Membartsho

Membartsho (Dzongkha: Me-'bar mTsho, "Burning Lake") is a sacred pool on the Tang Chhu river in Bumthang Dzongkhag, central Bhutan. The site is associated with the 15th-century terton Pema Lingpa (1450–1521), who according to tradition revealed treasure texts (terma) at the lake while holding a lit butter lamp under water — an event from which the pool takes its name.^[1][2]

The site is a central node in the Pema Lingpa pilgrimage circuit alongside the terton's monastery at Tamzhing Lhakhang, his retreat at Kunzangdrak and the wider sites associated with his lineage in eastern and central Bhutan. The lake is not a body of standing water but a deep pool in a narrow gorge of the Tang Chhu, accessible by a short walking path from the road through the Tang valley.

The Pema Lingpa terma narrative

According to the traditional account, Pema Lingpa was directed in a dream to the pool in the Tang Chhu, where Padmasambhava had concealed treasures during his eighth-century travels. He was told that a hidden text and a religious image lay at the bottom of the pool. Faced with public scepticism, the terton entered the water in front of witnesses with a lit butter lamp and re-emerged shortly afterwards holding a small statue, a sealed casket and a scroll, with the butter lamp still alight. The episode, dated by tradition to 1475, was treated as a confirmation of his status as a genuine treasure-revealer and is the foundational story of the lake's sacredness.^[1][2][3]

The terma recovered at Membartsho are listed in later Pema Lingpa hagiographies as including a self-spoken Guru image, a treasure scroll and a ritual skull. These objects entered the corpus of Peling religious texts and remain referenced in Pema Lingpa lineage liturgy.^[2]

Location and approach

Membartsho lies on the Tang Chhu about four kilometres above the Tang valley road in upper Bumthang, reached by a marked footpath that drops from the road into the gorge. A small wooden bridge crosses the narrowest point of the chasm directly above the pool. Prayer flags strung across the gorge and along the cliffs flank the approach, and small stone chortens and tsa-tsa offerings are concentrated along the rim above the pool. A short detour leads to a side chapel where butter-lamp offerings are made by pilgrims. The pool itself is dark and steep-sided, and its depth has not been reliably measured.^[1][3]

Pilgrimage practice

Membartsho is a recurrent stop on Bhutanese pilgrimage routes through Bumthang, particularly for devotees of the Pema Lingpa lineage. Local nuns maintain a small wooden cabinet on the bridge in which butter lamps are stored for use by pilgrims, and small clay offerings (tsa-tsa), often inscribed with sacred syllables and sometimes containing the cremated remains of the dead, are placed in the rocks above the pool. The site is treated as one of the major sacred bodies of water in Bhutan and is approached with the customary observance of clockwise circumambulation along the path that runs above the gorge.^[2][3]

Conservation and visitor management

The gorge of the Tang Chhu around the lake is steep and narrow, and the site has historically presented some hazard to pilgrims. The wooden bridge across the pool and the approach paths have been periodically reinforced. The lake's sacred status places it within the wider system of religious heritage protection administered through the dzongkhag and the central monastic body, and it is included in the Pema Lingpa pilgrimage circuit promoted by the Tourism Council of Bhutan.^[4]

Place in the Pema Lingpa pilgrimage circuit

Within the Pema Lingpa pilgrimage circuit, Membartsho occupies the position of the principal terma-revelation site associated with the terton's career. It is paired with Kunzangdrak, the cliff-side retreat where he undertook his major three-year retreats, and with Tamzhing Lhakhang, the monastery he founded in 1501 in the Choekhor valley as the seat of his lineage. Pilgrims commonly include all three sites in a single Bumthang itinerary, and seasonal religious calendars in the Tamzhing community continue to mark anniversaries connected to the Membartsho revelation.^[2][3]

References

1. Membartsho — Wikipedia
2. Mebar Tsho, the Burning Lake where Pema Lingpa discovered Hidden Treasures — Bhutan Pilgrimage
3. Burning Lake in Tang Bumthang — Bhutan Cultural Travel
4. Burning Lake (Membartsho) — UPC Bhutan
5. Karma Phuntsho, The History of Bhutan (Random House India, 2013), section on Pema Lingpa