Yuksom- Coronation Stone and Norbugang Chorten

Yulsom, a small town in Gezing, West Sikkim was the first capital of Sikkim. Coronation Stone and Norbugang Chorten in Yuksom is the place of coronation of Phuntsog Namgyal, the first Chogyal of Sikkim.

Raching Yuksom

As told in previous post about our visit to Khecheopalri Lake from Pelling, instead of returning back to Pelling, we moved on to Yuksom. we reached Yuksom by evening where we had booked hotel Tashigang for our stay. Hotel looked good at the first look, especially the lobby was spacious and tastefully furnished. We had a booking for super-deluxe room i.e. room with a balcony. Exterior of hotel had Tibetan color and architecture.

Room was good and view from balcony was lovely. Hotel was at the foothills . We just had to stretch our arms to reach out to those lush green mountains.

Heavy rains thinned down to drizzle and those mountains looked fabulous. Gray -black clouds still covered the peaks of the mountains. Thin mist engulfed rest of the mountain body, making all this very sensuous.

Norbugang Park, Yuksom

What now? What else? Manish went down for his ritual of gathering information to spend the beautiful evening.

He came up and announced, “A guide and four foreigners (who were on their Tibetan/Buddhist trail) are going to ‘Norbugang Park’ and they have also invited us.” How come people invite him so soon! I said no, only to be persuaded to say yes and all three of us were out.

What is Norbugang Park

Norbugang Park has a prayer hall, a large prayer wheel, Norbugang Chorten and the Coronation Stone.

History of Norbugang and Coronation Stone

In seventeenth century, there developed a rift between yellow hat and red hat sects in Tibet. To escape that and to establish a Buddhist monarchy in Sikkim, Lama Lutsum Chembo from red hat sect came to Norbugang where he met two other lamas- Sempa Chembo and Ritzing Chembo.

These three lamas consecrated Phuntsok Namgyal as the first religious king of Sikkim at Coronation Stone. Phunsog Namgyal was the great grandson of Guru Tashi.

It is a small and simple stone throne of first Chogyal. It has four seats, three for lamas and one for the king. The pine tree under which coronation took place still stands as a witness.

This place where they met, was later named as Yuksom, meaning the meeting place of three superior ones.

This place is one of the most sacred and important place for people of Sikkim, the political and cultural history of Sikkim began from here.

Norbugang Chorten,-(Chorten’ is the Tibetan word for Sanskrit word ‘Stupa’) was built with stone and earth from different parts of Sikkim. Latsun Chembo also buried offerings, which he received from people, in this Chorten.

There is a rock in front of the throne, which has footprints of Latsun Chembo.

Water driven Prayer wheels in Sikkim

There is a huge prayer wheel in a room near throne. It is built is such a way that streams would continuously rotate it.

While trekking in Sikkim, we came across many such water driven prayer wheels. Some of these were still working and others not, as water changed course over the years.

Kathok Lake, Yuksom

While returning back to hotel we stopped at holy Kathok Lake – I would say a puddlish pond, which provided anointing water for original coronation ceremony.

It started to rain again and we rushed to hotel, ordered for the dinner. Suman brought our dinner and on inquiry suggested two low altitude trekking. He was a nice, polite guy. He agreed to accompany us for our next day’s trek.

Sikkimese Thupka and Momos for Dinner

The day ended with an experimental dinner of Thupka and Momos. Later is a very popular Tibetan delicacy in Sikkim.

Minced meat/vegetables are stuffed in dough and then molded in a shape of “Gujiya”. Then these are steamed for about half an hour in a three-tiered utensil that has tomato soup in lowest compartment. Steam of the boiling soup cooks them. They are taken along with soup and chilly sauce. Manish liked them a lot and I found them so-so. Thupka was great! It is a noodle soup with vegetables.

Off we went to sleep.

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