SHINGJE CHOGYE PHUG

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

A cave veiled by a waterfall noted BAILEY (1945: 11, photo opposite frontispiece shows Kintup Singh, the intrepid -Pundit K.T.- from Sikkim) while narrating the story of Kintup, then accompanying a treacherous Mongolian Lama: The travellers reached Gyala, opposite to which a small tributary joining the left bank of the Tsangpo [Zangbo, bZang po] falls down in a series of cascades among dark caves and overhanging rocks. In one of these falls a benevolent demon named Shingje Chögye was supposed to be chained. I once visited the place. A figure of the demon is carved or painted on the rock behind the waterfall and can be seen when the water is low in winter. I was there in the summer when melting sow [sic! for: snow] had increased the fall and I was not able to see anything of the figure. MACGREGOR (1970: 266) reports the same site with remarkably similar words: Kintup and his ostensible Mongolian masters successfully reached Gyala in Tibet across from where a tributary of the Tsang-Po dscends in a series of canyons amidst dark caves and overhanging rock ledges. Lurking beneath one such cave was believed to be a benevolent demon called Shingje Chogye. In fact, this mystical demon's image is painted on a rock behind a small waterfall.