A collaborative project centers more-than-human worlds in Bhutan’s protected and conserved areas.
WORDS David Hecht with Gyempo Wangchuk | ART Gyempo Wangchuk
Traditional-contemporary artist Gyempo Wangchuk adds final touches to a biocultural landscape painting of his native place in Eastern Bhutan and the preeminent yul lha (deities of the territory or place) that reside there. Art: Gyempo Wangchuk. Photo: David Hecht
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It’s the middle of the dry season, the mountains hold fresh snow, and the sun shines brightly in the cloudless blue sky as we drive through Trashi Yangtse in Eastern Bhutan. “I grew up just over there,” remarks Gyempo, a renowned traditional-contemporary painter and my impromptu translator, pointing ahead toward the towering mountainside, “on the other side of the valley from Rangjon Chorten in Ngalemang, just above Dechen Choling Lhakang, where we were yesterday.” I smile, pretending to know where we are on the map.
We cross a wooden bridge and take another turn toward the northern part of the valley. I hold in my mind’s eye the tall stone chorten (domed relic monument) on the forested hillside of Ngalemang, described to me as having been miraculously built many centuries ago by a hundred thousand dakini (a type of female spirit or goddess), an event that imprinted itself within the name of this region: Bomdeling (bom: one hundred thousand, de: group, ling: plains area). Looking out at a swiftly passing landscape, vast as it is vibrantly colored, we continue along the edge of the valley where black-necked cranes gather. We are on our way to attend a ritual offering (puja) to propitiate the settlement’s local deities and more-than-human spirits, many of them indigenous actors of Bön, a traditional religious practice that predates Buddhism.
Rice paddy fields and plains area in Eastern Bhutan. Photo: David Hecht
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Stepping out of the small car onto a dusty stone road, we walk up along a narrow path toward a collection of homes. As we enter one building through a low door leading into a smoke-filled room, the trilling sounds of rgya gling (ritual trumpet) and heart-beating nga (ritual drum) resound in front of a richly adorned altar. The monks have constructed eight gtor ma, ritual cake offerings for deities and their retinue, whose territories reside within the surrounding landscape. Offerings of fruit, milk, and alcohol welcome powerful yet intangible beings to this place. We sit together on mats among other propitiates until the ritual concludes, sounds of nga and rgya gling echoing outward across the valley. Lay monks, respected Elders, and residents from the community join us in the courtyard with tea, having been invited once again to participate in our long-term collaborative research.
Local deities of Yangtse and Chorten Kora alongside ritual offerings. Art: Gyempo Wangchuk
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As always, I have a hundred thousand questions, but to start I ask, “What is the name of this place where we are now? How did it come to be?” Looking out across the valley, the resident lama (teacher) begins:
“Long ago, Bomdeling was not a plain nor a paddy field. Today, next to the main river, you see one plain area from where the main river flows. Every year, the people performed a ritual invoking Shawang Labsten [a Bön deity] at the cypress tree near the edge of the village. This gnas po [host, landlord, deity of the locality] sent his children — manifest as two snakes, one black and another white — to witness it. Unknowingly, those snakes were killed, enraging the gnas po. He went back to the top of the hill and diverted the river, flooding the area from Dungzam to Tabli, forming a lake. After the people prayed and made offerings to Guru Rinpoche, a garuda [celestial bird-like being] came and burst the lake with its beak, diverting the river back toward Dunglaptsa. Wherever there was water when the river diverted, that area became the wet plain you see now.”
This landscape is intimately known by its inhabitants, beyond what is strictly visible or tangible.
