time. Thus, for the correct reason and benefits, the Trong Gewog or Trong Throm or Trong Village་ must be corrected not only to be spelled as ༼ཀྲོང་རྒེད་འོག་༽་༼ཀྲོང་ཁྲོམ་༽་༼ཀྲོང་གཡུས་༽ respectively and pass on the very understanding to students, public by Dzongkhag administration, parents, scholars, and others.
Spelling and Understanding of ‘Dangkhar’:
If you pass or drive 10 minutes downhill towards Trongsa from Trong heritage village you will come across another unique clustered village called Dang-khar/Dhang-khar. Dangkhar has been also spelled and understood varyingly by scholars and writers. The popular connotation of its meaning as messenger ༼བརྡ༽to inform is a deliberate lie brought by popularized myth. Nowhere is it spelled as ༼བརྡ་མཁར་༽ and the beliefs and narrations say otherwise. Today, some of the spelled version are ༼དང་མཁར་༽་༼གདང་མཁར་༽ These are spelled in by ECB and ༼དངས་ཁར་༽༼མདངས་མཁར་༽are spelled varyingly by writers and scholars.
While Khar༼མཁར་༽ has been rightly spelled throughout to its meaning to denote or decode as territory/place where houses are settled to form a village. However, the varyingly spelled term Dhang/Dang༼དང་༽༼གདང་༽ and ༼དངས་ཁར་༽ does not give any connotation to social and native beliefs and cultural narration of Dangkhar. Therefore, the correct spelling and understanding of Dangkhar must be ༼མདངས་མཁར་༽ meaning a village where the shimmering radiance or reflection of first sun rays are bestowed to Dangkhar village, pigmenting brightly. ༼མདངས་-Reflection མཁར་-Village ༽. Elderly people from the village, Lam Neten, and Khenpos interpreted as place receives the first rays of the sun directly reflected from the opposite majestic Kawapang hill. To validate it, today, if you visit Dang-khar, despite being at downhill against the sun rays, it receives the first sun rays reflected from the peak of Kawapang. I must admit that this village enjoys the brightest refracted light from any other nearby village.
Furthermore, another lore construes that the Dangkhar village has natural lakes where the sun rays and surrounding mountains and forests are reflected to the village from the lake. This narration also connotes to ༼མདངས་མཁར་༽ and none other spelled words and meaning.
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| Airiel view of Dangkhar Village |
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| Dangkhar Lhakhang |
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| Side view of Dangkhar. show casing green and rich crops |
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| Dangkhar eco-lodge which was stripped off to Birti from failled promotion and marketing strategy. |
Spelling and Understanding of ‘Pam’:
There is no issue in spelling the word ‘Pam’ ༼སྤམ༽ in Dzongkha. However, the interpretation and understanding of its meaning were blindly popularized as ‘search’ relating it to understanding by some part of local khengkha dialect of lower Kheng as ‘search’. The word for search in upper Kheng, in particular, Trong and Dangkhar is ‘tsue’, which is used as ‘tsue dha gaidey’ meaning ‘let us go to search’. People here do not use ‘pam’ to ‘search’. It was not at all meant for naming the place as ‘pam’ as ‘search’.
To this note, the word ‘Pam’ ༼སྤམ༽ as many understand is referred to a far-flung field or valley where the climate is suitable for farming. Villagers locate pam as farmland, where crops are cultivated and domestic animals reared. Therefore, you can find settlement at farms and crop fields are named as pam mostly in central and eastern Bhutan. For Trong and Dangkhar village, a hut is built at pam known as ‘sha-mai’ translated as a hut/house raised at a height to view and guard preys against harming crops and domestic animals.
