Bylakuppe Shanghapornigy Hongy | |
---|---|
Town | |
![]() Three Pillars | |
Nickname: Mini Tibet | |
Coordinates: 12°24′15″N76°01′42″E / 12.404270°N 76.028400°E | |
Country | ![]() |
State | Karnataka |
District | Mysore |
Named for | Tourism pleasant climate |
Area | |
• Total | 10 km2 (4 sq mi) |
Elevation | 852 m (2,795 ft) |
Population (2011)(estimated)2021 | |
• Total | 70,000 (including Tibetans) |
Languages | |
• Official | Kannada |
Time zone | UTC+5:30 (IST) |
PIN | 571104 |
Telephone code | +91 8223 |
Vehicle registration | KA-45 |
Lok Sabha constituency | Mysore-Kodagu |
Climate | Tropical wet and dry (Köppen) |
Bylakuppe is an area in Karnataka which is home to the Indian town Bylakuppe and several Tibetan settlements, established by Lugsum Samdupling (in 1961) and Dickyi Larsoe (in 1969). Bylakuppe is the largest Tibetan settlement in the world outside Tibet. It is located to the west of Mysore district in the Indian state of Karnataka which is roughly 80 km from Mysore city.
In 1960, the Government of Mysore (as Karnataka was called at that time) allotted nearly 3,000 acres (12 km2) of land at Bylakuppe in Mysore district in Karnataka and the first ever Tibetan exile settlement, Lugsung Samdupling came into existence in 1961. A few years later another settlement, Tibetan Dickey Larsoe, also called TDL, was established. This was followed by the establishment of three more settlements in Karnataka state making it the state with the largest Tibetan refugee population.
The Government of India built special schools for Tibetans that provide free education, health care and scholarships for those students who excel in school. There are a few medical and civil engineering seats reserved for Tibetans. Tibetans live in India with a stay permit which is processed through a document called Registration Certificate (RC). It is renewed every year, or half-year in some areas. Every Tibetan refugee above the age of 16 must register for the stay permit. RCs are not issued to new arrival refugees. The Indian Government also issues "Yellow Books" after one years' processing with a RC, which allow Tibetans to travel abroad which is an Identity Certificate.
The town is mainly inhabited by Tibetans who, according to a demographic survey carried out by the Central Tibetan Administration's Planning Commission [1] in 1998, accounted for 50,727 individuals at that time. However, it is unclear whether these figures included the Vajrayana Buddhist monks living there. Today, an estimated 70,000 Tibetans live in the settlements; these were established on land leased by the state government to accommodate some of the Tibetan expatriates who came to resettle in India after 1959. Bylakuppe consists of a number of agricultural settlements, colonies are close to each other, and has number of monasteries and temples in all the major Tibetan Buddhist traditions. Most notable among them are the large educational monastic institution Sera Monastery, the smaller Tashi Lhunpo Monastery (both in the Gelug tradition) and Namdroling Monastery (in the Nyingma tradition). Bylakuppe also has many Buddhist universities for advanced Buddhist practices.
Bylakuppe is a small town. It has a police station, commercial banks, a telephone exchange, a post office, lodges and hotels. Transport facilities such as buses, auto-rickshaws and taxis are also available. PAP (Protected Area Permit) is mandatory for foreigners to stay here overnight, which can take up to three months to be issued.
Bylakuppe is situated on the state highway 88 (now NH 275) and is well connected to most of the major cities in south-India. Bus facilities are available from major towns like Mysuru, Bengaluru, Mangaluru, Chennai, Panaji, etc. Following are the distances between Bylakuppe and other cities in kilometers: Kushalanagar (05), Mysuru (82), Bengaluru (222), Mangaluru (172), Mandya (122), Chennai (582), Hassan (80), Madikeri (36), Kasaragod (145), Kozhikode (190).
Köppen-Geiger climate classification system classifies its climate as tropical wet and dry (Aw). [4]
Climate data for Bylakuppe at 866 metres (2,841 ft) | |||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Month | Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | Year |
Mean daily maximum °C (°F) | 27.7 (81.9) | 29.8 (85.6) | 31.8 (89.2) | 31.5 (88.7) | 29.2 (84.6) | 25.1 (77.2) | 24 (75) | 24.3 (75.7) | 25.6 (78.1) | 26 (79) | 25.6 (78.1) | 26 (79) | 27.2 (81.0) |
Daily mean °C (°F) | 21 (70) | 22.8 (73.0) | 24.8 (76.6) | 25.1 (77.2) | 23.9 (75.0) | 21.8 (71.2) | 21.1 (70.0) | 21.1 (70.0) | 21.6 (70.9) | 21.6 (70.9) | 21.1 (70.0) | 20.4 (68.7) | 22.2 (72.0) |
Mean daily minimum °C (°F) | 14.5 (58.1) | 16.2 (61.2) | 18.8 (65.8) | 20.6 (69.1) | 20.6 (69.1) | 20 (68) | 19.5 (67.1) | 19.3 (66.7) | 19.1 (66.4) | 18.4 (65.1) | 16.7 (62.1) | 15 (59) | 18.2 (64.8) |
Average precipitation mm (inches) | 5 (0.2) | 6 (0.2) | 15 (0.6) | 52 (2.0) | 109 (4.3) | 213 (8.4) | 243 (9.6) | 177 (7.0) | 118 (4.6) | 157 (6.2) | 62 (2.4) | 19 (0.7) | 1,176 (46.2) |
Average rainy days | 1 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 14 | 19 | 20 | 18 | 14 | 14 | 7 | 3 | 120 |
Average relative humidity (%) | 57 | 51 | 54 | 68 | 78 | 87 | 89 | 88 | 85 | 83 | 75 | 64 | 73 |
Mean daily sunshine hours | 9 | 9.5 | 9.8 | 9.3 | 8.1 | 5.8 | 5.6 | 5.5 | 6.1 | 6.5 | 6.9 | 7.7 | 7.5 |
Source: Climate-Data.org (altitude: 866m) [4] |
Tashi Lhunpo Monastery is an historically and culturally important monastery in Shigatse, the second-largest city in Tibet. Founded in 1447 by the 1st Dalai Lama, it is the traditional monastic seat of the Panchen Lama.
