Chapter 9: Culture and Bhutan

The culture of Bhutan is really based on Buddhism, ever since Buddhism was introduced into Bhutan in the 7th century. Before that there was the Bon religion [a form of animism] which consisted of local beliefs and more traditional practices. India was the origin of Buddhism, and there are other Buddhist countries in South East Asia, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka etc. To some extent, the pre-Buddhist practices of a country influence the way Buddhism is taken up in different places. In Bhutan, I think we are still practicing both Buddhism and Bon.

It is difficult to say. In the ’60s people began to say, there are no trees here, so trees were planted. I think that care for the natural environment is quite recent. But if there is a big tree or a huge rock, people believe it has a spirit and want to protect it. This is the pre-Buddhism influence. The Buddhist influence has turned this to other things. For example, when people build a house, they ask permission of the mother land, the spirit of that place for so much space to build their house. The scientific approach to conservation merges with existing pre-Buddhist attitudes. Buddhism doesn’t preach conservation of the environment, but the concept is there. It provides a shell to contain these ideas.