Paro Taktsang, the Taktsang Palphug Monastery, is better known as the Tiger's Nest, and it hangs on a cliff at 3,120 metres, about 900 metres above the floor of the upper Paro valley in Bhutan, roughly 10 km north of Paro on the right bank of the Paro Chu. The rock runs nearly vertical and the buildings are set into the face of it.
The cave came first. Custom holds that the Indian Guru Padmasambhava meditated here in the 8th century in the Taktsang Senge Samdup cave, and that he arrived by air. In one telling he flew from Singye Dzong on the back of a tigress; in another he flew from Tibet on Yeshe Tsogyal, his student, whom he transformed into a flying tigress for the journey. On arrival he took the wrathful form of Dorje Drolo and subdued the malicious spirits of the place, then anointed the cliff as the site for a monastery. Padmasambhava is credited with bringing Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhutan, and this is one of thirteen Tiger's Nest caves across historical Tibet where he practised and taught.
The monastery around the cave came much later, built in 1692 by the 4th Druk Desi Tenzin Rabgey. Its buildings are linked by stone steps and stairways, with a few rickety wooden bridges along the way.
The monks who live here practise Vajrayana Buddhism, the state religion of Bhutan, and they stay for three years, seldom going down to the valley at all.
On 19 April 1998 a fire broke out in the main building, which held valuable paintings, artefacts and statues. It is thought to have started from an electrical short circuit or flickering butter lamps.
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