Prayer wheel at Dhangkar monastery

Prayer wheels at monasteries is a fascinating sight. Usually there is line of prayer wheels and the visitors make it a point to touch each and every wheel. This prayer wheel at Dhangkar monastery or gompa in Spiti looked as old as the monastery itself and it was a different feeling to touch the prayer wheel as well as the wall around. It had a deep cold feel to it almost as if connecting with its ancient past.

Dhangkar Monastery

Dhankar is a village and also a Gompa, a Buddhist temple in the district of Lahaul and Spiti in India. It is situated at an elevation of 3,894 metres (12,774 feet) in the Spiti Valley above Dhankar Village, between the towns of Kaza and Tabo. The complex is built on a 1000-foot (300-metre) high spur overlooking the confluence of the Spiti and Pin Rivers — one of the world’s most spectacular settings for a gompa. Dhang or dang means cliff, and kar or khar means fort. Hence Dhangkar means fort on a cliff.

Dhankar, like Key and Tangyud Monasteries in Spiti, and Thiksey, Likir and Rangdum monasteries in Ladakh, was built as a fort monastery on the Central Tibetan pattern. Below the Gompa lies the small village of Shichilling which contains the new Dhankar Monastery, home to about 150 monks belonging to the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.

Beyond the surrounding harsh, lunar landscape, notable sights at Dhankar Gompa include a statue of Vairocana consisting of four figures seated back-to-back, in addition to various crumbling thangkas. There is a small museum in the gompa. In 2006, World Monuments Fund selected Dhankar gompa as one of the 100 most endangered sites in the world. A nonprofit group, Dhangkar Initiative, is attempting to organize its conservation. (source : Wikipedia)