Buddhist temple · Jakar

Jambay Lhakhang

AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Jambay Lhakhang is a small, whitewashed, walled temple on the road north of Jakar in the Choekhor Valley of Bumthang, and one of the two oldest temples in Bhutan. Tradition dates its founding to 659 CE, when the Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo supposedly raised 108 temples in a single day to pin down a giant demoness sprawled across the Himalaya; Jambay holds her left knee in place. Like Kyichu Lhakhang in Paro, it shares that founding day, which is why neither can honestly claim to be Bhutan's oldest.↗↗↗↗

What makes a visit feel special is not a date on a placard but the sense of thirteen continuous centuries of use. The temple is named for Jampa, the Maitreya Buddha of the future, whose statue stands in the oldest inner sanctum, and it has been consecrated, repaired and enlarged by every generation that followed. Guru Rinpoche meditated here in the 8th century, and the Indian-born king Sindhu Raja, healed nearby at Kurjey, is credited with restoring this temple in turn. Most days you will share the courtyard with local pilgrims walking the prayer wheels, lighting butter lamps and prostrating in the wooden grooves worn smooth by their predecessors.

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Buddhist temple · Jakar

Jambay Lhakhang

Jakar, BT 4.7 (118 Google reviews)

Photo: Google Maps

AT A GLANCE

Why go?

Jambay Lhakhang is a small, whitewashed, walled temple on the road north of Jakar in the Choekhor Valley of Bumthang, and one of the two oldest temples in Bhutan. Tradition dates its founding to 659 CE, when the Tibetan emperor Songtsen Gampo supposedly raised 108 temples in a single day to pin down a giant demoness sprawled across the Himalaya; Jambay holds her left knee in place. Like Kyichu Lhakhang in Paro, it shares that founding day, which is why neither can honestly claim to be Bhutan's oldest.↗↗↗↗

What makes a visit feel special is not a date on a placard but the sense of thirteen continuous centuries of use. The temple is named for Jampa, the Maitreya Buddha of the future, whose statue stands in the oldest inner sanctum, and it has been consecrated, repaired and enlarged by every generation that followed. Guru Rinpoche meditated here in the 8th century, and the Indian-born king Sindhu Raja, healed nearby at Kurjey, is credited with restoring this temple in turn. Most days you will share the courtyard with local pilgrims walking the prayer wheels, lighting butter lamps and prostrating in the wooden grooves worn smooth by their predecessors.

↗↗

The temple and its founding legend

The story of Jambay's founding belongs to the geomantic project of Songtsen Gampo and his Chinese queen Wencheng, who divined that a supine demoness (Srinmo) lay across the Himalayan region, blocking the spread of Buddhism. To immobilise her, the emperor raised 108 temples on her body's key joints. The Jokhang in Lhasa pinned her heart; Kyichu Lhakhang in Paro pinned her left shoulder; Jambay Lhakhang, on the left knee, was one of the outermost "border-taming" temples of that vast map. The image is of a Buddhist world laid gently over an older one, the older thing still underneath and still needing to be held down.↗↗

Bhutanese tradition also counts Kongchogsum in Bumthang, Khaine in Lhuntse and the white and black temples in Haa among Songtsen Gampo's 108. The temple later acquired a second founding layer when Guru Rinpoche arrived in the 8th century, healed King Sindhu Raja at what is now Kurjey Lhakhang, and consecrated Jambay himself. The king, his life force restored, is credited with the temple's rebuilding. The two ends of Bumthang's origin story meet on this courtyard.↗↗↗

Inside the lhakhang

The complex you see today has been repeatedly rebuilt around its seventh-century core, and the rooms read as a timeline of those interventions. The main chapel holds the figure of Jampa, the Buddha of the future, depicted with his feet resting on an elephant — the oldest sanctuary in the oldest part of the temple. Three stone steps in front of it symbolise past, present and future Buddhist ages, and legend has it that when the present step sinks into the floor, this world's cycle will end.↗↗

