Proud to be a Sikkimese: Sikkim Travel, Culture & Local Heritage

My outlook towards the Heritage Management Seminar-3 Visit to the Ruined Royal Palace at Tumlong  The second day of the Two Days Seminar on Strategy for Heritage Management for Sikkim organized by the Cultural Department gave us an opportunity to visit the ruined Royal Palace at Tumlong. I had earlier been to that place couple of years back but still, I believed I should go to it since I had a few questions in my mind after I had seen an old sketch from a European Journal while surfing at internet on Tumlong. The sketch provided the scene of the Palace from a distant place where a road with two chorten on its upper side is shown while a single chorten lower than the road along with few huts like dwelling place and few people around was clearly framed of that period of ancient Sikkim. It is believed that when Campbell and Hooker were captured they were kept in those hut-like. I talked about the Tumlong sketch with a few of the officials during our short meetings. The o...

Rubdenchi Ruins (2010)

   by Benu Pradhan About 3kms from Pelling and a few minutes walk further down from Pemayangtse Monastery are the Rabdentse ruins, the 2nd capital of Sikkim, founded by the 2nd Chogyal of Sikkim Tensung Namgyal in the year 1670. In this palace, Tensung Namgyal married three wives, first from Tibet, second from Bhutan and the daughter of the Limboo king, Yo Yo Hang of Limbuwana eastern Nepal. The 3rd Chogyal Chador Namgyal and his half-sister, Paden Wangmoo (the daughter of a Bhutanese mother), claimed the throne against her brother, which led to the Bhutanese attack on Rabdentse and the fleeing away of Chador Namgyal for political shelter to Lhasa, and losing Kalimpong to Bhutan in the process finally to the brother of Chador Namgyal.   The assassinations by his sister Paden at Borong hot spring when the king was deep in treatment (1716). With the final wishes of the dying king, Sister Paden Wangmoo was caught and strangled to death and burnt at Samduptse (Na...

        Wikipedia says:     Rabdentse was the second capital of Sikkim. It was shifted from Yuksom in 1670 by Tensung Namgyal, the second Chogyal (monarch). However, Rabdentse was too close to the Nepal border, which had cold relations with Sikkim. After repeated raids on the capital by the Nepalese in the 18th century, the capital was shifted further inland to Tumlong in 1793 by Tshudpud Namgyal, then Chogyal. The ruined capital is surrounded by thickly forested valley. It is nearby Pemayangtse Monastery. Rabdentse has also a bird sanctuary. This monument is declared to be of national importance by the Archaeological Survey of India.