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| Pam |
The Stupid Logic:
As briefly mentioned earlier, there are people comparing Zhemgang’sslow or poor paced development to a belief of enchanted curse hurled from Lama Zhang ’s assassination myth. This is the stupid logic ever heard. First, The Enlightened always unconditionally loved and cannot curse any beings whom he deeply considers as his own mothers. Second, the civilized world cannot dare think or relate traditional or modern theories of development to myth. Third, as a Buddhist, myth cannot be believed as a practice of Buddhism. Fourth, Zhemgang wasn’t least developed and Gasa was not poor from horrific myth. Fifth, anyone can easily compare the people of Kheng prospered than olden days. The increase in literacy rate, development and living standard are uplifted. The physical facilities and services such as primary to higher secondary schools, police station, hospital, administration, management, rural development centre, courts, dratsang, thromde and many more are located at a distance of not more than 10-15 minutes of walk.
In terms of governance, Zhemgang had good Dzongdags in past. This time, we have better ones being placed for Khengrignamsum. Ministers are elected. Trulkus are incarnated. Lamas, Khenpos, scholars are graduated in good numbers. As far as history records, none of the governors and civil servants are corrupted till date.
If you look carefully, Kheng Zhemgang is richest and happiest Dzongkhag. A day will come, when revolutions evolve in other parts (urban) of the country, central Zhemgang shall evolve as the refuge to the nation. When industrialization and developmental revolutions doom the limited environment and land around other regions, the Khengrignamsum will rise. It will be the true and only destination of a pure, green and pristine environment. Bhutan’s pride of carbon negative will resort to Khengpas conservative contribution in ecosystem and biodiversity. Zhemgang will be an umbrella for flora and fauna. The only true place of Gross National Happiness (GNH). Many times, I feel the time and development for Zhemgang today are disguised pathways and blessing for brighter and better Zhemgang. Only the time and process of development can determine how Zhemgang choose to exists today and in near future.
Conclusion:
The MYTH of Lama Zhang is doing more harm than good to Zhemgang and Khengpas near and far. It reflects the country and people through information shared on naming. It impedes the mental order of disability to children of Kheng and those villages that equates the homeland and ancestors to murder! Many are psychologically victimized including myself particularly in schools. I felt this is wrong to torture from what is Myth and NOT true.
It is important that people understand and be reminded good things for the community. Naming has always mattered and it will be in times to come. Let us understand that Lama Zhang was revered Holiness for Tibetans, Bhutanese and particularly to Khengpas. The horrific MYTH doesn't uphold the TRUTH nor Lama Zhang will leave curse for his beings. If that is the case, why repeatedly advertise it. Why defame the peoples' mindset with the wrong notion that doesn't exist? Such oral narrative, because someone transcribed or narrated repeatedly through a website and other media publications are only steering to harm than Serving for Good.
Therefore, it is important we know the names and stories that serve for good. No doubt, Zhemgang was founded by Lama Zhang Sacha Yoezer and name thrived from his hermitage Zhang Khang. However, naming and understanding Trong, Dangkhar, and Pam in any way cannot be related to Lama Zhang’s horrific mythical narration. It has more to validate, relate and understand from native dialect, culture, and living habits of communities there. In this regards, Trong, Dangkhar, and Pam shall be spelled as ༼ཀྲོང༽ ༼མདངས་མཁར་༽ and ༼སྤམ༽corresponding to its meaning of Trong in reference to Crong, ‘a Hillock Village’ or now as formalized as ‘Trong Heritage Village’. Dangkhar as a ‘Village of Radiance’ and Pam as ‘far-flung farm place/valley’.
The Wishful Pledge of the Communities:
Lastly, on behalf of people of Zhemgang, particularly for those innocent school going children of those community, I urge and request concern authorities, in particular Dzongkhag Administration, Schools, Election Commission of Bhutan, Travel agents and MoHCA and Census to do away with wrong spellings and its ‘not-for-good’ mythical stories on websites, reports and any official documents. These spellings and stories must replace with a version that connotes the actual deliberations. The teachers in schools must stop questioning and sharing horrific myth and start sharing the actual idea of true identity and psychological boosting for children of those communities.
Kadrinche la!
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