Tang and Khegaratoe

S. Phuntsho: Tang geog is located in the eastern part of Bumthang Dzongkhag. Like in any other places, the folks in Tang too have lots of folk legends about their village to be shared. Most of the legends are widespread by now, for Ashi Kuenzang Choden (Author) has revealed in most of her books. The name of the geog (Tang) itself has significance.

A long time ago, there lived a king and a queen somewhere in central part of Tibet. The date and time are not recorded. The queen was a woman of lust and most of the time she was left displeased with sex. So, to quench her stern thrust the queen often uses her darling animals like goat and dogs to have sexual intercourse.

One day, the long wish dream of the royal couple was rewarded – the queen got pregnant. The king was very much pleased to know that his queen was pregnant. 

But, like the bolt from blue, she gave birth to one amorphous child – a body of half goat and half dog. The astrologer named him as Khegaratoe, and warned it as an inauspicious sign to the kingdom. The king was astonished and left with no words to say. Undeniably, the queen knew the causes of the hard luck but left soundless. Yet, the couple nourished their amorphous child without any favoritism.  

Poor king, in his mind always thought of a plan to exile Khegaratoe to faraway places for he don’t wanted to disgrace himself before his people. Most importantly, he doesn’t want to bring ill luck in his kingdom. But his plans went unsuccessful constantly.

Fortuitously, the king heard about Guru Rinpoche, the “Second Buddha”, who brought Tantric Buddhism to Tibet. He has heard that Guru Rinpoche has supremacy to subdue any kind of demons and demoness. So, without much delay the king made an appointment with Guru Rinpoche, and there the king explained his problem. Guru, in his forecast found that the kingdom is really in distress. So he agreed the king to help him exile Khegaratoe. 

Guru Rinpoche built an attractive bird out of timber and invited Khegaratoe for a fly. Juvenile Khegaratoe out of excitement at once accepted the invitation. Guru, with his supernatural power made the wooden bird fly like any other birds. Khega flew for a long time when he finally reached to the eastern part of Bumthang. Meanwhile, Guru chanted his mantra to let the wooden bird explode. In a little while, the wooden bird exploded making a thunderous sound ‘Tang’.

The place where the wooden bird exploited was then named as Tang. It is also said that the idea of creation of an airplane is got from that wooden bird.

Khega felt down on the open field but unhurt owing to the control of Guru Rinpoche. He was left with nowhere to set off. So he built a tiny shed and inhabited there.

The linage and the residence of Khegaratoe are still seen in Kidzom village of Tang Geog.

 Acknowledgements: Tashi Chophel for narrating the Story