Beyond the Sky and the Earth_ A Journey Into Bhutan - Jamie Zeppa [43]
“Really?” I ask, painting Yeshey Dorji’s infected chin with gentian violet. “Will he come to the school? Will we get to meet him?”
Mr. Iyya assures me that he will, and we will. He has met the King before, he says. The King is knowing Mr. Iyya very well, yes very well. He stops abruptly, looking stricken. “What is it, Mr. Iyya?” I ask. He says he must write a poem for the visit of His Majesty to our humble valley. “An epic poem!” he exclaims. “In the style of Homer!”
He’d better get moving, I think to myself, if he’s going to finish it by this afternoon.
The headmaster comes in. Yes, he says, the King is on tour and will come to Pema Gatshel, no one knows for sure when, but classes are canceled in order to prepare.
From the class VIII history book, which I have been reading during library duty, I know that the King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck, assumed the throne upon the death of his father in 1972. He was seventeen, the youngest ruling monarch in the world. Throughout his reign, he has made frequent tours of the country to explain government policy and discuss development plans, and is by all accounts a well-loved ruler.
The history of Bhutan before the monarchy is extremely difficult to follow. Before the 1600s, there was no central authority in Bhutan. Each valley was ruled by its own king or clan leader. In 1616, Ngawang Namgyel, a Tibetan abbot, was engaged in a serious clerical dispute in ,his monastery when the protective deity of Bhutan appeared to him in a dream in the form of a raven flying south. The abbot left Tibet and crossed the high Himalayan passes into northwestern Bhutan, where he quickly established himself as an extraordinary leader. After defeating various invading Tibetan armies and unifying the valleys of Bhutan under one central administration, Ngawang Namgyel became the supreme ruler of the country, and assumed the title of Shabdrung, which means “at whose feet one submits.” His legacy is evident everywhere in Bhutan today, from the country’s legal code to its many dzongs, fortress-monasteries which represented a combination of political and religious power.
Before his death, the Shabdrung devised a dual system of government to look after both secular and spiritual affairs. The country’s monastic body was governed by an elected leader called the Jé Khenpo, and administrative and political affairs were managed by a temporal ruler, known as the Desi, with a number of local governors, called penlops, working under him. The Shabdrung’s reincarnations were supposed to be the supreme head of both systems.
Over the years, however, this system floundered. The penlops became all-powerful, appointing and dismissing Desis and Jé Khenpos as they wished, and political rivalries led to great internal instability. The history book lists a series of conflicts, ranging from court intrigue (one of the most interesting cases involved a smallpox-infested silk gho sent as a present to a political rival), dzong-burnings and kidnappings (especially of wives), to multiple assassinations and outright civil war. Then, at the end of the nineteenth century, one person, Ugyen Wangchuck, the Tongsa Penlop, emerged out of this turmoil as a powerful figure, bringing the penlops under his increasingly centralized authority. In 1907, penlops, lamas, and people’s representatives gathered at Punakha and voted to establish a hereditary monarchy, electing Ugyen Wangchuck “Druk Gyalpo,” the Precious King of the Dragon People.
Strangely, the Shabdrung’s reincarnations disappear from the history text shortly after this without a word of explanation. When I asked Mr. Dorji, the history teacher, about this several weeks ago, he looked uncomfortable for a moment, and then said that the Shabdrung’s current incarnation lives in India. “Was he born there?” I asked. Mr. Dorji shook his head. “He was born here, but now ... he lives there.” It was clear that I was not going to get any more out of him.
Preparations for