Tayul Monastery or Tayul Gompa is a Buddhist

Buddhism

Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...

 monastery in the Bhaga Valley of Lahul and Spiti

Lahul and Spiti

The district of Lahaul-Spiti in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh consists of the two formerly separate districts of Lahaul and Spiti. The present administrative centre is Keylong in Lahaul...

, Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh

Himachal Pradesh is a state in Northern India. It is spread over , and is bordered by the Indian states of Jammu and Kashmir on the north, Punjab on the west and south-west, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh on the south, Uttarakhand on the south-east and by the Tibet Autonomous Region on the east...

, northern India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

. It is located 6 kilometres from Keylong

Keylong

Keylong is the administrative centre of the Lahaul and Spiti district in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, some 120 kilometres from the Indo-Tibetan border....

 above the village of Satingri.

History

Tayul gonpa written in Tibetan as Ta - Yul means "chosen place".

The Drugpa (Dogpa) Lama, Serzang Richen of the Kham

Kham

Kham , is a historical region covering a land area largely divided between present-day Tibetan Autonomous Region and Sichuan province, with smaller portions located within Qinghai, Gansu and Yunnan provinces of China. During the Republic of China's rule over mainland China , most of the region was...

 region of Tibet established the Tayul Monastery in the 17th century. Legend has it that Serzang, while making the meritorious circumambulation of the holy peak Drilburi, spotted a small glade in the juniper forest above Kyor

KYOR

KYOR is a radio station broadcasting a religious format. Licensed to Newport, Oregon, USA, the station is currently owned by Family Stations, Inc....

 and Tashikyang villages on the opposite side of the valley and told his fellow pilgrims, "Look, over there, that is a suitable and auspicious place for a gompa".

Structure

The monastery was then constructed and houses a hundred million mani wheel and would apparently turn by itself on special Buddhist occasions. According to the lamas of Tayul, this wheel last turned on its own in 1986.

Tayul has 12 foot statue of Padmasambhava

Padmasambhava

Padmasambhava ; Mongolian ловон Бадмажунай, lovon Badmajunai, , Means The Lotus-Born, was a sage guru from Oddiyāna who is said to have transmitted Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan and Tibet and neighbouring countries in the 8th century...

 and his two materialisations, Sighmukha and Vijravarashi and is well decorated with elaborate murals. The library contains the Buddhist scriptures, the Kangyur

Kangyur

The Tibetan Buddhist canon is a loosely defined list of sacred texts recognized by various schools of Tibetan Buddhism, made up of the Kangyur or Kanjur and the Tengyur or Tanjur .-The Tibetan Buddhist Canon:In addition to earlier foundational Buddhist texts from early Buddhist schools, mostly...

.

It was renovated avbout 100 years after establishment by a Ladakhi Tulku, Tashi Tanphel of Tagna Monastery who renovated it and extended the building. He also decorated the walls with murals.