The Strategy That Worked the First Time
Nine months before this story begins, Drukpa Kunley was on the road from Tsang to Ralung when he crossed paths with Ani Tshewang Palzom — a young nun on her alms round, maroon-robed, radiant in the morning light.
He stopped in front of her without preamble. “Ani,” he said, “you are far too beautiful to be a nun. Let’s do it.”
She looked away. Said she was a nun, unacquainted with such things.
“You don’t need to know anything,” he said, smiling. “I’ll take care of the rhythm.”
She stepped back. His hands found her before she had finished the movement. He pulled her off the path and took her three times, right there in the dirt beside the road. She became pregnant.
The child she bore was unlike ordinary children. She named Drukpa Kunley as the father.
This landed the matter in the lap of Lama Ngawang Chogyal — Drukpa Kunley’s cousin, abbot of Ralung, a man not known for leniency. He studied the situation and delivered a verdict that surprised everyone: Drukpa Kunley was a madman. A nyönpa. A nun who encountered a madman and was overtaken by the encounter could not, in good conscience, be held to ordinary standards of moral conduct. Ani Tshewang Palzom was cleared.
The news moved through the nunnery the way news does in small institutions: immediately and completely.
The Nunnery Hostel Discussion
That evening in the hostel, the young nuns sat together with the particular energy of people who have just heard very interesting news. They slapped each other on their shaved heads and laughed.
“Your turn. Go find your Drukpa Kunley.”
One of them hesitated. “We’re nuns. We’re supposed to stay chaste. The lama won’t be as forgiving with us.”
“The lama,” someone pointed out, “just forgave Tshewang. The rule is simple: if Drukpa Kunley is the father, you walk free. And besides —” she paused, looking around the room — “they say there is nothing more pleasurable in the world. Here is our chance to find out, at no cost.”
The room considered this. The logic was difficult to argue with. “Let’s go find our Drukpa Kunley,” they said, more or less in unison.
Eight Nuns, Nine Months, One Nunnery
Nine months later, a baby arrived. Then another. Then six more.
Eight nuns at Ralung had given birth. Each one named Drukpa Kunley as the father.
All of Tibet had opinions about this. The story spreading across the plateau was that the Divine Madman had worked his way through the entire Ralung nunnery, and that the institution had converted from a place of meditation into a maternity ward. People who had never heard of Ralung now knew it by name, and not for its scholarship.
Ngawang Chogyal — who had spent decades building the nunnery’s reputation for rigour and discipline — sat with his head in his hands.
“This is intolerable,” he said. “Kunley has destroyed everything. I gave him one concession, and he used it as a template.”
But Drukpa Kunley was not at Ralung to be confronted. He was never at Ralung when you wanted him to be. He moved constantly, following no schedule anyone could predict, and there was nothing Ngawang Chogyal could do but wait.
He Had No Reputation to Protect
Word reached Drukpa Kunley eventually. It always did.
He had no reputation to protect — that had never been a concern of his. But something about the situation called for a response. He turned back toward Ralung and sent word ahead: every nun who had named him as the father of her child should come to him, baby in arms. Nine of them came. Ani Tshewang Palzom among them, standing a little apart from the others, her child held against her chest.
The Paternity Hearing
The seven filed forward one by one and made their arguments.
“Look at his face — it’s exactly yours.” Drukpa Kunley looked at the child and smiled pleasantly.
“Her hands — the shape of your hands.” He said nothing, but the smile remained.
“His legs. His eyes. His nose. Anyone can see it.”
He listened to all of it with the patient, faintly amused expression of someone watching a performance he has already understood. Ani Tshewang Palzom said nothing. She stood slightly apart, her child resting against her shoulder. She had not come to argue.
When the seven had finished, Drukpa Kunley set the butt of his bow into the ground.
“Any of these could be mine,” he said. “I need to find out which ones actually are.”
He walked to Ani Tshewang Palzom and took her child by the legs. He held the baby aloft and spoke to the sky:
Hearken, Palden Lhamo, the bearer of Wisdom Eyes.
