Tabo Village

Tabo the village with a magical touch and a true gem in this beautiful “Spiti Valley”. The history of tabo village goes back to 996 AD. The prime attraction of tabo village is the Gompa, which goes back to 10th century. The monastery also known as “Chos-Khor Gompa the Oldest Living Monastery” is almost 1024 years old.

Founded in 996 CE by Rinchen Zangpo, this Buddhist temple complex is the oldest continuously functioning Gompa in India. The Tabo monastery as of now has nine temples, four stupas. This monastery is also known as “Ajanta of Himalayas”. The walls of the monastery are covered with priceless paintings, statues, frescos and murals which do total justice to the alias name “Ajanta of Himalayas”. Some of the paintings are of prehistoric times.
In 1975 this monastery was heavily damaged by an earthquake, then it was fully restored and Kalachakra festival (a process of commencement and rejuvenation) was initiated by the 14th Dalai Lama in 1983 and 13 years since then the monastery celebrated the millennium of its existence.

**Not allowed to take pictures inside the monastery complex.

Prehistoric Caves

“Tabo Caves” in case if you’ve visited this place a millennium ago, you would have probably lived in these excavated caves that you can now see scattered on the hill adjoining the tabo village. These caves are closed to the shrine of the Tabo monastery, which gives the clearest view of these caves. There were some sign of smokes and of certain other things which clearly indicate that these caves were inhabited. There is no information about their dates. It is believed they were made during the 10th century around 996 CE and used by Buddhist monks for meditation.

During my stay at Tabo I opted for a room in the monastery guest house which was equally good as the view from that room.

Morning Prayers

The best part was, when at night while having a talk with a monk, he invited me for morning prayers at the new monastery. So I wake up At night while having a talk with a monk, he invited me for morning prayers at the new monastery. So I wake up early as I’ve to be at the prayer hall by 06:00 am. The prayer started on time and went on till 07:30 am. It was such a peaceful and mind boggling experience. The sounds of instruments along with the prayers was reaching directly to mind. The atmosphere was as if the god was there by himself.

During prayers everyone was offered a hot cup of tea, it was much needed in that chilling temperature. After the prayers I again had a small talk with another monk, asking few personal questions about life. The answers I got were pretty simple as we human has made our life pretty complicated, so getting those answers while talking to a monk was really a good experience. We ended our talk with a pic.

The new monastery complex was just on the adjacent side of the old monastery.

Tabo as a place will always going to be in my heart and I ended my journey by offering a prayer and with a promise of coming back here.