Drukgyal Dzong was a fortress and
Buddhist monastery, now in ruins, located in the upper part of the
Paro District
Paro District (Dzongkha: སྤ་རོ་རྫོང་ཁག་; Wylie: ''Spa-ro rdzong-khag'') is a district (''dzongkhag''), valley, river and town (population 20,000) in Bhutan. It is one of the most historic valleys in Bhutan. Both tra ...
,
Bhutan. The
dzong
Dzong architecture is used for dzongs, a distinctive type of fortified monastery ( dz, རྫོང, , ) architecture found mainly in Bhutan and Tibet. The architecture is massive in style with towering exterior walls surrounding a complex of cou ...
was probably built by Tenzin Drukdra in 1649 at the behest of Zhabdrung
Ngawang Namgyal, to commemorate victory over an invasion from
Tibet.
In the early 1950s, Drukgyal Dzong was almost completely destroyed by fire. It is listed as a tentative site on Bhutan's tentative list for UNESCO inclusion.
In 2016, to celebrate the birth of
The Gyalsey
Jigme Namgyel Wangchuck ( dz, འཇིགས་མེད་རྣམ་རྒྱལ་དབང་ཕྱུག་, ; born 5 February 2016) is the first child and heir apparent of King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan and his wife, Quee ...
, as well as to commemorate two other significant events, namely, the arrival of Zhabdrung
Ngawang Namgyel
Ngawang Namgyal (later granted the honorific Zhabdrung Rinpoche, approximately "at whose feet one submits") (; alternate spellings include ''Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel''; 1594–1651) and known colloquially as The Bearded Lama, was a Tibetan Buddh ...
to Bhutan in 1616 AD and the birth year of
Guru Rinpoche
Padmasambhava ("Born from a Lotus"), also known as Guru Rinpoche (Precious Guru) and the Lotus from Oḍḍiyāna, was a tantric Buddhist Vajra master from India who may have taught Vajrayana in Tibet (circa 8th – 9th centuries)... According ...
, the Prime Minister Lyonchen
Tshering Tobgay announced that the Dzong will be rebuilt and reinstated to its former glory. The announcement and ground breaking ceremony took place a day after the Prince was born.
References
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Glory of Bhutan
Drukgyal DzongAbout Drukgyal Dzong
Dzongs in Bhutan
1649 establishments in Asia
Religious buildings and structures completed in 1649
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