Tashilunpo Monastery

Tashilunpo, at the foot of Nyima Mountain west of Xigaze, is an immense monastery. With tier-upon-tier halls and rooms, it is also famous in modern Tibetan Buddhist history.

The temple was first built in 1447 by Gedun Truppa, a disciple of Tsongkhapa. With financial support from Chungyepa Pelgyor Zangpo, Samdrubtse's dzongpon(magistrate). Gedun Truppa was subsequently honored as the first Dalai Lama. The monastery was first known as Kangjainqupi, or the Rise of Buddhism in the City of Snow. Its name was eventually changed to Tashilunpo, which means lukcy sumeru.

The main building of Tashilunpo cover an area of 18 hectares and include the Tsochen Hall, Jianalakang, Panchen Lachang, Qiangba Hall and Terrace for Sunning the Buddha, as well as the Hall of Goddess Dumu and Guardian Hall. In addition there are also four dratsangs, Tosangling, Xigaze, Jikang, and Aba. The Tashilunpo can accommodate 3,800 monks in all, and the Tsochen Hall alone can house 2,000.

The Tsochen Hall is the principal site for monastery-wide activities and is also the hall in which the Panchen Lama often gives lectures on the Buddhist classics to be discussed by the monks.Therefore, it is also known as the Great Hall of Scripture and is furnished with the throne of the Panchen Lama.

In front of the hall is a 600-square-meter courtyard paved with stone slabs and surrounded by walls of stone slabs and surrounded by walls of stone carved with Buddhas. The Jianalakang, or Hall of the Han Buddha, contains a portrait of Emperor Qianlong, a present from the Qing court, and a table with the characters ??Long live Emperor Daoguang??, as well as gifts from the Qing court to the Panchen Lama, including gold albums, seals and cups, Buddhas of the Sui and Tang dynasties, porcelains of Yongle, brocades of the Yuan and Ming dynasties and ruyi made of jade. The hall is also equipped with rooms for the reception of imperial decrees and high commissiooners of the Qing court to Tibet. The Qiangba Hall enshrines a 22-meter-high, gilded-bronze, seated Buddha of Qiangba(Maitreya) that was cast under the supervision of the ninth Panchen lama in 1904, with, among other materials, 8,000 tales of gold.

Tashilunpo has become the headquarters of successive Panchen Lamas since the fourth incarnation. It is also the site of the Khenpo Conference Hall- the Khenpo is the ruling organ of Ulterior Tibet . Here can be found halls housing the stupas containing the remains of the first Dalai Lama and the fourth to the ninth Panchen Lamas. The stupa of the fourth Panchen Lama, which is 11 meters high, sheathed in silver, studded with pearls and jewels and decorated with exquisite carvings, is styled after that of the Dalai Lama. The high-rigged, yellow, glazed-tiled roof of the hall housing the stupas glistening in the sun is a splendid sight.

Under the auspices of the Panchen Lamas over the centuries, the Tashilunpo has grown in magnitude. The last addition was a new palace built exclusively for the tenth Panchen Lama in 1954. It is a Tibetan-style structure and has a roof adorned with golden prayer wheels and religious articles.The interior is decorated with exquisite Tibetan carvings and murals of a gorgeously elegant style.

In the past, the Tashilunpo was looted and damaged repeatedly. In 1781, at the instigation of Shamarpa, a Living Buddha of the White Sect, the Gurkhas invaded Tibet supposedly because of an increase in commercial taxes and of salt being mixed with earth. They broke into and plundered the Tashilunpo after entering Xigaze. Emperor Qianlong sent troops to punish the invaders. Although the gold albums and seals were retrieved, the monastery itself suffered serious loss and destruction.

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