Namthang Norbu
Tsho-ling Gonpa is situated at Nagi village above Namthang Bazaar, South
Sikkim.
History:
Earlier, it was under the jurisdiction of Fomer Burmiok Athing the Land
Lord, who had a temporary dwelling there, which was later dilapidated and
ruined. Soon after, Bermiok Athing donated 9 acres of land for building a monastery for
the religious need of the local people. Accordingly, a Lepcha lama called
Sonam Rinchhen took the lead in building a small monastery on the
ruined site in 1914 as per the advice ofKyabje Sitrul Rinpoche (Chhogyal |
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Sidkyong Tulku). Later, in keeping view of the increasing number of the monks, the old small monastery was dismantled and rebuilt it in
1933 by extending its size to accommodate more lamas. In the later decades, Sir
Tashi Namgyal and Lt. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru the first Prime Minister of India visited this monastery. During their visit, they saw a beautiful Lake situated nearby this monastery, which added an extra beauty to the environment of the monastery.Therefore, the Chhogyal named the monastery as “Norbu Tsholing” which means ‘a place having Gem-Lake’.
Since then this monastery became more important to the people living in the surrounding areas. However, later, the Lake dried up due to implementation of rain water harvesting scheme, which was not successful. The monastery performs all the ceremonies throughout the year. The monastery follows the
Nyingma Sect of Kadue Choki Gyatso lineage.
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