Sera Monastery is one of the "great three" Gelug university monasteries of Tibet, located 1.25 miles (2.01 km) north of Lhasa and about 5 km (3.1 mi) north of the Jokhang.
Drepung Monastery, located at the foot of Mount Gephel, is one of the "great three" Gelug university gompas (monasteries) of Tibet. The other two are Ganden Monastery and Sera Monastery.
Khentrul Lodrö Thayé Rinpoche is a Tibetan Buddhist lama of the Nyingma school. He is the abbot of Mardo Tashi Choling in Eastern Tibet, where he established a retreat center and shedra, a formal Buddhist monastic college, under the direct guidance of his teacher, Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok Rinpoche. He directs the education and spiritual practice of three hundred monks, seventy advanced-degree candidates, sixty children, and twenty full-time retreatants.
Kyabjé Drubwang Padma Norbu Rinpoche, 1932 – 27 March 2009, was the 11th throneholder of the Palyul Lineage of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, and said to be an incarnation of Vimalamitra. He was widely renowned in the Tibetan Buddhist world as a master of Dzogchen. He was one of a very few teachers left from his generation who received all his training in Tibet under the guidance of what Tibetan Buddhists consider to be fully enlightened teachers.
Zangdok Palri Monastery or Zang Dhok Palri Phodang is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Nyingma school, located at Kalimpong in West Bengal, India. The monastery was founded by Dudjom Rinpoche in 1957 and built where Dudjom Rinpoche settled while in exile from Tibet, atop Durpin Hill. It represents Guru Rinpoche's palace, the Glorious Copper Colored Mountain. In 1975, Dudjom Rinpoche then moved from Kalimpong to Nepal, and the monastery was additionally consecrated in 1976 by the visiting Dalai Lama.
Monlam, also known as The Great Prayer Festival, falls on the 4th to 11th day of the 1st Tibetan month in Tibetan Buddhism.
Serme Khen Rinpoche Geshe Tashi Tsering BEM is abbot of Sera Mey Monastic University in India. From 1994 to 2018, he was the resident Tibetan Buddhist teacher at Jamyang Buddhist Centre, London.
In religion and spirituality, a pilgrimage is a long journey or search of great moral significance. Sometimes, it is a journey to a sacred place or to a shrine of importance to a person's beliefs and faith. Members of every major religion participate in pilgrimages. A person who makes such a journey is called a pilgrim.
The Namdroling Nyingmapa Monastery or Thegchog Namdrol Shedrub Dargye Ling(བོད་ཡིག ཐེག་མཆོག་རྣམ་གྲོལ་བཤད་སྒྲུབ་དར་རྒྱས་གླིང་།), or ನಮ್ಡ್ರೋಲಿಂಗ್ ವಿಹಾರ is the largest teaching center of the Nyingma lineage of Tibetan Buddhism in the world. Located in Bylakuppe, part of the Mysuru district of the state of Karnataka, the monastery is home to a sangha community of over five thousand lamas, a junior high school named Yeshe Wodsal Sherab Raldri Ling, a religious college and hospital.
The Jamyang Zhepas are a lineage of tulkus of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. They have traditionally been the most prestigious teachers at Labrang Monastery in Amdo, Tibet.
The Tibetan diaspora are the diaspora of Tibetan people living outside Tibet.
Rato Dratsang, also known as Rato Monastery, Rato Dratsang is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" order. For many centuries, Rato Dratsang was an important monastic center of Buddhist studies in Central Tibet.
There is a small Mongolian community in India, comprising mostly Buddhist monks and scholars as well as international students from Mongolia.
Kyabje Yongzin Ling Rinpoche is a Tibetan tulku. The best-known incarnation is the sixth incarnation, Thupten Lungtok Namgyal Thinley, a Tibetan buddhist scholar and teacher.
The Third Trijang Rinpoche, Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso (1901–1981) was a Gelugpa Lama and a direct disciple of Pabongkhapa Déchen Nyingpo. He succeeded Ling Rinpoche as the junior tutor of the 14th Dalai Lama when the Dalai Lama was nineteen years old. He was also a lama of many Gelug lamas who taught in the West including Zong Rinpoche, Geshe Rabten, Lama Yeshe, Kelsang Gyatso, and Lama Zopa Rinpoche. Trijang Rinpoche's oral teachings were recorded by Zimey Rinpoche in a book called the Yellow Book.
Periyapatna is a town located in Mysore district. Periyapatna is also known for being one of the largest producers of high-quality tobacco, so it is called the land of tobacco and there is a popular temples in Periyapatna, the Kannambadi Amma and Masanikamma temples which are frequented by the villagers.
Domo Geshe Rinpoche is said to have been Shariputra, the Mahadsiddha Gayadhara, Dharmashri, Munijnana, Tönmi Sambhota, King Trisong Detsen, Dromtönpa, Milarepa, Khedrup Rinpoche, and Dragpa Gyaltsen in previous lives.
Kyabje Khensur Kangurwa Lobsang Thubten Rinpoche, was a Buddhist monk, Abbot of Sera Jey Monastery, and the founder of Tibetan Buddhist Institute (Adelaide). Khensur means "former abbot" and Rinpoche means "precious teacher."
Media related to Bylakuppe at Wikimedia Commons