Drukgyal Dzong was a fortress and

Buddhist monastery Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

, 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 t ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainou ...

. The dzong was probably built by Tenzin Drukdra in 1649 at the behest of Zhabdrung

Ngawang Namgyal 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 Budd ...

, to commemorate victory over an invasion from

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ) is a region in East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are some other ethnic groups such as Monpa, Taman ...

. 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, as well as to commemorate two other significant events, namely, the arrival of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyel 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 Tshering Tobgay ( dz, ཚེ་རིང་སྟོབས་རྒྱས།; born 19 September 1965) is a Bhutanese politician, environmentalist, and cultural advocate who was the Prime Minister of Bhutan from July 2013 to August 2018. Tobgay is ...

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

Glory of Bhutan

Drukgyal DzongAbout Drukgyal Dzong
Dzongs in Bhutan 1649 establishments in Asia Religious buildings and structures completed in 1649 {{Bhutan-struct-stub