Dagana Tshechu Festival
The Dagana Tshechu is the district’s annual festival at Daga Dzong: five days of masked dances honouring Guru Rinpoche, closing with the unfurling of the Thongdrel Chenmo. It runs the 11th to 15th day of the 11th Bhutanese month — December or January, moving each year.
When is it, exactly?
We can’t give you a date, and we would rather say that than make one up.
The festival runs from the 11th to the 15th day of the 11th month of the Bhutanese calendar. That calendar is lunar, so the Gregorian dates move every year, usually landing in December or January. The official schedule has not published dates we can stand behind, so ask us for the year you are travelling and we will check.
What happens?
Masked dances, for five days, in the dzong courtyard. People come from across Dagana and from neighbouring dzongkhags, in their best kira and gho, and the dances are religious instruction as much as spectacle.
Like every tshechu, it honours Guru Rinpoche — the word tshechu means “tenth day”, for the day of his birth. It closes with the Thongdrel Chenmo, an enormous appliquéd scroll unfurled for a few hours on the final day; seeing it is held to be liberating in itself, and it is the moment most people plan around.
Our page used to say the festival honours “the five protective deities of Dagana”. We can’t find a source for that anywhere, so we have taken it out — if the dzongkhag does honour five named protectors, it is the most interesting thing about this tshechu and we would like to get it right rather than keep repeating it.
Is it the last tshechu of the year?
We used to say so, and the honest answer is that we can’t show it either way.
Our own festival calendar has tshechus running deep into December — Trongsa and Lhuentse in the third week, Samdrup Jongkhar after them. But Dagana’s own Gregorian dates are not published anywhere we can find, and the 11th Bhutanese month can reach into January, so lining them up against each other would be guesswork dressed as a fact. The old claim was unsupported; so would be flatly denying it.
What is fair to say is that this is a late-season festival in a district almost no visitor reaches, which is a better reason to come than a superlative either way.
Where is it held?
At Daga Dzong, built in 1651 on the order of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal to guard the southern approaches, and now the seat of both the district administration and its monastic body.
See things to do in Dagana for the district, and Tseza for the gewog the dzong stands in.
Frequently asked questions
When is the Dagana Tshechu?
It runs from the 11th to the 15th day of the 11th month of the Bhutanese calendar, which lands in December or January and shifts every year because the calendar is lunar. We don't publish Gregorian dates for it, because the official schedule has not given us any we can stand behind — ask us and we'll check the year you are travelling.
What happens at the Dagana Tshechu?
Five days of masked dances at Daga Dzong, drawing people from across the district and from other dzongkhags. Like every tshechu it honours Guru Rinpoche — tshechu means "tenth day", for the day of his birth. It closes with the unfurling of the Thongdrel Chenmo, the great appliquéd scroll, which is the moment most people come for. The hour is not published for Dagana — elsewhere thongdrels go up before dawn and come down early in the morning, so ask us rather than planning a lie-in.
Is this the last tshechu of the Bhutanese year?
We used to say so, and we can't actually show it. Our own festival calendar has tshechus running to the end of December — Trongsa and Lhuentse in the third week, Samdrup Jongkhar after them — but Dagana's own Gregorian dates are not published, and the 11th Bhutanese month can reach into January, so we cannot line them up against each other honestly. What is true is that this is a late-season festival, in the 11th Bhutanese month, when very few visitors are anywhere near Dagana.
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