Cheri Goenpa

Cheri Goenpa (Dzongkha: lCags-ri rDo-rje-gdan, Chagri Dorjeden, "Iron Hill Vajra Seat") is a Buddhist monastery in Thimphu Dzongkhag, founded in 1620 by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal. It stands on a steep wooded hillside at the northern end of the Thimphu valley, about fifteen kilometres above the capital, at an elevation of around 2,850 metres. The monastery occupies the cliffs immediately south-west of Tango Goenpa, with which it is paired in the Bhutanese pilgrimage tradition.^[1][2]

Cheri is regarded as the first formally constituted monastery of unified Bhutan. It was at Cheri in 1623 that the Zhabdrung established the first Drukpa Kagyu monastic community of thirty monks under the constitutional and procedural framework that he had drawn from Ralung in Tibet. The institution he founded there is widely considered the seed of what later became the Zhung Dratshang, Bhutan's state monastic body.^[1][3]

The site is also the resting place of the relics of the Zhabdrung's father, Tempa Nyima, contained in a silver kudung chorten that the Zhabdrung built and consecrated personally. Cheri remains in active monastic use today as a teaching and retreat centre of the Southern Drukpa Kagyu lineage.

Foundation in 1620

The Zhabdrung had arrived in Bhutan in 1616 from Ralung in central Tibet, fleeing a doctrinal and political dispute with the rulers of Tsang. After several years of itinerant work and military defence against Tibetan incursions, he selected the site at Chagri — the "iron hill" — as the location for a permanent monastic seat. The traditional account records that he laid the foundation of the three-storey building on the 21st day of the fifth month of the Iron Monkey year, corresponding to 1620, when he was twenty-seven years old. Construction was completed by 1623, and the relic stupa for his late father's remains was installed at the same time.^[1][2]

The Zhabdrung undertook a three-year retreat at Cheri after the monastery's consecration, during which the foundational liturgical and constitutional texts of his new monastic order were composed. The monastery served as his principal residence in Bhutan for substantial parts of the 1620s and remained a recurrent retreat site for him until his entry into final retreat at Punakha in 1651.^[2][3]

The first Drukpa monastic body

In 1623 the Zhabdrung formally constituted at Cheri a community of thirty Drukpa Kagyu monks under a written framework drawn from his ancestral seat at Ralung in Tibet. This community is regarded as the first formal monastic body in Bhutan organised under a single constitutional code, and it laid the basis for the later Zhung Dratshang — the state monastic body — that would eventually be transferred to Punakha Dzong and later to Tashichho Dzong in Thimphu. The conventions established at Cheri, including the discipline-master and disciplinarian roles and the seasonal movement between summer and winter residences, persisted in modified form into the modern monastic system.^[1][3]

The silver chorten of Tempa Nyima

Cheri's most important relic is the silver kudung chorten, called Ngul Bum Chorten, which contains the ashes of the Zhabdrung's father, Tempa Nyima (Tenpai Nyima). After Tempa Nyima's death the funerary rites were conducted at Tango. The Zhabdrung performed a divination before the Rangjung Kharsapani — a self-arisen Avalokiteshvara image he had brought from Tibet — to determine where the remains should be permanently enshrined; the divination indicated Cheri three times. The chorten was constructed by five Newari craftsmen brought from Nepal, working alongside Bhutanese assistants, and was consecrated under the Zhabdrung's personal supervision. A statue of Tempa Nyima sculpted by the Zhabdrung himself stands in the same shrine.^[2]

Architecture and pilgrimage

Cheri is approached by a footpath that crosses the upper Thimphu Chhu by a covered wooden bridge and then climbs steeply for about forty minutes to the monastery gate. The complex consists of three storeys built into the hillside, with the main shrine room on the lower level housing the silver chorten and adjacent images, and meditation cells and residential quarters above. Several caves on the slopes above the monastery are used for closed retreats, including the traditional three-year, three-month retreat.^[1][4]

Pilgrimage to Cheri is paired with the visit to Tango Goenpa above it, the two monasteries together representing the foundational Drukpa Kagyu institutions of unified Bhutan. The site is heavily used by lay devotees from Thimphu, particularly on auspicious days of the Bhutanese lunar calendar.^[2][4]

Modern role

The monastery functions today as a meditation and retreat centre under the authority of the Zhung Dratshang. It maintains a community of monks engaged in extended retreats, supported by a smaller administrative and ritual establishment. Visitors are admitted to the outer shrine areas during daylight hours, with the inner relic chamber accessible only with permission. Photography is restricted within the temple buildings.^[4]

References

1. Chagri Monastery — Wikipedia
2. Cheri Monastery, the first Seat of Zhabdrung Rinpoche in Bhutan — Bhutan Pilgrimage
3. Karma Phuntsho, The History of Bhutan (Random House India, 2013), chapters on the Zhabdrung's consolidation of power
4. The Chari Monastery — Kuensel
5. Chagri (Cheri) Monastery, Thimphu — Oriental Architecture