Milarepa's Cave, Buddhist meditation cave in Nyalam Town, Tibet
Milarepa's Cave, also called Namkading Cave, is a cave on the slope below the China–Nepal Friendship Highway and above the Matsang River, 11 km north of Nyalam at Gangka village. Nyanang Pelgye Ling Monastery, built around the cave, is reached by a path down through the village; its assembly hall holds a 7-foot statue of Shakyamuni Buddha. The cave is entered from the gompa's vestibule.
Milarepa (c. 1052–c. 1135) is said to have spent many years of his life in the cave during the eleventh century. The gompa built around it, Nyanang Pelgye Ling, was originally Kagyupa and was converted to Gelugpa by the 5th Dalai Lama, later becoming affiliated with Sera Monastery in Lhasa. In the 1970s the Chinese government financed restoration of the cave and monastery, carried out by artists and craftsmen from Nepal.
The monastery around the cave was Kagyupa and was later converted to Gelugpa by the 5th Dalai Lama, then affiliated with Sera Monastery in Lhasa. Pilgrims leave decorated stones and herbs along the path to the cave entrance. The cave is kept as a shrine by two monks, with a statue of Milarepa in a glass case.
From the roadside a path leads down through Gangka village and a hillside to the gompa built around the cave; the cave is entered from the monastery's vestibule. The site lies 11 km north of Nyalam, below the China–Nepal Friendship Highway and above the Matsang River. Two monks keep the cave shrine, so dress and behave as in a place of worship.
Inside the cave, besides the rock impression of Milarepa's sitting posture and the handprint linked to propping up the ceiling for Rechungpa, there is a third mark: a footprint in the stone attributed to the protectress Shri Devi's mule, said to have visited Milarepa in a vision.
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