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Drukgyel
Dzong - Fortress of the Victorious Drukpa |
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Bhutan's
Culture Dzongs |
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Bhutan Information |
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Druk
Gyal Dzong : The Two Faces |
Thakur
S Powdyel, director, centre for educational resarch and development, presented
the paper Druk Gyal Dzong : The Two Faces in a recent colloquim
on dzongs of Bhutan. (The following naration is an excerpt from the paper).
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the many physical symbols which give to Druk Yul her distinctive
identity and personality are the magnificent towering giant fortresses
dominating the heights of the Bhutanese landscape. Expressions of breath-taking
architectural grandeur and elegance, the Bhutanese dzongs are a poet's
vision of unity and an artist's conception of proportion, that transcend
the designs of the Clovis Point or the Mississippi Arch in the western
imagination of the ideal of beauty and usefulness woven into one. |
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Druk Gyal Dzong before the fire in 1951
Translations
of expansive mindscapes and boundless imaginations, the dzongs are at once
a marriage between the physical and the spiritual, between the fortress
and the monastery, between the social and the political. The dzongs are
a mind's configuration of excellence in its pursuit of that rare unity
which is the child of view and vision. The baffling dimensions conceived
in the inexorable complexity and tantalizing simplicity are a tribute to
the weaver of dreams and swayers of chisels.
The
Bhutanese dzongs are an objectification of the essential harmony which
makes for the peace between man and nature. Far from being an arrogant
imposition of the designs and patterns of man on the all-accepting and
all-condoning mother-nature, the Bhutanese dzongs are a natural and spontaneous
extension of nature. All too often, it is difficult to see where nature
ends and architecture begins. It is the meeting of man and nature half-way
that honours the covenant that promises life and living.
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In
the natural tryst with the environment, the Bhutanese offered their capacity
to cooperate with the elemental and the natural, the pristine and the primordial,
and succeeded in winning over the aid of the spirits and sentinels that
were the guardians of all. The result was that both would endure, that
both would last, that both would affirm each other and ensure life and
mutual living.
And
so it has been. The new-found brands of the so-called deep, ecology and
earth-friendly architecture slogans pale into insignificance in the face
of the time-tested and time-honoured chastening discovery and practice
of the Bhutanese. Many smart tokens of modern architecture, buttressed
and pampered by the latest technical know-how and technological compliments
have come and gone. They will come and go, as indeed the attempts of man
to edit or rewrite nature will flounder as unwise and impotent.
The
reaffirmation and reassertion of the wisdom of the ancients coupled with
the engagement of modern science and technology with a human face as well
as a recognition of the fundamental harmony between the humans and nature
will ensure a more integrated and fulfilling life for all players. The
conception, construction and use of the Bhutanese dzongs are a lesson in
rare wisdom.
Centuries
have rolled. Builders and architects have etched their impressions on stone
and wood that live on for posterity. The old faithful, the multifunctional
fortress serves on, often changing roles to suit the warrant of times.
The citadels of splendour and power continue to give to our land her special
magnificence and grandeur, barring cases of human error or nature's own
compulsions.
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