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Home , Sela Pass, Tawang, Tawang Monastery

c. – monpa 87

MONPA

Overview before the gate were prayer-wheels in a niche and above them a threefold wooden lintel ornamented Monpa houses are rectangular in shape and usually with block-patterns painted in many colours. divided into two unequal parts, with three or four One of the villagers we met, Mr Sangrama, was so storeys. Most houses also have a domestic ritual kind to show us his house, where he lived with his space, with Buddhist icons. wife and three children. He said, ‘The house is already Houses typically have a basement for keeping 120 years old’ (D. 042 and P. 082). The house was three animals, a living and sleeping room on the the first storeys high, with thick stone walls of piled sandstone or ground floor with a ritual space on the second floor blocks and wooden floors of wide, heavy floor-planks. in the front part, and storage and drying on the sec- The inner dimensions were about 5 × 8 metres, with- ond and third floor in the back part. Monpa houses out any partitions. have stone walls, and wooden floors, ridge and rafters. The middle storey served as a common living- Often the ritual space on the upper storey has a room and was accessible via a terrace and outside wooden façade. Monpas cover the roof with stone staircase. The living-room had one fireplace with a slabs or wooden shingles held down by stones. hanging rack for drying firewood and smoking or dry- ing meat, among other things. Up the tree-trunk stairs Commentary from the living-room, we reached the upper floor which was used for storage and drying millet and rice. From the pass above Bomdila, we had a wonderful The low basement, accessible only from outside, was view of a row of snow-capped . Winding for animals. along deep ravines, we descended into the valley of The upper floor construction had a typical struc- the River. The slopes were covered with pine ture of several layers: three spars in different direc- trees and villages were visible with small orange tions above each other. The roof construction structures nearby. Through our binoculars we saw consisted of wooden and bamboo beams, rafters and that the orange structures were racks of drying maize. purlins; all connections were made with cane. The Monpas use maize to brew beer as well as eat it. Some roof was covered with woven and flattened bamboo, houses had a roof of woven flattened bamboo bent six to seven layers thick, bent over the ridge, as men- over the ridge. It seemed to be a modern develop- tioned before. On the roof vegetables were dried in ment, and I doubted that such a roof, even with many the sun and wind. layers, would be waterproof. Many houses also had a small tower-like building We kept following the right bank of the Dirang with an opening at the front, looking like an oven. It River, which at this point was not much more than was a place for burning juniper branches to fumigate a wide rocky bed with a winding wild stream. The and cleanse. slopes were overgrown with mixed forest. To reach the main Monpa area around The first stone houses indicated that we had en- we had to cross the , which is closed for three tered the Monpa area. The house type was complete- months every year. Before a dangerous curve a sign ly different to houses elsewhere in Arunachal Pradesh: warned: ‘You live only once.’ Along the left bank of they had more storeys and the walls were built of the river we went upwards, endlessly climbing to- stone up to the roof. ward the Sela. There we stopped and entered a sim- Our first visit was to Dirang, actually to Dum Di- ple shop to have some breakfast, but they had rang (Old Dirang), a few kilometres from the new nothing. Sushil bought tea, a parcel with noodles, Dirang. Stone houses, and some with wooden exten- some chillies and onions. He cooked our breakfast sions, were bunched close together and rose above on the kerosene-burner inside the shop. us. We climbed a flight of steps to an entrance gate. We climbed higher and higher, where clouds hung In a wall-niche stood a stone Bodhisattva, and on a round mountain tops. We could only see down, not kind of balcony we saw a decayed second statue. Just up. Further upwards we drove in the mist, though 88 c. arunachal pradesh – monpa

P. 067: Monpa monastery, Tawang, 1999. now and then the sun came through. Between the which was fort-like and imposing (P. 069, P. 070 and low pine trees were high burned tree-trunks without P. 071). branches—there must have been a terrible forest- Several buildings of the monastery complex had fire. The sun was shining again and blue gentians been renovated, some recently. So the earlier wood- bloomed along the road. The road surface was main- en construction inside the heavy stone prayer-hall ly sand and boulders, sometimes a little asphalt. Be- walls had been replaced by concrete; some old orna- fore 1962 (when invaded in this region) ments had been replaced; handrails were made of there was just a footpath, and it was along that path steel and the floor was covered with marble. The that the fled to India. original wooden shingle roof of the prayer hall, library Finally we reached the Sela Pass, which is 4,175 and monks’ houses had been replaced by yellow, metres high. In the pass stands the Sela Mandir, a painted corrugated iron sheets. Buddhist temple, with fluttering flags. At the highest We entered the prayer hall, though our shoes had point, we passed a large gate crowned with two lions to remain outside, at the foot of the marble entrance and a sign: ‘Welcome to Tawang.’ A bit further Su- steps. Inside, we looked straight up to the Buddha, shil pointed out a trench where an Indian soldier held nearly eight metres high. Lamas sitting on both sides up the advancing Chinese Army for 36 hours, during of the central passageway made music, while other the Indo-China war of 1962. lamas were sitting higher up and nearer to the Bud- Then a long descent started. On the slopes young dha. pine trees grew between the burned trunks of larger, Standing on the highest balcony at the front and old trees. Among the rocks along the stream we saw looking out over the square, we saw a big drum and yaks, long-haired and thick-set with fat heads and many long trumpets nearby on the floor. Back on the crooked horns. square in front of the prayer-hall a group of boys and After crossing the bridge over the Tawang River, girls sauntered round us. They were on excursion we reached Tawang with its famous 17th century from and, one after the other, asked to be monastery-temple, or . It was constructed and photographed with us. is now maintained with the help of the surrounding We then visited the village of Bomdir, located in villages. The monastery houses 300 (in the past 500) a beautiful spot on the other side of the river from lamas and contains a large library and school. Tawang. Entering the village along a footpath, we looked like a village (P. 067). passed a small building with prayer-wheels (P. 073) The prayer-hall (dukhang) towered above the monks’ and a bit lower a kind of kiln (P. 074). We were ac- houses, with a school on the right, a central kitchen companied by Mr Pota, who knew the village since on the left, and a library just behind the prayer-hall. his sister lived here. From the footpath, we saw that The white-washed buildings, regularly interrupted some roofs were covered with metal or woven bam- by the black window holes, were covered with yellow boo, but most had wooden shingles or stone slates metal roofs. Near the entrance road, in front of a (P. 072). prayer room we met a nice Monpa woman in tradi- In the village, women were doing the washing-up tional dress and a felt cap with tassels (P. 068). in a jet of water coming from a wide tube that ex- Through three gates and along rows of prayer- tended from a stone building. It was the local temple- wheels we followed the path upwards to the temple, monastery, or gompa, recognizable by the wooden