15 June 2015 / leggypeggy

A burning lake, prayer flags and a resident guru

Anand, Bhutan, Buddhist, guru, lakes, lamps, Prayaan India Overland, prayer flags, religious, rivers, sacred sites, Tek, treasures

Poor John, Anand, Deepti and Tek see where Pema Lingpa jumped into the Burning Lake

From the time we arrived in Bhutan, our guide, Tek, talked about having us visit the Burning Lake—a very sacred site.

While this remote destination is plenty watery, it is neither burning or a lake—it’s a widening in a river. Nevertheless, it is an important part of Bhutanese legend.

In the later 1400s, a Buddhist saint named Terton Pema Lingpa told villagers of his vision that a guru had hidden sacred treasures in their nearby ‘lake’.

Not surprisingly, the locals weren’t convinced and the local governor was especially suspicious. He assembled a large group of people to watch Pema Lingpa retrieve the treasures.

Prayer flags decorate a bridge across the river/lake

The river flows towards the Burning Lake

The governor told Pema Lingpa that if he successfully got a treasure, he would support him. If he failed, he would punish him for disrupting his district.

Pema LIngpa is said to have grabbed a burning butter lamp and proclaimed, If I am genuine, let me bring back the treasure with this lamp still burning. If I am a fraud, let me die in the waters below.

Obviously, he popped up with the goods or he and the lake wouldn’t be famous.

The story goes that after quite some time, Pema Lingpa resurfaced with the still-lit butter lamp, as well as a small box crafted of joined skulls and a small sculpture.

According to tradition, this miraculous occurrence caused all those present to become followers and patrons of Pema Lingpa. The event also gave the lake its name of Mebar Tsho, or the Burning Lake.

The path down to the ‘lake’ is festooned with brilliantly coloured prayer flags, other devotional items and a small altar dedicated to Pema Lingpa.

devotionals

small stupas

altar

Pilgrims are still drawn to the site and on auspicious days they will offer butter lamps at the water’s edge. According to Tek, the guru who is currently resident at the Burning Lake is a great character. He’s in his final year of a stint that will last three years, three months and three days.

The guru was coming down to ‘do his job’ as we were leaving and he stopped to speak to Anand, who was our driver for this journey. He was full of gorgeous smiles and hearty hellos, and offered to show Anand the way to enlightenment. Anand graciously declined, explaining that he was Hindu. I wasn’t quick enough to get a photo of them together, but I did get a pic of the guru descending to his ‘workplace’.