Lava's monastery is new by Himalayan standards, and it was the village that asked for it. In the 1980s the local Buddhist community offered four acres of land to Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche, the third holder of that title and a senior teacher of the Karma Kagyu school. They wanted a place that would keep their religious and cultural traditions alive.
The Rinpoche accepted the offer in 1987, and building began in April 1988. The monastery, named Kagyu Thekchen Ling, opened on 6 June 1990, on the day of Chökhor Düchen, which marks the Buddha's first teaching. Its builders followed Tibetan forms in brick and concrete, with prayer halls, lawns and a large Buddha image.
Jamgon Kongtrul Rinpoche died in 1992, only two years after the opening. The monastery carried on, and in 2001 the Dalai Lama opened a community temple, the Mane Lhakhang, beside it. Today more than a hundred monks study and pray at Lava.
Locals often call it the Lava gompa or by its other name, Ratnarishi Bihar. It sits beside the Neora reservoir, on the edge of the forest, and its morning prayers are one of the few sounds in the village before the jeeps start.
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Legends are retold differently from village to village. Where a story is told locally rather than written down, we say so.
