A Nyingma Monastery at Aloobari

What is one to make of the Dalai Lama these days? His Holiness, spiritual leader of the Tibetan Boodhists, has reduced his fourteenth incarnation to the unabashed spouting of puerile New Age cliches. It is a tragedy. His smile is so sweet and confected it would put an honest man into a diabetic coma. The night before last the present author had the misfortune of watching His Holiness speaking during an hour-length documentary, ostensibly on the origins of Boodhism in ancient India, and was simply appalled at the manner the fourteenth Bodhisattva of Compassion blatantly trivialised his entire tradition in order to pander to the lowest soft-brained prejudices of mushy Western liberals. It was an hour of sugar-coated pop psychology, pseudo-science and the cheesiest of liberal nonsense. One could not help but retire from it thinking that the great wisdom of Tibet has, like other traditions – alas! - lost all its integrity and been mutilated by modernity into a vapid travesty of itself.

Thankfully, though, this is not to be a lasting impression. Today, rising early, the author set out from Darjeeling, where he currently resides, and trekked along the ridge three or four miles towards Ghoom and – after getting lost in forests of rhododendron - encountered on his travels the beautiful little monastery at Aloobari, officially the Mak-Dhog monastery of the Tantric Nyingma sect. The encounter was a suitable antidote to any suggestion that the Tibetan tradition is devoid of a living spirit. 

Recently renovated following earthquake damage in 2011, this monastery is a jewel set among the forests and tea gardens and against the mighty backdrop of the eastern corner of the Himalayas. The young monks in attendance, who had trained in caves in Nepal, they said, gave an excellent account of the Dharma, and a knowledgeable layman who fetched the keys to the gompa offered a tour of the building with its icons and majestic decorations. It is perfectly clear that the tradition lives on and that, the Dalai Lama’s rhetorical patter for Westerners notwithstanding, the arcane and esoteric, not to say occult and magickal, practices of Lamaism still prevails. 

Aloobari is the name of the village on the ridge. It means “The Potato Field”, and it is usually as “Aloobari Monastery” that the location is known. The name “Mak-Dhog” means “warding off war” (or similar) and alludes to the fact that the monastery was first built in 1914 at the outbreak of the Great War and so was, from the outset, dedicated to peace. It is perhaps not widely appreciated that an earlier incarnation of the Bodhissatva of Compassion, just like the well-known Mr. Fourteenth, had fled to India following troubles with the Chinese, and in 1910 took up refuge in Darjeeling. The Tibetans who came with him needed places of worship. The Aloobari Monastery was made for that purpose, namely to service the Tibetan enclave. 

The authoritative text on gompas such as this is Himalayan Architecture by Ronald M. Bernier, which text includes an extensive account of Aloobari. “It is one of the most unusual monuments to be treated here,” he writes, “largely because it is a hybrid that mixes several styles.” He explains that, “It is not an early building, and it is likely that European/Chinese contact inspired its inclusion of open balconies with metal grillwork for railings.” It is, he says, “a most unusual building, at least on the outside,” – which even I ncludes some Islamic elements - although the iconographical program of the interior, including the ceiling mandalas, are more or less traditional. 

Wall painting, lower chamber. 

Bernier’s account, however, is of the building prior to its renovation. As older tourist reports relate and photographs show, the building had been in some disrepair. The earthquake then caused an entire wall of the lower floor to collapse. The building has now been reconstructed, reinforced and repainted and so it looks perfectly new, although the upper level’s interior remains as before. This upper chamber is old and somewhat dank, but quite mysterious for that, and the wall paintings - said to have been done with primitive grass brushes in a unique manner – are faded with water damage. The lower chamber, in contrast, is spectacularly fresh and clean and clear with glowing colours of celestial scenery. It has the same iconographical program described by Bernier, but now redone. “The walls are covered with hundreds of painted images of Buddhas, Bodhisattvas as enlightened Buddhas-to-be, teachers and saints,” he writes. “They make up a kind of family album or family tree of those imbued with the pure truth of the Buddhist way.” 

A view of the old monastery, prior to renovation. 

Its Chinese elements are especially evident.

The statues, too, are the same as Bernier describes, but have been replaced since the main altar in particular was crushed in the earthquake. The central figure on the main altar is Avalokitesvara who Bernier describes as “the most compassionate of the Buddhas-to-be and ‘he who looks down’ with compassion on the world.” He is many-armed and many-headed, the many signifying the symbolic number one thousand. “The elaborate form is quite usual in the hills [around Darjeeling]” Bernier explains, “where multiple arms indicate omnipotence and multiple heads show omniscience.” This is just how it was described to the present author who saw its new rendering.

Lower (renovated) Chamber.

Upper (unrenovated) Chamber.

Despite its peculiarities, the whole building, as Bernier further explains, “is one of thousands of constructed mandala forms.” He gives a useful general account of its function that conforms exactly with what this author was fortunate enough to see. “Its interior is spacious and high-ceilinged as it provides halls with rooms for assembled monks to gather for prayer, chanting, reading from the sacred books and instruction from high Lamas.” What Bernier does not detail, since it does not pertain to his interest in architecture and decoration, is that Aloobari contains an impressive collection of very old or even ancient sacred Boodhist texts. These are held in glass cabinets on the upper floor and were thankfully not damaged by the earthquake. Regrettably, the kind gentleman who gave the tour of the upper chamber was unable to give an account of just what texts were in the collection, but he did relate that some are rare and early. 

Sacred texts in glass cases, Upper Chamber. 

All of this – beauty, solemnity, tradition, form, ritual – is a testament to the great and continuing wealth of Lama Boodhism. It is encouraging to learn that it has not, after all, succumbed to the driveling sentimentality that the Dalai Lama feels the need to put on whenever he is in front of a camera.

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black