Nabji Lhakhang Drup

When it happens

The community observance runs from the 15th to the 21st day of the eleventh Bhutanese lunar month. The public part of the festival is usually shorter.

It usually falls in late December or January. Because the eleventh lunar month drifts across the New Year, a single Gregorian year can have no occurrence at all.

Where it happens

Nabji Lhakhang stands in Nabji village, in Korphu Gewog, Trongsa. It is a village temple owned by the community.

All of Korphu Gewog lies inside Jigme Singye Wangchuck National Park, at roughly 1,070–1,300 m, low and warm by Bhutanese standards. Golden langur and hornbill are among the wildlife recorded there.

A tapering rock at the temple is among its sacred monuments, believed to mark a place where Guru Rinpoche visited and meditated. Visitors report two carved megaliths outside the village, the Yab Yum stones, bearing an archaic inscription that locals call dakini script.

History

According to tradition, evil forces obstructed the building of Nabji Lhakhang until Tashi Kheoden, the daughter of Sindhu Raja, invited Guru Rinpoche. The same story says he performed the naked dance there, the spirits were drawn to it, and the temple was completed.

Local lore also holds that Guru Rinpoche settled a land dispute at Nabji by having two warring kings swear an oath on a stone pillar inside the temple.

The temple is reported to hold relics brought through the custodian lineage of Dorje Lingpa, among them a large ritual wooden phallus and a stone slab venerated as a dakini’s footprint.

The festival is reported to have lapsed for two years during the Covid pandemic. The temple’s abbot is reported to have revived it and commissioned new masks and costumes.

Rituals

The tercham (naked dance) is described as the festival’s signature. According to tradition, Guru Rinpoche first performed it at Nabji Lhakhang, and the tercham at Jambay Lhakhang in Bumthang is traced back to it.

The festival is reported to have about 28 distinct dances across its days, seven of them of the Dorje Lingpa lineage. The repertoire is described as layered: pre-Buddhist material, dances attributed to Guru Rinpoche, and treasure dances attributed to Dorje Lingpa and Pema Lingpa (14th–15th century).

Being there

Korphu Gewog is 110.5 km from the Trongsa district headquarters.

Road access to the sacred sites here is often described as inadequate, so plan for a long, rough approach and check the final stretch locally.