Location of Ser Valley

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madhusudan
Posts: 238
Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:54 pm

Location of Ser Valley

Post by madhusudan »

I'd be grateful to anyone who can point me to the location of Dudjom Lingpa's birthplace. According to this link:

"The Great Terton Dudjom Lingpa, also known as Garwang Dudjom Pawo, was thus born in 1835 at the Lower Ser Valley of Eastern Tibet, in the midst of rays of rainbows."

and

"Except for two brief visits to the Dza-chukha Valley, Dudjom Lingpa spent his life wholly in three main places, namely, the Ser Valley, the Do Valley and the Mar Valley in Eastern Tibet."

https://www.tersar.org/teachers-2/dudjom-lingpa/

I assume Eastern Tibet is Amdo/Qinghai, but I am unable to locate Ser Valley.

If there is a nearby landmark or modern city that I could locate using Google maps, I'd appreciate the information.
madhusudan
Posts: 238
Joined: Thu Sep 19, 2013 5:54 pm

Re: Location of Ser Valley

Post by madhusudan »

I did a bit more digging into this and discovered most of what I had hoped to find. There's not a whole lot of information available, and what exists is complicated by different names in English for local places. In case anyone else is interested:

I found out that Dudjom Lingpa's monastery, Dartsang Kalzang Gompa, "...is located in the Li Gorge, in the Upper Do Valley of Golok, Eastern Tibet (now Serta County, Golok, Sichuan PRC), forty-two miles north of Serta county seat and less than six miles away from the Sichuan-Qinghai border,.."

http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?titl ... f_Activity

http://www.rigpawiki.org/index.php?titl ... zang_Gompa

A bit more biographical information:

"Dudjom Lingpa (bdud 'joms gling pa) was born in 1835 in the Serta Valley (gser thal) of Golok (mgo log). He belonged to the Achak Dru (a lcags 'gru, or just lcags 'gru) lineage of the Nub clan (gnubs) of the Chakong (lcags khung) tribe..."

https://treasuryoflives.org/biographies ... ingpa/9688

It appears that "Serta" is now commonly known as "Sertar" in Sichuan. This was somewhat confusing to me, because it is not Golok Prefecture, Qinghai. I suppose lines were drawn counter to the tradition of the people living there. Go figure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%AArtar_County

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golog_Tib ... Prefecture

At the bottom of the page this travel website lists the three valleys of Ser-chu, Do-chu and Mar-chu.

http://www.travelwestchina.com/city-guides/tibet.htm

I looked closely at Google maps of Sertar County, Sichuan, and found Se'er Qu river. I was excited to find that.

After a little more research, I found this website: http://wikimapia.org/27187737/Dartsang-Gompa

The coordinates entered into Google maps is here: https://tinyurl.com/ybzprg42

Dazhangxiang must be Dartsang Kalzang. So, there it is.
tingdzin
Posts: 1933
Joined: Fri Feb 15, 2013 7:19 am

Re: Location of Ser Valley

Post by tingdzin »

Thanks. It's all quite interesting.
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