Stories of Nar

Nar is the most remote region of Manang District. It has of only two main villages, Nar and Phu. Nar is the only remaining area in Manang District with restricted aceess, and was only recently opened to a limited number of outside visitors every year.Nar village is also called Chuprong. the name comes from narsang meaning 'the place of the blue sheep'. The villagers are known as Nar- ten and the village is located up the Nar Khola towards Kang- La Pass.
Many generations ago a young hunter from Mustang wounded a blue sheep and tracted it over the mountains into the Nar valley. He wwondered if the land was suitable to farm, so he planted some barley from his pocket, vowing to settle there if it grew. He returned to Mustang but came back a year later and saw that the barley had ripened. so, he built the first settlement of NAr village. He married a girl from Chaku, a place in Tibet, and many of her relatives migrated to Nar. They lived in the village of Chgaku and Meta.
Phu is from phusang meaning 'the head of the valley' and is located up the Phu Khola. villagers from Phu are Phu- ten. Both Nar village and Phu are above the tree line and completely cut off during the snowy winter months.Residents of Phu live by herding yak and trading meat, wool and hides. In the summer they grow barley. During the long winter many travel to the middle hills of Nepal to trade. Jimbu, a high- altitude chive very popular in Nepali cooking grows.
The original Phu village was a walled citadel a top a bluff. It had one thick wooden door, bolted shut at night against maravders from Tibet. In recent years, residents of Phu moved out of the old village and built more comfortable houses along the hillside. Residents move down to the lower and warner village of Kyang during the winter months. Phu is Tso Karnak, a magic lake. Karnak means 'black and white'. the lake reflects the images of things, people, and places in dreams and wishes. Phu- ten used to prohibit outsides from visiting the lake, believing that they would contaminate it and take away the precious stones and images found in it.
there is a story that early in the 1900s the Jumla Raja invaded NAr Valley with an army, after travelling up through Lamjung district.The Jumla soldiers killed all the inhabitants of Chgaku and Meta in s fierce battle. Seeing this, the villagers of Nar Village pleaded with thier lama to save them from the same fate. It was winter so the lama caste a spell causing an avalanche to fall from the Kang Guru Mountain, blocking the path of the advancinfg army and killing many soldiers. This saved the people of Nar village. In another story, disease killed the residents of Meta, and Nar village only escaped the plague because it was so isolated.
The village ruins of Chgaku later became a Khampa guerilla camp. Today Chgaku is again deserted, but Meta is partially inhabited. In Phu, there is a monastery constructed by Lama Urgen Lhundup Gyatso, also known as Lama Khyedu Karma Lopsang, called the Tashi Lakhang. In Buddhism, the number 108 gompua throughout the Himalaya and Tashi Lakhang, which means' the blessed house of gods', was the 108th and last gompa he constructed. Tashi Lakhang eventually became the main Kargyupa gompa in Manang district and, along with the Braga Gompa and the Bodzo Gompa, is at the heart Ghale and Manangpa spiritual life.