SEPTEMBER 2019 23
The Lhakhang is open to the public the first
Sunday of the month from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
and Wednesdays from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
The library is open most days.
Find general visitor information at
sa.utep.edu/futureminers/visitutep.says. “It’s exactly the same—how people
value family, and they really value their
culture. It’s just a different environment.”
Visitors to UTEP can experience the
Bhutanese influence at the Lhakhang, a
small building in the center of campus in
the style of a Bhutanese Buddhist tem-
ple. The Lhakhang is a cultural artifact
rather than a religious space. The interior
is, like Bhutanese temples, covered in in-
tricate paintings that tell the life story of
the Buddha and of Guru Rinpoche, who
introduced Vajrayana Buddhism to Bhu-
tan in the eighth century. The structure
was a gift to the U.S. from the kingdom of
Bhutan and was first assembled by Bhu-
tanese craftsmen on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C., for the 2008 Smithso-
nian Folklife Festival. It was later rebuilt
at the center of UTEP’s campus with the
help of a Bhutanese architect, a carver, a
painter, and a carpenter.
Behind the Centennial Museum, near
the Lhakhang, visitors can spin a Bhu-
tanese Buddhist prayer wheel, a metal
cylinder containing rolls of thin paper
printed with sacred texts. Each clock-
wise spin is the equivalent of reading
the prayers. The University Library con-
tains more artifacts, including a bow and
arrow, alongside a brightly painted tar-
get, to represent Bhutan’s national sport
of archery.
In the library’s atrium, an intricatelycarved Bhutanese altar sits beneath a
giant, rainbow-colored tapestry called
“The Four Harmonious Friends.” Based on
a Bhutanese folktale about cooperation,
it depicts an elephant with a monkey, a
rabbit, and a bird balanced like a tower of
acrobats on its back. The story explains
how the animals combine their talents
to plant and cultivate a tree, and when
the tree bears fruit, they work together to
ensure everyone can reach it.
These objects and the campus buildings
constitute one of the largest
concentrations of Bhutanese artistic
expression outside Bhutan. They make
El Paso, already a portal between two
countries, a gateway to a much more
distant land at a key moment in that
country’s development. As Bhutan
transforms, visitors to the UTEP campus
can learn about what made it special in
the first place.