History
" . . . was founded by the First Rigdzin Godemchen Ngodrub Gyeltsen (1337-1409). In 1632 the monastery relocated from Tsang to its present tranquil setting on the north bank of the Brahmaputra, when the young Third Rigdzin Ngagiwangpo and his guardian Jangdak Tashi Topgyel were forced to flee the wrath of the kings of Tsang. Their successor, the erudite Fourth Rigdzin Pema Trinle (b. 1641) greatly enlarged the monastery befiore his untimely death at the hands of the Dzungar Mongolians, who sacked the monastery in 1717. Later, during the 1960s the monastery was again obliterated. Nonetheless it has been gradually restored in recent years through the efforts of the present incarnation of Dordrak Rigdzin, who lives in Lhasa, and those of Kelzang Chojor and the local community."
"The monastery specialized in the Northern Treasures (Tib. བྱང་གཏེར་, changter; Wyl. byang gter) tradition of Rigdzin Gödem. It had approximately 200 monks before the Chinese invasion."
Read more about this topic: Dorje Drak
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
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