同一星球上 – On The Same Planet

Punakha Dzong, which means the palace of great happiness, was also called the Phunhthang Dewa chhenbi Phodrang. It was built in 1637, as ordered by Ngawang Namgyal, the founder of Bhutan Kingdom. An old man recommended an inexperienced young man, Zown Palep, to Ngawang Namgyal as the architect. Everyone doubted if Zown Palep was eligible to design the entire palace without any prior experience. He dreamed about visiting the palace of Padmasambhava (Guru Rinpoche) at the night he received the appointment. He recorded all the details of the palace from the dream and turned them to become the design of the Punakha Dzong.

The magnificent palace was built within one year with the assistance from various “Gods". Ngawang Namgyal unitied Bhutan as a nation-state at the same year.

“Punakha Dzong was built at the intersection of pho chhu and Mo chhu" Caiwang said. There was a war between Tibetans and Bhutanese. Building dzong next to the river was a good strategy to resist attacks from Tibetans, since they were not good at swimming.

Caiwang toke us to visit the dzong, where the architecture was amazing. However, the design of the building was not the most eye-catching things in the Dzong –

Cats.

不丹國父夏遵．阿旺．朗傑 (Ngawang Namgyal) 在統一不丹之時來到普納卡，四處考察過後希望在這個地方建「宗」，可是苦無建築人材。當時附近村落一位老伯推薦了一位年輕人Zown Palep。

眾人卻好奇這個青年毫無建築經驗，怎能能建造一座宮殿呢？

當晚，Zown Palep 卻發了一個異夢，夢見自己去到蓮花生大士的天宮遊覽，他一覺醒來，憑記憶將夢中那座宮殿的每個細節記了下來，成為普納卡宗的設計圖，正式建築之時，又得菩薩幫忙(利用河流運輸建築材料)，工程在1637年動工，在短短一年之間，就將這座宏偉的宮殿建成。而在這一年間，國父亦成功統一整個不丹。

普納卡宗建在父親河與母親河的交匯之處。 Caiwang 說:將宗建在這裡充分顯示了國父的智慧。當時不丹立國之初，西藏和不丹時有戰事，由於西藏人不熟水性，父親河和母親河正為普納卡宗提供了一個很好的天然屏障，阻止西藏人來犯。

將宗建於兩河之間當然是個聰明的做法，但兩河上游的冰川時有洪水暴發，比較大型的分別在1957、1960和1994年，特別是1994年的一次，就造成二十多人死亡。

我們穿過木橋，正式踏進普納卡宗，Caiwang 披上白巾，帶我們四處遊覽，普納卡宗裝潢和札西秋宗頗為相似，但這裡似乎更具規模。這裡的建築特別固然令人驚歎，但最引人目光的，似乎要數庭園內的幾隻貓了。貓貓懶理遊人鏡頭，在庭園中嬉戲玩耍，自得其樂。我看著他們，又想想普納卡宗的名字，正是代表快樂。似乎快樂並沒有想像中那樣複雜、難以追求，只不過在於我們有沒有珍惜當下。