Shongpa Lhachu
“Arriving at the Tolung Valley, you conjure the spring at Shongpé Lhachu.
And on the river bank at Surkar you first meet the Dharma King.
His retinue is with him and, when he fails to bow,
You sing vajra verses and display wondrous miracles,
Inspiring great faith in his mind: homage to you ”
at a glance
At Tolung Valley, just outside Lhasa, the Mahaguru was finally greeted by King Trisong Detsen’s envoy in Central Tibet. In an effort to provide water for tea, the great master brought forth a spring through plunging his staff into the ground, thus establishing Shongpa Lhachu (Divine Spring).
the story
Guru Padmasambhava continued over hill and dale, from the borderlands of Mangyul toward the heartland of Tibet, taming all manner of haughty spirits along the way. Finally, the Mahaguru reached the Tolung Valley, just outside the city of Lhasa, in Central Tibet. Getting wind that his new guest had arrived, King Trisong Detsen sent a welcoming party to greet the Mahaguru and guide him back to the palace in Drakmar. Thus, it was here in Tolung that the king’s envoys met the Mahaguru—and found they were without water to serve their guest tea. Guru Rinpoche thereupon plunged his staff into the earth and water came shooting forth, giving the place its name, Shongpa Lhachu (Divine Spring). This was yet another sign that the Tibetans had welcomed no ordinary visitor into their kingdom; it was a harbinger of the many miracles to come.
Words from the Masters
Jamyang Khyentse Wangpo’s A Beautiful and Wondrous Udumbara Garland
While at the main site
The Divine Spring of Shongpa is today a clear pool of water set in a sanctuary of willows in the Tolung Valley of Central Tibet. When Kathok Situ Chökyi Gyatso visited in the early 20th century, he noted that many fish fill this sacred pool—as they do today––and seem to survive through the cold winters without even needing to hibernate. These divine waters, the result of Guru Rinpoché’s miracle for the king’s welcome party, still serve the nearby villages and are hailed as purifying of illness and sin.
The nearby monastery of Kyomolung was founded in recognition of the site’s amazing qualities and, at the time of Katok Situ Chökyi Gyatso’s visit, there was a four-pillar temple of Guru Padmamsambhava’s eight manifestations, immediately north of the spring. Statues of these eight unique forms were housed in this temple, along with Guru Padma’s staff, the most revered treasure object of all. Although this temple was destroyed in the mid-20th century, it was rebuilt and the spring restored in the 1980s, so that its waters again flow unhindered.
Today there are a number of caves in the Tolung valley that are associated with Guru Padmasambhava, including the Nechen Drubpuk (Sacred Site Practice Cave), which is located above Zangmo village in Yabda, and the Shelkar Drupuk (White Crystal Practice Cave) on Shunkyi Drak Mountain. According to one scholar, these may have been sites where the Mahaguru practiced and tamed local spirits, as he did in Yari Gong and Kaladrak, as mentioned in the stories of the Tolung that we will learn of below.