I, Druk Nyon Kunley, who roam the vast land
May have slept with a string of young girls,
But I am being tricked by these lying nuns.
If he is my son, catch him with your hands,
If he is not, dispatch him with your mouth.
He swung the baby in a wide arc over his head and threw it into the open field.
The baby landed. There was a thunderclap — sharp and source less, the kind that comes from no cloud. The child lay unharmed in the grass. Palden Lhamo had answered.
The seven nuns did not wait to see what happened next. They gathered their babies and ran — not quickly enough to look dignified, not slowly enough to pretend they had planned to leave. They simply fled.
Ani Tshewang Palzom walked into the field and picked up her son.
Ani Tshewang Palzom had not once compared her child’s face or hands or legs to anyone’s. She stood quietly with her son and waited. In the tradition these stories come from, this kind of silence is not passivity — it is the stillness of someone who already knows the answer and has no need to argue it. She walked into the field and picked up her child.
Zhingchong Drukdra — Drukpa Kunley's Son
The child Ani Tshewang Palzom carried that day — the one thrown into a field and retrieved unharmed — was Zhingchong Drukdra, one of Drukpa Kunley’s documented sons. He went on to establish a lineage within the Drukpa Kagyu tradition in Tibet. Seven nuns argued loudly about resemblances. One stood quietly and said nothing. The child of the quiet one landed safely in the grass, and his name was recorded.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Drukpa Kunley actually father eight children at Ralung's nunnery?
He fathered one child at Ralung — Zhingchong Drukdra, born of Ani Tshewang Palzom. The other seven nuns had sought out other men entirely. They had heard that Tshewang Palzom was cleared of misconduct when she named Drukpa Kunley as the father, and they replicated the strategy with a different man and the same name. When Drukpa Kunley returned and held the hearing, the invocation of Palden Lhamo settled it. The seven who ran had already, at that moment, confirmed the answer.
Why did Lama Ngawang Chogyal clear the first nun of misconduct?
Because Drukpa Kunley was a nyönpa — a madman, in the specific Vajrayana sense of someone whose conduct operates outside ordinary moral categories. A nun who was overcome in an encounter with a madman was not, in the abbot’s view, in the same position as a nun who had simply broken her vows with a man she knew. The verdict was theologically defensible. It was also, as events proved, the opening move in a much longer sequence of consequences that Ngawang Chogyal had not anticipated.
Who was Zhingchong Drukdra?
One of Drukpa Kunley’s documented sons, born of Ani Tshewang Palzom at Ralung. He established a lineage within the Drukpa Kagyu tradition in Tibet. He is named alongside Drukpa Kunley’s other sons — including Ngawang Tendzin, born in Bhutan, whose lineage became part of the story of how the Bhutanese state was founded.
Why did Drukpa Kunley throw the baby?
To put the question to Palden Lhamo — the wrathful protector of the Drukpa Kagyu lineage, the deity who had originally sent him to Bhutan. The invocation was direct: if the child is mine, catch him; if not, dispatch him. Throwing the baby was the act of submission to that test. The child landed safely. The thunderclap sounded. The seven nuns, who had been watching, ran.
Why did Ani Tshewang Palzom stay quiet throughout the hearing?
The story doesn’t explain it — but her silence is the thing worth paying attention to. While seven nuns built their cases around physical resemblances, Tshewang Palzom held her child and said nothing at all. No comparisons. No claims. No performance. The child was Drukpa Kunley’s son, and she appears to have known that this would settle without her help. It did. Her child is the one who was thrown away. Her child is the one who landed safely. Her child is the one whose name was recorded.
More Stories from the Life of Drukpa Kunley
This is one story from a larger collection. Drukpa Kunley wandered Bhutan for decades — performing miracles, confounding lamas, and leaving behind teachings disguised as chaos. The stories are still told.
For the complete guide to Drukpa Kunley — biography, Chimi Lhakhang, the phallus symbols, and his legacy in Bhutan today — read our hub post: Drukpa Kunley — The Divine Madman.