To me, the lama’s story is another reminder that this landscape is intimately known by its inhabitants, beyond what is strictly visible or tangible. It holds a story embedded even in its name — a territorial web of environmental relations made up of many sentient beings. The lama talks about beings that I know well as a researcher and conservation practitioner, protected wildlife such as black-necked cranes who migrate from the Tibetan plateau to Bomdeling every winter. But he also speaks of beings I know little about, guardian deities who are the original occupants and owners of the land we sit upon now. Though invisible, local deities and spirits such as klu (subterranean spirit), yul lha (deity of the territory/place) or gzhi bdag (master of the ground/settlement), and btsen (cliff-dwelling deity) share the same biophysical landscape as humans and animals and wield agency within it, from beneath the earth to the highest mountain peaks. “All deserve our respect,” he muses, “because we must live with them.” Living with an awareness of this unseen world suggests a depth of place-based knowing that is, understandably, unknown to many outsiders.
As our conversation continues, I ask if there are stories that describe different local deities’ places of residence in the region and their relationships to other deities, as well as to humans, animals, and the biophysical environment. The resident lama describes how they perform rituals every year aligned with the lunar calendar, inviting deities to come and feast as a means of propitiating them, which in turn ensures good relations, familial prosperity, and community well-being. I ask him if the places where these deities reside are protected.
Living with an awareness of this unseen world suggests a depth of place-based knowing that is unknown to many outsiders.
He replies, “In addition to this gser skyems (ritual libation offering) . . . road construction toward the gnas (place, abode, sacred site) is not allowed. If the way goes from the pho brang (citadel, palace, territory of local deity), then it is not allowed. They will reach the road in front of the lhakhang (temple), and no one will be able to touch the gnas.” Gyempo nods in affirmation: “Construction is not allowed out here where there are local deities. That is good and is one form of preservation.”
Local deities of Bomdeling and Rigsom Goenpa alongside migrating black-necked cranes. Art: Gyempo Wangchuk
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I ask, “Is it possible then for local deities to lose their places of residence (pho brang), due to development or road construction?” Another participant responds,
“Yes, it is possible to lose these places if you don’t take care of them. We have been saying this all along. . . . Like that, we are not able to see the spirits around, but they are there. We don’t see, but there is an owner, a caretaker, for each stone, for each tree, and for the water around us. When we perform the ritual ceremony, they come and have their feast from us. For example, when we perform the puja, we offer food. . . . There is always someone who comes to have this food. Sometimes it is dakini, khandro [sky-goers], and other spirits. . . . All the lha, klu, and btsen will be there in the stone, tree, or lake. When we sit on top of those trees or stones, we unknowingly break their legs, hands, or other body parts. That is why they may harm us back.”
I nod with understanding and roll out the large satellite map of the area used during previous meetings, a geospatial frame of reference that participants can write on while sharing relational stories of local deities and knowledge of their pho brang. Using these participatory maps in our research, we discuss where local deities reside, their range and influence within and beyond their pho brang, their territory’s relative size, jurisdictional boundaries, and the biophysical nature of the environment within them. While productive, this rarely is an easy process and often leads to deliberations and negotiations that span multiple participatory mapping sessions.
Suddenly, the seated lama stands up and gestures to the land around us with a laugh, turning away from the map that lay before us and pointing to a densely forested mountainside across the valley. “Just look, we are able to see the monastery from here where we are seated. Nangpho Achey is just up there, where Yampay Ling [meadow or plain] and Phudung [old settlement or village] converge. . . . If you follow the river way up and reach Zhapang, you have to go up along the side, up above Rigsum Goenpa [monastery].” I turn away from the map as well and look up into the mountains at the vastness of the forests, exposed cliff faces, traditional residences, and temples perched along the hillside. Though I do not yet know the names of these places, the stories they hold, or the beings that reside there, I am beginning to see with different eyes.
Participatory mapping with community members following ritual propitiations for local deities. Photo: David Hecht
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As the sun descends below the ridgeline above Yangteng, we extend our thanks to the community for hosting us and discuss when we will return. Gyempo and I walk down the trail to his car on the roadside. I scribble a few more reflections in my field notes and climb into Gyempo’s car, looking back out at Bomdeling’s paddy fields, mountain peaks, and verdant valley. Though the enspirited nature of this landscape is often intangible and immaterial, that does not make it any less real, felt, or experienced. This, among many other community ways of knowing and being in the world, is what prompted us to consider alternative ways of visualizing and safeguarding more-than-human worlds in Bhutan’s community-protected and conserved areas.
