Rangjung Woesel Choling Monastery
Rangjung Woesel Choling is a Nyingma monastery at Rangjung, east of Trashigang on the road towards Radhi, founded in 1989 by His Eminence Dungsey Garab Dorje Rinpoche. Forty-five minutes to an hour; entry is included in your tour.
Why stop here rather than at another monastery
Because it is new, and almost nothing else on an eastern itinerary is.
You will have stood in Trashigang Dzong, built in 1659, and at Gom Kora, built around a rock in the seventeenth century. Rangjung was founded in 1989 — and it is not a finished monument being kept up, it is an institution still filling.
The dzongkhag’s own description of it is worth quoting for what it says about purpose rather than architecture: a haven for the study of the dharma as expounded in the Dudjom New Treasure lineage, and for dharma activity for the Buddhist community. That lineage — Dudjom Tersar — is the specific thing here, and it is the reason people come from outside Bhutan to study at a monastery in an eastern valley.
How it grew
The founding is the dull half. The growth is the story, and it comes from accounts around the monastery rather than from the dzongkhag, so take it as reported:
- It started with a few monks and nuns living in bamboo huts.
- Rinpoche was studying in India at the time, and built the place during winter breaks.
- By 1993 there were too many nuns for the site, and a separate nunnery was established at Radhi.
- Today the community is put at over 300 monks and nuns, with admissions capped for want of space and resources.
Thirty-odd years from bamboo to turning people away.
Visiting
Road access to a level compound, which after a week in eastern Bhutan is itself worth noting.
Shoulders and knees covered, long sleeves, shoes off inside. Photograph the outside, not the interior — and not the monks and nuns without asking, which matters more here than at a monument because there are several hundred of them and they live there.
Nobody publishes hours. The thing worth timing is prayers, and whether you can be there for them is exactly the sort of question to put to us before the day rather than at the gate. Ask us.
What we removed
This page used to open by telling you the monastery “spans an area of about an acre (4046.86 sq ft)”. An acre is 43,560 square feet; 4,046.86 is the number of square metres in one. The figure was wrong, unsourced, and — even had it been right — not a reason anybody has ever chosen to stop somewhere. It has gone rather than been corrected.
See things to do in Trashigang for the rest of the district.
Tours that visit Trashigang
Frequently asked questions
When was Rangjung Woesel Choling founded?
1989, by His Eminence Dungsey Garab Dorje Rinpoche — which makes it one of the few places on an eastern itinerary that is younger than most of the people visiting it.
What lineage is Rangjung Woesel Choling?
Nyingma, and specifically the Dudjom New Treasure lineage — Dudjom Tersar. The dzongkhag describes the monastery's purpose as providing a haven for the study of the dharma as expounded in that lineage.
How big is the community at Rangjung?
Reported at over 300 monks and nuns, with admissions capped for lack of space. It began with a handful of each living in bamboo huts; a separate nunnery was established at Radhi in 1993 when there were more nuns than the site could hold. Those figures come from secondary accounts rather than from the monastery itself.
Is Rangjung worth a stop?
If you have already seen dzongs, yes — because this is the opposite kind of place. A teaching institution founded inside living memory and still filling up, rather than a fortress being maintained. Forty-five minutes to an hour, and it sits naturally on the way east towards Radhi and the highlands.
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