DHARAMSALA: HH the Dalai Lama Visits Jamyang School

Monday, August 17, 2009

HH the Dalai Lama Visits Jamyang School

Leh, Ladakh, J&K, India, 14 August 2009 (Phayul Photo/Tashi Morup) - His Holiness poses in Drogpa (Nomad) hat with members of Jamyang school in Leh established under his direction and financial support for the underprivileged Drogpa Tribe of Ladakh. His Holiness advised the school to provide children with modern education and Tibetan Buddhism. The opening ceremony witnessed a grand reception by children and parents of this community.

No comments:

Post a Comment

History

Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India, could not have known in 1960 that the location he offered to Tibetan exiles had prolific Buddhist roots dating back 2,700 years. The Kangra Valley is rich in unexplored archaeological sites of great importance to understanding Indian Buddhism; in 635 AD the Chinese monk-pilgrim, Hsuan Tsang recorded fifty monasteries with around 2,000 monks in this fertile region. But, a century later, Buddhism and all its sites were eliminated from the valley during an upsurge of Brahminical revivalism.

Dharamsala's earliest history is obscured by time and the successive invasions that swept through all North India. But it is known that the original tribes identified with Kangra's hilly tracts were Dasas, a warrior people, later assimilated by Aryans.

In 1849 the British posted a regiment in Dharamsala, but the place was not to remain a military cantonment for long. By 1855 it was a small but flourishing hill station and the administrative headquarters of Kangra District, which had been annexed by the British in 1848. The two main areas at the time were McLeod Gunj, named after Lieutenant-Governor of Punjab, David McLeod, and Forsyth Gunj, named after a divisional commissioner.

Lord Elgin, Viceroy of British India and a former Governor-General of Canada, loved the forests of Dharamsala so much that, before dying here in 1863, he asked to be buried in the graveyard of St. John's Church in the Wilderness. Had he lived longer, Dharamsala might have become the summer capital of British India.

The name Sir Francis Younghusband - leader of British India's fateful incursion to Lhasa in 1904 - also has Dharamsala connections. In 1856 his parents, Clara Shaw and John Younghusband, lived in a bungalow in the pine forest above St. John's Church and later bought land in the Kangra Valley to pioneer a tea plantation. Clara's brother, Robert Shaw, was a renowned explorer of Central Asia and an early Kangra tea planter.

But in 1905 a severe earthquake changed the face of Dharamsala. Many buildings collapsed and the whole settlement, once ravaged, was never re-occupied. The local officials advised residents to move to the safety of Lower Dharamsala which at that time comprised little more than a jail, a police station and a cobbler's shop. The pine-clad hillsides continued to flourish as a quiet health resort for the "sahibs" and "memsahibs" of British India.

The visits of "sahibs" and "memsahibs" ended when India achieved independence in 1947. McLeod Gunj then quickly became a sleepy, undistinguished village until His Holiness the Dalai Lama, fleeing persecution in his homeland, made it his home in exile and moved the Central Tibetan Administration, in effect the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, from Mussoorie to Dharamsala in 1960. Today, more than 8,000 Tibetan refugees consider Dharamsala their second home.

DHARAMSALA

Monday, August 17, 2009

HH the Dalai Lama Visits Jamyang School

No comments:

Post a Comment

Did you know......

About Me

dharamsala

hey everyone welcome to my lovely beautiful hometown dharamsala

History

Followers

travel2dharamsala

yogi of tibet

DHARAMSALA

Monday, August 17, 2009

HH the Dalai Lama Visits Jamyang School

No comments:

Post a Comment

Did you know......

About Me

dharamsala

hey everyone welcome to my lovely beautiful hometown dharamsala

History

Subscribe To

Followers

travel2dharamsala

yogi of tibet