- In Nepal’s sacred Tsum Valley, Buddhist community members are conflicted about the ongoing construction of a road that will pass through the region.
- The Tsum Valley is one of the few, if not last, remaining beyul, or sacred valleys, governed by customary and Buddhist laws, where humans and wildlife have lived together in harmony for more than a millennium.
- The valley has maintained its religious and cultural traditions that have conserved biodiversity and its cultural uniqueness due to its remote location.
- The road is part of a government project that aims to connect every town across the country, bringing economic development and government services closer to remote mountainous communities.
TSUM VALLEY, Nepal — “In the future, when war, strife and difficult times come,” said Thrisong Deutsen, an eighth-century Tibetan king, “will there be a safe place where people can go to practice Buddhism?”
His guest, Padmasambhava, otherwise known as Guru Rinpoche, quickly calmed the king’s worries with his response: “Yes, there will be valleys where warfare will never happen and where people will live in peace with animals.”
Nearly 1,300 years later, Karma, a monk, stands in the colorful monastery of Phurbe staring out the window into the sacred Tsum Valley of legend below. Surrounded by hand-painted murals of Padmasambhava, the Buddha and other Buddhist deities, the 82-year-old is troubled.
“The road will change everything here,” says Karma, who has lived all his life in the sacred valley of Tsum, which today lies in central Nepal. “It’s all about money. There are a few good points, but it will really destroy everything. Even this monastery might be destroyed.”
For believers, Padmasambhava, a real historical figure, is one of the most important of all Tibetan Buddhist saints. Founder of the oldest sect of Tibetan Buddhism, he’s chronicled as having spread Buddhism through much of the Himalayas and the world’s highest peaks. A man of great spiritual powers, he was also said to have been frequently embroiled in magical duels with demons to restore harmony on Earth.
Invariably, Padmasambhava won such contests, but despite his successes, he was said to believe that one day a dark period would come to this part of the world, to Buddhism, and to the world. To counter this and to provide a safe refuge for Buddhists in their time of need, Padmasambhava created a network of sacred valleys, or beyul.
The Tsum Valley is one of these, governed by traditional institutions that have protected the area’s natural resources, forests, biodiversity and culture for more than a millennium. It’s also one of the last preserved beyul in Nepal where people still live. (Last year, the government even legally recognized the Tsum Valley’s customary institution protecting the land, known as the shagya).
A beyul is a secret Himalayan valley that can only be entered by the spiritually pure and only when the world is under great stress.