Place · Tibetan refugee settlement · India
Happy Valley, Mussoorie
Also known as Shedup Choepelling
Happy Valley on the western shoulder of the Mussoorie ridge was the first Indian residence of the 14th Dalai Lama after his escape from Tibet. He arrived at Birla House, Happy Valley, on 20 April 1959 (two days after reaching Mussoorie by road from Pathankot) and lived here with his family and cabinet-in-exile until the Central Tibetan Administration moved to Dharamshala on 29 April 1960. Birla House carries a commemorative plaque; the adjoining Shedup Choepelling Buddhist Temple (consecrated 1960) is the first Tibetan monastery built in India after the exodus, and the Tibetan Homes Foundation (1962) that cares for the orphans of the escape still has its headquarters here. Mussoorie's Tibetan community of about 5,000, the second-largest in India after Dharamshala, is anchored on Happy Valley.
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 30.459, 78.044
Connections (3)
- Site withinMussoorie
Happy Valley is a Mussoorie suburb on the western shoulder of the Mussoorie ridge, named for the Birla family's summer house that became the Dalai Lama's first Indian residence in 1959. The Shedup Choepelling monastery and the Tibetan Homes Foundation sit here; the valley has been Mussoorie's Tibetan quarter for sixty-five years.
- Life routeTenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
The 14th Dalai Lama’s first Indian residence after his flight from Lhasa — Birla House at Happy Valley, Mussoorie — where he arrived on 20 April 1959 (two days after reaching Mussoorie by road from Pathankot) and lived with his family and cabinet-in-exile until the Central Tibetan Administration moved to Dharamshala on 29 April 1960. The adjoining Shedup Choepelling Buddhist Temple is the first Tibetan monastery built in India after the exodus.
- Companion in the same setMainpat
Two of the earliest Tibetan settlements in India, one on a Himalayan ridge and one on a Chhattisgarh plateau. The scheme deliberately placed communities at altitude where it could, which is how a Tibetan weaving economy came to sit in Surguja.
Sources
Standard reference.
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