Chikchar

Chikchar stands at the northern gateway to Tsari, the sacred mountain country around Dakpa Shelri. Pilgrims set out from the Tsari valley to circle its peaks, crossing passes and ravines regarded as parts of a great tantric mandala. Above Chikchar lay hermitages of the Drukpa Kagyu tradition. The scholar and hierarch Pema Karpo built a temple here in 1570 dedicated to Dorje Phagmo, the foremost of the female deities associated with the sacred mountain.