Though the enspirited nature of this landscape is often intangible and immaterial, that does not make it any less real, felt, or experienced.
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The first time I had a conversation with Gyempo many years ago, he was surrounded by his paintings, intricate layers of natural color made from crushed stones, plants, and minerals — the earth itself. I asked him what he thought about an idea that had been forming in my mind, like a slowly unfurling blossom. Could he, would he, consider painting protected and conserved areas not the way I see them, but through the perceptive prisms of those who know them as living, relational more-than-human worlds? What might a landscape depiction look like, beyond “watersheds” and “ecosystems,” that drew upon regional visual traditions and centered local worlds of knowing as a means of preserving knowledge of local deities and their ubiquitous presence in Bhutan? “This is a good idea,” Gyempo said, smiling.
From that day on, we met almost daily, building relationships and working with community partners and long-term colleagues at Bhutan’s Royal Society for the Protection of Nature. We continued documenting community knowledge of local deities and more-than-human spirits in a spatial and relational way, embedded as they are in the environments where they wield power and influence. Me, in words on the page. Gyempo, with paint on the canvas. Through a series of five paintings featuring the Kingdom’s protected high-altitude valleys and conservation areas for black-necked cranes, we created first-person story maps that depict the animacy and biocultural richness of these more-than-human landscapes. In as much as what is rendered visible in these paintings, there are worlds of knowing that remain invisible and intentionally not depicted.
How we map our landscapes influences how we see them, how we protect them, and whose worlds are or are not included.
One of the goals of this project is to remind conservation decision-makers that our surrounding environment is much more than its biophysical geography. In fact, there is nothing absolute in the way we perceive our world. It is our social and cultural predecessors that define the lenses through which we see. How we map our landscapes influences how we see them, how we protect them, and whose worlds are or are not included. Our collaborative research supports Bhutanese worldviews that landscapes are more-than-human, hosts to a diversity of local deities and spirits that enrich them with animacy and meaning. Elements that are not so easily captured on a satellite base map or rendered in a Geographic Information System (GIS), introducing a view-from-above and removing the embedded viewer from the landscape in question.
Each directional mandala compass has a rainbow border, inviting viewers into deeper levels of understanding and appreciation for Bhutan’s biocultural diversity and territories of life. Art: Gyempo Wangchuk
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The interpretive science of art and the tactile medium of painting offer a better mechanism for understanding such unseen realities. Traditional artforms are often deeply integrated into social and cultural life. In Bhutan, these forms are safeguarded in murals depicting deities and divinities on temple walls (ldeb bris), on religious scrolls (thang kha) in monasteries, and above the altars of every household.
The interpretive science of art and the tactile medium of painting offer a better mechanism for understanding such unseen realities.
If our intention was to document and preserve knowledge of local deities and spirits in protected and conserved areas, why would we attempt to convert (or indeed, assimilate) inter-personal and relational knowledge of these places into points, pixels, and polygons in a GIS, distancing it from those whose knowledge it is? Instead, we could work together with our research partners to ensure that the knowledge inscribed upon each participatory data map was transliterated via paint rather than pixels. In this way, it would be aligned with the visionary worlds, cosmologies, and cultural traditions represented in Himalayan Buddhist artforms. In collaboratively creating these storied visualizations, we focused on the following:
Perspective
Paintings privilege a first-person, landscape-oriented view plane, as the region would be seen from the mountain abode or citadel of yul lha gzhi bdag, accommodating a vertical cosmology (gnam: upper; bar: middle; sa: lower).
Orientation
To situate the viewer within a culturally contextual geospatial orientation, each painting contains a mandala alluding to customary principles of the four directions and their elemental associations in Himalayan Buddhist art, namely, north (བྱང): green, air; east (ཤར): white, water; south (ལྷོ): yellow, earth; west (ནུབ): red, fire. The artist, Gyempo, painted a rainbow border to invite viewers to deeper levels of understanding.
