Visitors to the small Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan are regularly reminded of the deep Buddhist faith of the Bhutanese people. Colourful prayer flags flutter on mountaintops. Buddhist devotees circumambulate chortens (Buddhist monuments) while turning small prayer wheels; larger ones are positioned in rivers and turned by rushing water. Many Bhutanese wear an image of their chosen bodhisattva, or enlightened saint, on chains round their necks. Now, sitting up high on a mountainside overlooking Thimphu Valley is a statue of Buddha Sakyamuni. At 61m tall, this imposing image is intended to bestow blessings, peace and happiness on the world.
Brief History of the Origins of Buddhism
Sakyamuni was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent who lived around the 6th or 5th century BC. Born Prince Siddhartha Gautama, Sakyamuni gave up the luxuries of his palace life to pursue a spiritual one, despite his father’s best attempts to prevent him from doing so. Upon seeing the suffering in the world outside of the palace, the young prince determined to learn how to alleviate the suffering of all living things. For several years he was a wandering ascetic, fasting, meditating and studying under various spiritual teachers until he mastered their practices.
Throughout his time as a wanderer, Siddhartha came to realise that asceticism was not providing the insight he needed to discover the truth about alleviating suffering. In Bodhgaya in North India he sat beneath a Bodhi tree and decided to meditate until he achieved enlightenment. During this period of meditation, Siddhartha realised there existed a middle ground between extreme asceticism and his former palace life. On the morning of his third night of meditation he was enlightened to the true nature of existence and suffering and it was at this point he became a Buddha, or an awakened one.
Soon after enlightenment, Buddha Sakyamuni gave his first public teaching. It was upon this and subsequent teachings throughout his life that Buddhism was founded. His early teachings are collected in the Sutras, or religious texts, and form the basis of Buddhist thought and aspirations today. Sakyamuni is often referred to as the First or historical Buddha.
Guru Rinpoche, regarded as the Second Buddha and whose birth was predicted by Sakyamuni, is credited with bringing Buddhism to Bhutan in the 8th century. Mahayana Buddhism, a school of Buddhism which diverged slightly from the earliest Buddhist teachings but remains fundamentally the same, is now the most widely practised religion in Bhutan. About 75% of the country’s population follows the doctrine of this faith.
The Buddha Dordenma Project
The Buddha Dordenma Image Foundation was founded in 2004 by His Eminence Trizin Tsering Rimpoche. H.E. Rimpoche is chairman of Menjong Choethuen Tshoga, a Bhutanese not-for-profit, non-governmental organization which preserves Buddhist teachings and traditions. The Buddha Dordenma Project was initiated to fulfil a former prophecy of Guru Padmasambhava, a lotus-born tantric master credited with establishing Vajrayana Buddhism, a new school of Buddhism which emerged from the Mahayana school in about AD 600.
The statue is positioned high up on a mountainside overlooking the southern approach to Thimphu, Bhutan’s capital. So large is the Buddha statue that its gold gilding can be seen glinting in the distance from Phajoding Goemba on the Druk Path trek. Constructed in China, the statue was transported overland in sections to its current position which was once the site of Changri Kuensel Phodrang, the palace of the thirteenth Desi Druk, or secular ruler of Bhutan.
The seated Buddha’s body and lotus is 42m tall and the throne upon which the Buddha sits is almost 19m high. The statue is constructed of bronze and steel and is gilded in gold. The interior of the Buddha’s body and lotus are filled with 100,000 20cm-tall replica Buddha statues and the walls of the meditation halls, located inside the throne, have a further 25,000 30cm statues.
Many other images of Buddha and bodhisattvas of varying sizes are located throughout the three-storey meditation halls of the throne section. All are gilded in gold and each contains five kinds of sacred relics, mantras and precious substances which help prevent them from being occupied by evil spirits. In addition to housing various Buddha images, the ceilings of the meditation halls are decorated with many major and minor mandalas and there are numerous golden dragon pillars. Sponsors from around the world who have contributed to the construction costs of the Buddha Dordenma Project will have their names displayed in the meditation halls.
The Buddha Dordenma Project is not intended just for display purposes but to bestow blessings, peace and happiness on the world. Once completed, it is hoped it will become a major pilgrimage centre where Buddhists from around the world can converge to practise, meditate and hold spiritual retreats.
Sources
The Buddha Dordenma Image Foundation.
Sally Piper - Sally Piper is a published writer whose fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Australia and the UK.
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