Skip to main content

Pemyangchi is more correct form of Pemayangtse Monastery

Twice, I visited Pemayangtse Monastery, but when I got to read the century-old books about the place, the romance of those words was different. These days I am following Sir Richard Temple's visit to the Himalayan state of Sikkim in 1875 and his works about the Pemayangtse Monastery is just poetry. I appreciate those visitors who really tried their best to keep the correct pronunciation of the native places, rivers, mountains, and others to the closest best. Sir Richard Temple wrote "Pemyangchi" for the more popular Pemayangtse as it is known as better known worldwide. In the English language, as in recent English proficiency training concluded at Gangtok, Saroza Pradhan, my English resource person, taught me that in phonetic English, "ts" sounds as "ch," which makes the sound of Pemayang-"ts"e as Pemyang-"ch"i. It is not "Pemyang-say," as we say often, but it should be "Pemyang-chi," as correctly pronounced by those Britishers.

Sir Richard Temple in his memoirs describes the Pemyangchi Monastery as ;

In the afternoon we examined both the exterior and interior of the building. The present structure is quite new, though the establishment is some 200 years' old; the original building having been sacked and rifled of all its ornaments and riches by the Nepali invaders in 1814, and the building which existed in Hooker s time, 1849, having been destroyed by fire. The exterior is of the same style as that described at Tasiding, except that it is on a much larger scale. The roof is topped by a copper gilt erection, equivalent to the hti, or sacred umbrella of Burma, and the great wooden doorway is elaborately pointed.
 
In the interior, there are two storeys. In the upper storey, which is plain, some of the monks reside, and
 in the lower is the chapel already mentioned, all the wooden pillai's and beams of which are painted, 
and  all  its walls covered with frescoes : the entire decoration, whether on wood or plaster, representing 
debased forms of Buddhism, merging into pure idolatry. The colouring is rich and good and the designs are
 spirited, but the execution is rough, there being abundant cleverness, but hardly any real art. The work is
by Tibetan artists, and the idea and conception are of a Chinese character. The principal image represents 
Sakya Muni the founder of Buddhism, but is destitute of art or beauty. There are no valuable ornaments or other
property whatever. I should state the dimensions of the chapel in the lower storey, roughly, as length 60 
feet ; breadth 42 feet; and height 12 feet. 

 
At the entrance to the building there is a good-sized ante-room with painted pillars and with frescoes, 
laid to represent the ideal kings of the regions over which Buddhism has spread; also Chagdor, t.e., 
Chagnadorje, or Avalokitesvara, the well-known Bodhisattva, who is also the subduer of evil spirits."

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

JANHA BAGCHA TEESTA RANGIT

This was a national song of Sikkim sung in the Nepali language during the monarchy system. During the merger with India, the song got banned and later re-released. Two words on the 8th para, which earlier said 'Rajah rah Rani,' were replaced with "Janmah bhumi."     This song was dedicated to the King and Queen of Sikkim. The song lyrics were penned by Sanu Lama, and the music was composed by Dushyant Lama.  The song was first sung on the birth anniversary of Chogyal Palden Thondup Namgyal on April 4, 1970, at Gangtok by Aruna Lama, Dawa Lama, and Manikamal Chettri.    JANHA BAGCHA TEESTA RANGIT,  JAHAN KANCHENDZONGA SEER   YEHI HO HAMRO DHANA KO DESH,  TAPAWAN HO PYARO SIKKIM     INTERLUDE     PHULCHAN YEHA AANGANAI MAA,  CHAAP , GURAS, SUNAKHARI   SWARGASARI SUNDAR DESH KO  HAMRO PYARO PYARO JANMAHBHUMI     JANHA BAGCHA……     BATASHLE BOKCHAA YAHA,  TATHAGAT KO AAMAR WAANI ...

India’s illegal occupation of independent Sikkim has to be reversed

Extracted from Pakistan Defence India’s “Chief Executive” in Gangtok wrote: “Sikkim’s merger was necessary for Indian national interest. And we worked to that end. Maybe if the Chogyal had been smarter and played his cards better, it wouldn’t have turned out the way it did.” It is also said that the real battle was not between the Chogyal and Kazi Lendup Dorji but between their wives. On one side was Queen Hope Cook, the American wife of the Chogyal and on the other was the Belgian wife of the Kazi, Elisa-Maria Standford. “This was a proxy war between the American and the Belgian,” says former chief minister BB Gurung. But there was a third woman involved: Indira Gandhi in New Delhi. Chogyal Palden met the 24-year-old New Yorker Hope Cook in Darjeeling in 1963 and married her. For Cook, this was a dream come true: to become the queen of an independent kingdom in Shangrila. She started taking the message of Sikkimese independence to the youth, and the allegations started flying thic...

The Gorkhas - Sons of the Soil, Pride of the Nation

 Nanda Kirati Dewan, a journalist from Assam traces the origin of the Gorkhas in India. Many people have misconceptions about the Gorkhas in India - that they are foreigners and have migrated from Nepal. There could not be a greater mistake than this. The Gorkhas are in fact the aborigines of India and they can trace their history back to ancient times. The Gorkha community is the product of Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid assimilation from ages past. As a linguistic group, they can trace their origin back to Indo-Aryan and Tibeto-Burman beginnings. In fact, the Gorkhas consist of both Indo-Aryan and Mongoloid racial groups. In the Mahabharata and Manusmriti names of Khasa are mentioned. They are in fact the Gorkhas. The Gorkhas spoke the language then known as Khaskura Khasas as a community existed in Nepal which it later changed to another ethnic name. The Lichchhavis, one of the aboriginal tribes of India originally lived in the plains of present Nepal. During the early centu...