Scale
While the topography is relatively and geographically true to form, the scale of features and attributes is partly determined by the degree of cultural, historical, and religious significance rather than the relative size in the biophysical world.
Agency
To partly counter forces of geospatial anchoring, we depict local deities on traditional cloud motifs to point to the capacity of the size and extent of their territorial citadel (pho brang) to shift and the agency of local deities to migrate.
Offerings
Ritual offerings for local deities are painted into the foreground, aligned with tantric rituals of tshog, which are feast offerings of cakes, fruits, and rice, as well as libations of butter and alcohol (mar chang), incense offerings, and other relics and texts. This is done in accordance with supplication and propitiation rituals to maintain harmonious relationships between communities and worldly deities. Furthermore, enlightened Buddhist masters who historically subdued the depicted local deities are included in the paintings, whereas dangerous and wrathful spirits such as bdud are intentionally not depicted, although they are relationally known.
Attributes
Instead of bounded polygons as territorial attributes in the series, we inscribed community-determined toponyms within the landscape in a way that diffusely and relationally delineates known areas of local deity territories, as it is in the phenomenological world.
We live in a more-than-human world worthy of our attention and protection.
The final brushstrokes on the first painting in this series were placed by Gyempo Wangchuk and his apprentice Pema Gyeltsen in 2019. I recall sitting in the studio together, after many months and frequent community check-ins, looking at the brilliance of those strokes on the canvas. This was a different cultural lens through which to see than is typically encountered in the conservation and development sector. We found that deity territoriality may be incommensurate with Western cartographic technologies, abiding by different cultural and social rules and geographic assumptions. Tibetan-Bhutanese visual traditions and the sacred geographies assumed within thang kha and ldeb bris paintings, alongside the knowledge of local community partners, are far better means of documenting these spatial complexities and depicting local deities’ existence and relationships with other sentient beings.
Gyempo and Pema working on the first painting in the series. Photo: David Hecht
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Truthfully, no map in a conventional sense will be able to fully depict the unseen, intangible worlds that weave through our environment. Such complexities can only be understood by relating with and being in the world. We mindfully weave together multiple knowledge systems and worldviews, with threads from traditional art forms, emerging geospatial tools, and integrative participatory methods from the social-ecological sciences and humanities into a collaborative project to recenter local knowledge holders who safeguard these realms and remind us all that we live in a more-than-human world deserving of our attention and protection.
Note: Terms are written using Wylie transliteration, a method for transcribing Tibetan and Dzongkha script with letters used in English.
Support the Cause: Learn more about how you can support this continuing project, or Gyempo’s work more broadly, by contacting the authors directly. Gyempo: gyempooo@gmail.com and David: hechda02@gmail.com
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Acknowledgments: A never-ending thank you to my research partners at the Royal Society for the Protection of Nature in Bhutan, particularly Jigme Tshering, without whom this project would not have happened. My endless admiration to many eminent scholars of Bhutan whose related work predates and fortifies our own, to the Ministry of Home and Cultural Affairs, Department of Culture for their support, and to our research funding partners.
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David M. Hecht received his PhD in Integrative Conservation (ICON) and Cultural Anthropology from the University of Georgia. He endeavors to integrate different ways of thinking from diverse arts, sciences, and knowledge traditions to inform conservation decision making in ways that are more participatory, inclusive, equitable, and impactful.
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Gyempo Wangchuk studied Buddhism at Rigsum Goenpa at a young age. There he found his destiny to become a painter. After six years at the National Institute for Zorig Chusum in Bhutan, he collaborated with local institutions to create art that is based on an amalgamation of both contemporary and traditional influences. Gyempo feels strongly about using natural colors extracted from stones, sands, branches, and roots of trees, and aims to bring happiness and peace through his paintings and artistic endeavors. Follow Gyempo on Facebook @Artdhhiby
