Once listed by National Geographic as one of the "Top 10 Most Fascinating Travel Destinations in the World", it is also the only country in the world founded on Tibetan Buddhism.
Traditional Buddhism and modern civilization are intertwined and collided here, people and nature live in harmony, people are devout but not closed, perhaps standing on this land can you find your deepest self.
The Kingdom of Bhutan, referred to as "Bhutan", covers an area of more than 38,000 square kilometers and has a population of about 800,000. It is located on the southern slope of the eastern Himalayas between China and India.
On its flag there is a white thunder dragon, so it is also known as the "Land of Thunder Dragons".
Bhutan has been a dependency of the Tubo dynasty since the 7th century AD and became an independent tribe in the 9th century. After the 12th century, the Zhupa Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism gradually became a sect wielding secular power. It was not until 1907 that the Kingdom of Bhutan was established.
Bhutan has many cultural monuments and natural beauty, such as Menbatso Burning Lake and Tiger Cave Temple.
Menbatso Burning Lake is a sacred site that Bhutanese must visit in their lifetime. As early as 1475, King Pema Limba discovered the 8th-century Rinpoche icon hidden by Padmasambhava in the burning lake of Menbatso in the Bumtang region of southern Bhutan, and was thus given the sacred mission of Padmasambhava to spread the religion.
Menbatso Burning Lake
Padmasambhava
Bhutan's most sacred Buddhist temple, Tiger Cave Temple, is known as one of the top ten super temples in the world.
It sits on a cliff face more than 900 meters high in the Paro Valley. Legend has it that Padmasambhava, an important figure in the establishment of Tibetan Buddhism, flew over the site on a tiger and meditated in a cave in the Tiger's Cave Monastery, which has since become a place of Buddhist teaching.
Tiger's Den Temple
Bhutan used the Indian rupee as its national currency until 1974. Until 1974, when the Bhutanese government began to issue its own currency, "Nurtrum", the economic department stipulated that the currency of Bhutan and India was equal in value, and the exchange rate remained at 1:1.
The first banknote "1Nurtrum" issued by the Bhutanese government in 1974
The Nultrum banknote now in circulation includes eight denominations: 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 500, and 1000.
According to the latest exchange rate, 1000 nurtrum is exchanged for about 85 yuan.
Among them, the 50 and 1000 nur trum face values are printed with the head of the current King of Bhutan, Wangchuk.
The current king is also the fifth king of the Wangchuk family, Wangchuk is the king's surname, whose full name is "Jigme Kesar Namgyel Wangchuk".
The current King Wangchuk family
On December 17, 1907, Uyan Wangchuk, then head of the family, used force and British help to unify Bhutan, freeing Bhutan from the Qing government as an independent kingdom, and he became the first king of Bhutan.
Bhutan's first king, Uyan Wangchuk, and his two wives
In the middle of 50 Nurtrum is a Falun motif. The Falun is one of the most common instruments in Tibetan Buddhism, which refers to the Dharma as turning the Dharma like a "wheel treasure" that turns the wheel of the wheel to win the king.
On the reverse of the 50 Nurtrum note is the Tunsa Dzong, a holy site of Tibetan Buddhism in the Bumtang region. This Tibetan Buddhist building has an influence in the Buddhist world comparable to the Potala Palace in Tibet on the mainland.
Almost every important valley in Bhutan has established "dzongs" as fortresses against foreign invasions. Thungsa Dzongbao is the largest complex in Bhutan and the ancestral home of the Bhutanese royal family.
Tunsa, the location of the ancestral home of the Muro nobility, has an area of 2,181 square kilometers and a population of only 20,000, and as one of the twenty sects of Bhutan, the Tonsa Dzong, stands on a mountain 2,200 meters above sea level.
In 1648 AD, Thong Ngsa Dzongyal, built by Xia Zhong Nangjie, the 18th leader of the Zhupa Kagyu sect of Tibet in the Ming Dynasty and the founder of the Bhutanese state, is a monastic monastery and castle building integrating politics, religion and law.
The founder of the nation of Bhutan, Chardzhong Ngawang Namgyal
Because Bhutanese are isolated in their environment, they have very little desire for material things, coupled with the influence of Buddhist culture on the people, Bhutanese feel that spiritual prosperity can make their souls peaceful and satisfied. From a certain point of view, perhaps the happiness of Bhutanese people is much higher than that of our people.