When it happens
Nimalung Tshechu is a summer festival. It is usually described as falling in the fifth month of the Bhutanese lunar calendar, around the observances for Guru Rinpoche’s birth anniversary, and as running about three days.
Where it happens
The festival is held at Nimalung Dratshang, in the Chumey valley of Bumthang, at roughly 2,950 m. Chumey is one of Bumthang’s four valleys, with Choekhor, Tang and Ura.
Nimalung is a Nyingma monastery whose resident monks carry on the Nyingtik and Peling (Pema Lingpa) traditions of practice. The tshechu is the monastery’s own festival, not the tshechu of a state dzong (fortress).
History
Nimalung Dratshang is usually described as founded by the scholar Doring Trulku together with Gonpo Dorji of Chumey, after their discussions in 1933. Some accounts date the founding slightly later, to 1938.
The monastery is headed today by an incarnation of Dudjom Jigdral Yeshe Dorje, which places it in the Nyingma lineage.
Dances and rituals
The high point of the festival is the unfurling of a thongdrel (a giant silk-appliqué scroll) depicting Guru Rinpoche. It is displayed so that the people gathered can receive its blessing.
Being there
Chumey is often described as the first of Bumthang’s valleys you reach coming from the west. Nimalung Dratshang is usually described as about half an hour’s drive from Jakar, the district town.
Jambay Lhakhang Drup, also in Bumthang, falls in autumn. It is an alternative to Nimalung Tshechu, not a festival to pair with it in the same season.