India's largest Buddhist monastery, above the Tawang Chu valley, and the iron bridge of the fifteenth century below it

Background

Tawang Monastery stands in the Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh. India has no larger Buddhist monastery than this one, and only a single monastery anywhere in the world is bigger; its other name is Galden Namgyal Lhatse. It was founded in 1680-81 by Merak Lama Lodre Gyamtso, and it looks out over the Tawang Chu valley. In the same town, a stupa 40 feet high stands as the Tawang War Memorial, raised for the soldiers of the 1962 Sino-Indian War and holding historic weaponry, flags and military artifacts. An iron suspension bridge of the 15th century, the Chakzam Bridge, crosses the Tawang Chu River; the Tibetan engineer Thangtong Gyalpo built it. Among the high-altitude lakes nearby, Pankang Teng Tso Lake, known as P.T. Tso, lies 17 km from Tawang town, rhododendron groves around its basin and its water frozen over in the winter. Sangetsar Lake, also called Madhuri Lake, is a natural lake formed by an earthquake and shut in by snow-clad peaks and pine forest. Other gompas of the district carry the same tradition, among them Taktsang Gompa, the Tiger's Nest, the Brahma-dung-chung Ani Gompa that is a nunnery, and Regyaling Gompa.