Drukpa Kunley was a Tibetan Buddhist teacher of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, remembered in Bhutan as the Divine Madman. He taught through outrageous behaviour, bawdy songs and jokes, mocking hypocrisy among the pious and showing that enlightenment did not need solemn ritual.
Local tradition says that a demoness lived on the pass at Dochula and troubled travellers. Drukpa Kunley subdued her with his "thunderbolt of wisdom" and buried her under a small mound in the valley below. In 1499 his cousin, Ngawang Chogyel, built Chimi Lhakhang on that spot.
The temple is now visited by couples hoping for children, who are blessed by the monks with a wooden phallus and a bow and arrow said to have belonged to the saint. The painted phalluses on house walls across Bhutan are linked to his memory and are believed to ward off evil.
Sources
- Chimi Lhakhang (Wikipedia)
- Told locally in Punakha
Legends are retold differently from village to village. Where a story is told locally rather than written down, we say so.
