THE BHUTANESE SNOW LION

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31802, 5 October 1968, Page 5

THE BHUTANESE SNOW LION

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KENNETH ANTHONY)

staJT’ STO.RY

You’ve heai’d about the legendary Abominable Snowman. Here’s a stamp that introduces you to the Snow Lion! This is another mythological creature from the snowclad slopes of the Himalayas that are supposed to be the home of the Snowman. It is hard to say which creature one would less like to meet on a dark night, to judge by their appearance on modern Bhutanese stamps. The snow lion is a common motif in the carvings and paintings found on the ancient royal and monastic buildings which dot Bhutan’s main valleys. Now it is featured in a set of stamps issued this March showing fearsome creatures of local mythology—the wind

horse, the monastery tiger and the garuda (the winged messenger of the gods). Though Bhutanese stamps are usually printed in England, the designs have a strange quality about them which evokes the mystery of a land which has been described as the world's most remote country. Nowhere else could the legend of the yeti have lingered on for so

long without being either proved or disproved. Westernisation came late to Bhutan. The first issue of stamps did not appear until 1962, a few months after Bhutan’s first motor road was opened—though some fiscal stamps were used locally before. That October Bhutan stamps were recognised as valid for international postage.

In recent years Bhutan has made big efforts to emerge from its medieval isolation into the twentieth century. It opened its first airport in 1967. But what did the Bhutanese make of the set of stamps issued for the New York World’s Fair in 1965? It contrasted an elaborate Bhutanese pavilion, built entirely of wood, with a modern skyscraper!