Adventures in India

Ki Monastery is a thousand-year-old Buddhist gompa located in the remote region of Spiti in the Indian Himalayas. The formal introduction line done, Ki looks like a pile of boxes stacked haphazardly, threatening to topple over the picturesque village by the same name at its feet. It is o­ne of the five major monasteries of the Spiti valley along with Thangyud Gompa, Dhankar Gompa, Khungri Gompa and Tabo Gompa. Ki Monastery follows the Gelugpa sect of Tibetan Buddhism.

In case anyone hasn’t figured it out, a gompa is a monastery.

Statistics about Ki abound, so I will not indulge in spending too much time over something we all can read and forget the very next moment, including profuse accounts of the Kalachakra ceremony conducted by the Dalai Lama in the year 2000 to commemorate a thousand years of its existence and its pasada style architecture. Instead, I’ll take this space to share what it is that I find special about Ki.

Ki Gompa is also the largest in the valley and holds sway over some of the most populated region of the valley. Its presence o­n the trade route to the Changthang has over the centuries bestowed great wealth and power. It is probably the most politically, spiritually, and financially significant institution of Spiti.

A particularly charming feature of this monastery is its perpetually busy kitchen for visitors, where o­ne o­nly needs to walk in to automatically be served tea, butter tea and tsampa (baked and ground barley). A hub for visitors and chatter, sitting in this dingy kitchen makes it very easy to imagine times over centuries when travelers did exactly what we do here. Enjoy the hospitality and fall in love with the monastery.

I particularly enjoy looking at the various ancient thangkas (religious paintings o­n cloth flags/scrolls), Kangyur and Thangyur and other ancient manuscript collections, chortens studded with Semi precious stones, ancient weapons, and the incredible view of a large section of the Spiti valley from its roof.

I find myself wondering how the valley looked when the ancient translator Ringchen Zangpo made his way to Spiti from Tibet and what kind of a person he must have been to brave this rugged land, the journey and the arduous life in that day and leave such a great mark o­n this valley to humble mortals for centuries to come.

It really is a feeling of “seeing forever”