Incredible India Campaign Goes Wrong with Tawang Monastery
Guwahati: In an embarrassing incident, the Incredible India campaign has goofed up on Tawang Monastery in Arunachal Pradesh, suggesting the ancient structure was built just three decades ago.
A tweet by @incredibleindia tagging Union Tourism Minister K.J. Alphons reads: “Cradled amidst the mist-laden valleys of the Himalayas is Tawang Monastery, India’s largest Buddhist monastery. It was built at the request of the 5th Dalai Lama in 1980-81.”
Tawang Monastery known in Tibetan as Gaden Namgyal Lhatse, which translates to "celestial paradise in a clear night." was founded by Merak Lama Lodre Gyatso in 1680-1681 in accordance with the wishes of the 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso after the 4th Dalai Lama gave him a painting of goddess Palden Lhamo to be kept in the monastery. An eight-metre high gilded statue of Lord Buddha dominates the sanctum of the monastery.
Located in Tawang city of Tawang district in the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, the Tawang Monastery is the largest monastery in India and second largest in the world after the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet. It is situated in the valley of the Tawang River, near the small town of the same name in the northwestern part of Arunachal Pradesh, in close proximity to the Tibetan and Bhutanese border.
Expressing his views on the goof up Kanto Danggen, director of Arunachal Pradesh’s Tourism Department, said, “It must be a case of typographical error. We will take up with the Centre for correcting the date of the 338-year-old monastery.”
According to Local legend China had attacked Tawang in 1962 primarily to extract the secret to eternal youth believed to be buried under the monastery built at about 10,000 ft above sea level.
This is not the first incident when such an error was created. An International tourism campaign by the government since 2002, Incredible India had erred a decade ago by terming off a black African rhino as the great Indian rhinoceros, the bulk of whose population is in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park. The rhinos in Assam are one-horned, unlike their African cousins that sport two horns.