A worn chain of iron mail guards the chapel doorway, said to have been forged by the terton Pema Lingpa. Look into the alcove above the entry for a statue of Guru Rinpoche marking the spot where he is said to have sat and meditated. The inner circumambulation path is lined with old murals depicting a thousand Buddhas, and the courtyard is ringed by chortens — two large stone stupas behind the temple honouring members of Bhutan's early royal court, with four more at the corners in yellow, red, white and blue. The Kalachakra temple on the north side, added by Ugyen Wangchuck when he was penlop of Jakar, is decorated with animal-headed guardians of the bardo.↗↗

Jambay Lhakhang Drup: the autumn festival

For a few days each autumn, the small courtyard hosts the Jambay Lhakhang Drup, one of the most distinctive festivals in Bhutan. It runs from the 15th to the 19th of the ninth Bhutanese month and commemorates the temple's founding and Guru Rinpoche's consecration of the site. The mask dances, the prostrations, the crows of horns at dusk — all of it is a working religious occasion, not a performance laid on for visitors.↗↗

Two rituals make the Drup famous. After dark, the mewang is performed: a gate of burning grass is built and pilgrims run through the flames in a fire blessing associated with purification and fertility. At midnight, the tercham — the so-called "naked dance" — is performed by masked dancers wearing little else. The dance is attributed to the terton Dorje Lingpa, who is said to have introduced it to distract demons undoing a monastery's construction each night. There are no lights and no photographs: it is a serious rite, and it is worth knowing what you are standing in the dark watching.↗↗↗

The dates follow the lunar calendar and shift by weeks between years — for example 26–29 October in 2026 and 14–17 November in 2027 — so it is worth checking the Bhutanese festival calendar before building a trip around them. Jakar Tshechu usually falls within a week or two of the Drup, which makes late October and early November the busiest fortnight of the Bumthang year.↗

Visiting Jambay Lhakhang

The temple sits a few minutes' drive north of Jakar on the Choekhor valley road, below Kurjey, and is the natural first stop in the valley circuit: Jambay, then Kurjey Lhakhang two or three kilometres further up, then Tamshing across the river. That makes an easy half-day and is most of what visitors come to Bumthang for.↗↗

Thirty to forty-five minutes is enough for the courtyard, the main chapel and the kora walk. There is no entry fee — Jambay is one of the sites the Department of Tourism names explicitly as free. Shoulders and knees should be covered, shoes come off inside the chapels, and photography is not permitted within the temple. The courtyard is largely level, with a few steps up into the main sanctuary.↗↗↗

What makes it special

01

One of the two oldest temples in Bhutan, traditionally founded in 659 CE by Songtsen Gampo as one of 108 temples pinning down a giant demoness.↗↗↗

02

Home of the Jambay Lhakhang Drup, with its after-dark mewang fire blessing and midnight tercham "naked dance" — among the most distinctive rituals in Bhutan.↗↗

03

Free entry, thirty to forty-five minutes to see, and a natural first stop on a Bumthang pilgrimage circuit with Kurjey Lhakhang and Tamshing.↗

A little planning goes a long way

Visit as part of a half-day Bumthang valley circuit: Jambay first, then Kurjey Lhakhang a couple of kilometres up the road, then Tamshing across the river.↗↗
No monument entry fee is charged, but cover shoulders and knees, remove shoes inside the chapels, and do not photograph within the temple.↗↗
If you are coming for the Jambay Lhakhang Drup, check the Bhutanese festival calendar — the lunar dates move between years and can fall in late October or mid-November.↗
Reaching Bumthang from Thimphu by road takes around ten hours; the quicker option is a domestic flight from Paro to Bathpalathang Airport near Jakar.↗

About this guide

Compiled with AI assistance from the sources below; this is not a first-hand visit. Place details collected October 5, 2026. Hours, access and ratings can change; confirm with the venue before visiting.