![]() It might be easy to consider the idea of a hidden land as something out of a fairy tale, but ancient scrolls giving the details of beyul have indeed been found. It's said that a person could even be stood in a beyul but not be inside it. This is because a beyul can be both a physical place and a spiritual place. Then there are those where the location is known but is inaccessible to most. Some of these beyuls – such as in Sikkim in north-east India and the Helambu, Rolwaling and Tsum valleys in Nepal – have been known about by Buddhist practitioners for centuries and are now dotted with villages and towns. Most of the areas that have been located are on the south side of the Himalaya, which is greener, wetter and more fertile – more "paradisical" – than the often sterile and harsh Tibetan plateau. Nobody knows exactly how many beyuls there are, but 108 is the most widely accepted figure – though most are yet to be revealed. These texts were hidden in caves, inside monasteries and behind waterfalls throughout the Himalaya and could only be discovered by lamas at times that were predetermined by Padmasambhava. "During his travels in the Himalaya, Padmasambhava realised that times of strife would come, so he used his spiritual powers to purify and 'hide' certain valleys and wrote texts describing their locations and the conditions for entering them," she said. She explained that the beyuls were created by Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche, or The Lotus Born One), a tantric Buddhist Vajra master who was thought to be instrumental in spreading Buddhism throughout Tibet and the Himalaya around the 8th or 9th Centuries. Before heading up into the mountains to find out more, however, I asked Klatzel for some background on how the beyuls came to be. For Nyingma Buddhists, trying to enter a beyul when all the above conditions are not met is likely to lead to death.Īs the author of a number of guidebooks to the region and a regular visitor to the Himalaya and Tibetan regions, I found it fascinating that somewhere among the folds of the Himalaya might be hidden lands revealed to a worthy few in times of calamity. Only a true Buddhist with a pure heart who has overcome enormous trial and hardship can enter a beyul. ![]() "A beyul is a sacred place and sanctuary to which lamas (teachers of Tibetan Buddhism) could lead people in times of strife and trouble," explained Frances Klatzel, author of several books on Himalayan and Buddhist culture, including Gaiety of Spirit – the Sherpas of Everest.īut a beyul cannot be entered by just anyone, she added. At such times, it's believed, a beyul becomes a refuge in an unstable world where everything lives in harmony. Specifically, they are hidden paradise valleys whose location will only be revealed at very specific moments in time when the world is under enormous stress and in danger of destruction through war, famine or plague. An integral belief in the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism, established in the 8th Century and the oldest of the four different schools, a beyul is a place where the physical and spiritual worlds overlap.
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