{"id":4857,"date":"2022-12-01T11:06:21","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T06:36:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/?p=4857"},"modified":"2026-04-21T14:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T10:07:11","slug":"the-tibetan-pavilion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventure.auroville.com\/index.php\/2022\/12\/01\/the-tibetan-pavilion\/","title":{"rendered":"The Essence of Tibetan Culture: The Tibetan Pavilion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
Auroville\u2019s Tibetan Pavilion is a beloved gathering place near the township\u2019s centre. We look at the history Tibetan people share with Auroville from its inauguration to the present day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first group of Tibetans attending Aspiration School, 1971<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Auroville and the Tibetans<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
1959 was a fateful year for Tibet, when His Holiness The Dalai Lama and his entourage took refuge in India after being driven out of their homeland. 12,000 refugees streamed out of Tibet over the next few months, and two years later, the first Tibetan children arrived in Pondicherry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These were admitted by The Mother, Mirra Alfassa, to the Sri Aurobindo Ashram school, and many others joined in small groups throughout the 60s. By the time of Auroville\u2019s 1968 inauguration, Tibetan representatives were numerous enough to stand in for other countries, like Korea and Afghanistan, whose delegates could not attend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Auroville charter in Tibetan<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li>
Tibet delegates at the 1968 Auroville inauguration ceremony<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
During the ceremony, representatives deposited a handful of their country\u2019s soil into a single urn at the amphitheatre; But soil from Tibet could not be found, so the Tibetan delegates instead added a pinch of Tibetan salt into the mix.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1970, the Dalai Lama declared his support for Auroville and for a pavilion to share the essence of Tibetan culture<\/em>. Meanwhile, one of the Tibetan students in Pondicherry, Kathak Tulku, had been recognized as a Rinpoche \u2013 a reincarnated and highly honoured religious teacher. He suggested to the Dalai Lama that orphaned Tibetan children be sent to Auroville to grow up there, and participate in the Tibetan Pavilion\u2019s construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Mother accepted and endorsed this idea, and the children were then selected by Tibet\u2019s own Mother (\u201cAmla<\/em>\u201c), the Dalai Lama\u2019s sister and then-minister-of-education, Jetsun Pema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The first batch of 10 children, accompanied by a Lama (teacher), began taking the bus from Pondicherry to Auroville\u2019s Aspiration school in 1971. When the teaching staff suggested the Tibetan children be adopted by Aurovilian families, The Mother firmly rejected the idea, saying that they must remain together to properly represent their culture. It wasn\u2019t until 1974 that a Tibetan boarding school was set up in the Douceur area, and the children could finally move in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Dalai Lama first visited Pondicherry and Auroville in January 1973. He met with The Mother, and greeted the Tibetan children studying in Auroville. In a private remark, he is reported to have said: \u201cSri Aurobindo and the Mother are the most important personalities in the world today.\u201d (source: The Mother\u2019s Agenda)<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n
Courtyard of the Tibetan Pavilion<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
The Way to a Pavilion<\/h5>\n\n\n\n
Contact with Dharamshala remained sparse during Auroville\u2019s tumultuous early history. 1987 saw a Tibet week event organized at Bharat Nivas, as well as a visit by the Dharamshala-based Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts, where traditional folk-songs and dances from the Tibetan highlands are performed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1989, the first Tibetan medical camp was held in Auroville with a visit from the personal physician of the Dalai Lama, the late Dr. Tenzin Choedrak, and two other Tibetan doctors. The Tibetan medical camp became a tradition, continuing as the Pavilion was taking shape, and as interest in Tibetan Medicine and Astrology kept growing in India.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It wasn\u2019t until 1991 that a grant from the European Union towards the Pavilion\u2019s construction was secured. In 1993, Aurovilian writer Claude Arpi was travelling to Tibet with a group of Americans, when he received a phone call from the Dalai Lama\u2019s office informing him of the intention of His Holiness to come and lay the foundation stone for Auroville\u2019s Tibetan Pavilion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
This gave Claude an idea, and he came back from Tibet with an 8 kg brick, which became the Pavilion\u2019s foundation stone, blessed by the Dalai Lama in December of that same year. After funding arrived, construction could finally begin in 1997. The building design selected was one based on the Tibetan Kalachakra mandala, and inspired by buildings in Himachal Pradesh\u2019s Spiti Valley and Ladakh \u2013 architecture styles close to Tibet\u2019s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Kalsang was born in Tibet, grew up in Dharamshala and came to Auroville at age 15 as an exchange student. In 1994, she met Claude of the emerging Tibetan Pavilion group at a workshop on sustainable living, and the following year had an audience with the Dalai Lama who encouraged her to continue working in Auroville: \u201cI was very touched by Mother\u2019s words that what\u2019s important in Auroville is to serve with sincerity in your heart; not qualifications, but to be a good human being\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
Still, there remained much fundraising work to be done. Grants for the pavilion arrived from His Holiness the Dalai Lama\u2019s office, from the Indian government\u2019s scheme for Buddhist and Tibetan buildings, and from the EU, which set the condition that the building must become self-sufficient. To achieve this aim, a guesthouse was created to generate income. Further support for the library came from the Indian Ministry of Education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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