Paro Tshechu
Festival

Six Centuries of Devotion

The History of Paro Tshechu

Founded Alongside the Dzong Itself (1646)

Paro Tshechu traces its origins to 1646, the same year Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal consecrated Rinpung Dzong. Together with Ponlop Rigzin Nyingpo, he marked the occasion with a week-long drubchen ceremony and a handful of dances — a modest gathering compared to today's festival, and one that didn't yet carry the name "Tshechu." It functioned much as the modern festival does, but on a far smaller scale, and centuries would pass before any foreign visitor ever laid eyes on it.

The Desi Who Built the Tradition (1686–87)

Credit for shaping Tshechu into a proper annual institution belongs largely to the Fourth Desi, Gyalse Tenzin Rabgye. During 1686 and 1687, he set out to establish and elaborate Tshechu celebrations across the country — in Paro, Thimphu, and beyond — introducing new dances and refining ones that already existed. Several dances still performed at Paro today, including the Guru Tshengye Cham, can be traced back to this period of his patronage.

An Eyewitness Account from 1717

One of the earliest firsthand records of the festival comes from an unexpected source: the autobiography of the artist Ponlop Drakpa Gyamtsho, who personally witnessed the Guru Tshengye and Raksha Mangcham dances performed at Paro during the Fire Bird year — corresponding to 1717–1718. His account confirms something still true today: that the festival is held during the second month of the Bhutanese lunar calendar, timed deliberately to a natural lull in the farming season, when villagers had the time to gather, celebrate, and receive blessings before the next planting cycle began.

Rebuilding After the Fire of 1906

The festival's setting changed dramatically at the turn of the twentieth century. In 1906, a devastating fire tore through Rinpung Dzong, just before the coronation of Bhutan's first king, Gongsa Ugyen Wangchuck. Rather than let the tradition lapse while the dzong was rebuilt, an official named Kusho Dawa Penjor moved the celebrations to the open ground at Deyangkha and built a dedicated ceremonial mask-dance hall so the festivities could continue uninterrupted. His successor, Kusho Tshering Penjore, later introduced two further dances borrowed from Gangteng Monastery — the Drametse Ngacham and Peling Gingsum — both of which found their way into Paro's program before they were later adopted into Thimphu's own festivals. In the generations since, successive Paro Ponlops have continued to shape the program, weaving in the folk songs and dances that now open and close each day of Tshechu.

The Sacred Performances

The Cham Dances of Paro Tshechu — What You Will See

Over five days, more than a dozen individual Cham dances are performed across the courtyards of Rinpung Dzong, each one a distinct religious teaching told through mask, movement, and costume. We've covered the full story and symbolism of each dance in our Mask Dances of Bhutan guide — here's a quick introduction to the ones you're most likely to see at Paro.

Liberation at Dawn

The Guru Thongdrol Unveiling

On the final morning of Tshechu, long before sunrise, thousands of people are already gathered outside Rinpung Dzong. What draws them there in the dark and the cold is the unveiling of the Thongdrol — an enormous appliqué thangka whose name translates roughly as "liberation through sight." Bhutanese Buddhism recognises five paths to spiritual liberation — through sight, sound, touch, taste, and memory — and the Thongdrol is considered one of the most complete expressions of the first. Simply seeing it, Bhutanese believe, is enough to plant the seed of liberation in the viewer's mind, with the depth of that blessing shaped by the sincerity of their own faith.

The Paro Thongdrol depicts Guru Rinpoche in his central form as Guru Padma Jungney, flanked by his two spiritual consorts, and surrounded by sixteen figures in total — the eight manifestations Guru Rinpoche is said to have taken to spread Buddhism across the Himalayas, several deities of longevity and compassion, and two historical figures honoured for their role in Bhutan's history and in creating the appliqué itself.

A Legend With More Than One Ending

Exactly how the material for the Thongdrol reached Paro is a matter of local legend rather than settled record, and Bhutanese oral history offers more than one version. In one telling, a Paro official sent a messenger to Lhasa with instructions to buy brocade from the very first trader he met — who happened to be a Chinese merchant. In another version, that same messenger returned empty-handed except for a box of Chinese brick tea bearing an image of Guru Rinpoche. A third, more elaborate account has the official travelling to Lhasa himself, winning a wager over a mysteriously gifted piece of gold, and receiving the brocade from the loser of that bet — with two dakinis said to have supplied the final scraps of material needed to complete the Guru's face. Whichever version is closer to the truth, all agree the piece was stitched largely by Lama Ngawang Rabgye, one of the most accomplished appliqué and embroidery artists of his era, and that it remains the oldest thongdrol in the country — having survived the 1906 fire that destroyed much of Rinpung Dzong, and carefully restored ever since a government conservation initiative began in the late 1980s.

The Size and the Procession

At roughly eighty-five feet wide and fifty-five feet tall, and weighing over a thousand pounds, the Thongdrol is far too large to be handled casually. The process now typically begins around 3 a.m. on the final day, when monks and officials — who have had only a few hours' sleep — carry it out of the dzong and up to the display wall at Deyangkha, a careful procession accompanied by ritual music that can take the better part of an hour. Crowds often begin arriving as early as 2 a.m. to secure a good spot, regardless of the weather; snow has fallen on Paro Tshechu before, in 1962, though conditions today tend to swing between a chilly pre-dawn and surprisingly warm midday sun. Monks chant purification prayers throughout the display, believed to protect the Thongdrol from the karmic residue of the crowd's touch, before it is lowered and re-rolled well before direct sunlight reaches the fabric, then carried back into the dzong to be safely stored for another year.

Plan Your Days

The Full Five-Day Festival Program

Paro Tshechu traditionally runs for five days, from the 11th to the 15th day of the second lunar month, though since 2008 a Cabinet ruling has limited official public holidays to three of those five days. The program below has stayed largely consistent since the 1960s, when folk songs were added to the schedule by the Third King, Jigme Dorje Wangchuck. Every dance name links through to its full story in our Mask Dances of Bhutan guide.