Chhairo Gompa Marpha - Nepal

It is about 30 minutes walk from Marpha to reach the monastery.

Chhairo Village and Gompa lie on the historic salt trade route and the population of both Chhairo Monastery and Chhairo Village declined when China closed its border with Nepal in the 1960s to restrict the movement of pro-Tibetan activists.

There is a Tibetan refugee camp where more than 200 Tibetans live.

This monastery is considered to be the most important holy monastery of Buddhists . Chhairo Gompa is said to have been founded by the Tibetan Lama Kusyo Chhiwang Thilen in the early 19th century. The monastery features statues of Shakyamuni flanked on either side by two of his disciples, Ananda and Sariputra, and a statue of the founder, Kusyo Chhiwang Thilen. A huge image (3 m) of Guru Rimpoche (Padmasambhava) is in the adjoining room.

The frescoes of Chhairo Gompa are the oldest surviving works from the Thak Khola region.
Chhairo Monastery (Wylie: tshe rogs dgon pa, THL Tsérok Monastery) was the first monastery of the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism to be established in Upper Mustang. It was founded in the 16th century and is part of what is now Mustang District in Nepal.

The last monks left the monastery in the 1970s and by 1981 only four nuns were serving the monastery.

In 2012 the gompa became the home of six boys aged between 7 and 11 from Jumla and Dolpa districts who are being trained to become monks . From summer 2012 to autumn 2013 they attended the elementary school in the neighboring Tibetan camp.

Efforts have been made to rebuild the main complex of the gompa since the mid-2000s. This work is limited to the monastery, the shrine of Padmasambhava and the main halls that form a quadrangle around it. The larger monastic complex , with rooms for monks, visitors, pilgrims and their horses , remains in ruins on the east side.

Willem Vandenameele