On the 9th day of the first month of the Bhutanese year, almost everyone who lives within walking distance of the Punakha dzong arrives in his best gho or her best kira to witness a sleight of hand involving the Rangjung Kharsapani.
Je Khenpo throwing oranges into Mo Chhu
In 1639 Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal tricked a Tibetan army by secreting the relic in his sleeve and throwing a subsitute into the river. With this sleight of hand he saved his throne, allowing the country he had created–Bhutan–a chance to survive.
In 1616 the Zhabdrung fled his hereditary throne in Tibet when the most powerful lord in Tibet decided to recognize someone else as the reincarnation of the Gyalwang Drukchen. The Zhabdrung took the Rangjung Kharsapani with him and established a new power base in the Thimphu valley, from which he managed to repel a Tibetan invasion in 1618. He eventually gained control over most of what is now western Bhutan, even though the Tibetans continued their periodic invasions. Things weren’t going too well for the Bhutanese in 1639 against the Tibetans when the Zhabdrung used his bag of tricks rather than arms to entice his attackers to leave.
First, knowing where the Tibetans had set up their lookouts, he had his smaller army march out of the dzong in a seemingly endless stream, as the men circled the dzong, re-entered through a hidden back door, and emerged again. As a consequence, the Tibetans thought themselves outnumbered instead of vice versa. Thus, when the Zhabdrung emerged one night at the end of a solemn procession that proceeded to the river where he threw the substitute relic into the current, the Tibetans were no longer interested in dying for a lost cause. Instead, they packed up and left.
So what is the Rangjung Kharsapani? Rangjung means ‘self-created.’ This self-created image of Avalokiteshvara, or Chenrezig in Tibetan, is said to have emerged from one of the vertebra in the cremated remains of Tsangpa Gyare, the founder of the Drukpa school of Tibetan Buddhism. Chenresig is an enlightened being who is a manifestation of all Buddhas’ compassion, the Buddha of Compassion. This particular statue has one face and two arms with lotus stalks in the left hand and the right hand in a position of protection.
Bhutanese believe: “Just having a glimpse or seeing the Rangjoen Kharsapani is equivalent of seeing the Avalokiteshwara in personal/real. If one prays with utmost faith and devotion, it is believed to bring forth many merits/good fortune for oneself and other, and purify all the wrong deeds and dispel of all the bad obscuration we have accumulated in the past lives. Moreover it clears away all the malevolent spirits and protects us from outer, inner and the most inner obstacles of this lifetime and brings forth longevity, free of all diseases, good fortune etc. And fulfills our dreams and attains the heavenly paradise and finally nirvana.”