Tashilhunpo Monastery

On the way to Shigatse, you could see the golden dome of the Tashilhunpo Monastery shining under the sunshine. Although with 500-year exposing to wind and rain, the Tashilhunpo Monastery still keeps its magnificent manner, florid colors, sacred style, standing on the Mountain Nima in the west of the Shigatse City.

The Tashilhunpo Monastery (Byname: Auspicious Sumeru Temple), the largest temple in the Shigatse area, which is listed as one of the six great temples of Sect Gelug, together with the other five: Temples of Zhebang, Sela and Gandan in Lhasa, Ta’er Temple in Qinghai Province, and Lapuleng Temple in south Gansu Province.

The Tashilhunpo Monastery was built by the 1st Dalit of Tsongkhapa, Gendunzhuba in 1447. In the year 1600, during the 4th Panchen Lama Luosangquejijianzan’s domination time, the temple was expanded. During the temple’s most prosperous time, the Tashilhunpo Monastery had 3000 houses, 5000 monks, 30 pastures and over 50 subalterne temples. From then on, Panchen Lamas in all ages officially located here. Now the Tashilhunpo Monastery has 14 golden domes, 4 Dratsangs, 56 sutra halls, 3600 houses and 800 monks. The Monastery covers 300,000 square meters in total.

History

The Tashilhunpo Monastery began to be built in September 1447. In the year 1446, the 8th disciple of Tsongkhapa, the 1st Dalit Lama, Gendunhuba, asked some artisans of Tibet and Nepal to build a gilt bronze statue of Sakyamuni for memorizing the master Xiraosengge. For the statue’s placing, with the subsidizing from the Phaggru government, the Tashilhunpo Monastery was began to be constructed in Sep. 1447. The statue was placed in the clean room of the temple after 12-year construction.

The Monastery was initially named “Gangjiandianpei”, standing for Buddhism glorifying on the snow-capped plateau. Gendunzhuba, the 1st Dalit Lama, changed its name to “Tashilhunpo Monastery”, being “Auspicious Sumeru Temple”. According to the documents, Gendunzhuba was from Sakia in Tsang, who was the first person brought the denomination Huang to Tsang. After the system of reincarnation theory’s setting up, he was ratified as the 1st Dalit Lama by the Sect Gulug. In the year 1600, the 4th Panchen Lama was invited to be the 16th abbot of the Tashilhunpo Monastery. Since then, this monastery became the official location of Panchens.

Important Attractions

Mahavira Hall in the Soultower of the 10th Panchen Lama
The reliquiae of the 10th Panchen Lama, who passed away in 1989, was preserved in the soultower. His statue was placed in front of the tower. Stramonium patterns were painted on the top and golden Buddhas were painted on the wall. As the story goes, when the 10th Panchen Lama got back to the Tashilhunpo Monastery after a long-time traveling, he saw a vacancy between the 3 main buildings which he considered a waste. The most coincident thing was, after several days, he past away for over tired and his soultower was set up on that vacancy.

The eastern catacomb was a multi-burial catacomb of 5th ~9th Panchen Lamas, which was also called “Zhashinanjie” in Tibetan language. This tower was built under the 10th Panchen Lama’s organization and was finished in January 1989. The height of the tower is 11.52 meters. Osseous remains of the 5 Panchen Lamas and the bronze statue of 9th Panchen Lama were all placed in it. All of them were the abbots of the monastery. The 4th Panchen Lama’s soultower was the most exquisite one, which was rebuilt in the hall of the 5th Panchen Lama’s soultower.

The Largest Byamas-pa Statue in the World
The hall of byamas-pa is the most attractive audience hall in the Tashilhunpo Monastery. The byamas-pa hall was built in 1461, which had 5 floors, and was 30 meters’ high, for sacrificing the gilding bronze Buddha of the byamas-pa in 1914, organized by the 9th Panchen Lama, QueJinima.

The statue is 22.4 meters’ high, with the 1.2 meters’ middle finger and the 11.5 meter’s shoulder. Count the 1.8 meter’s lotus throne in, the whole height is 26.2 meters, which is the largest cupreous sitting Buddha in the world.

The sitting statue was made up with 279kg gold, 115,000kg copper, 300 pearls and more than 1400 other jewels like ambers, corals and green treasure stones. Between the eyebrows of the Buddha, an extremely large diamond was inlayed, together with 30 small diamonds in the size of silkworm’s head and 60 gemstones in other kinds. The statue of the great byamas-pa took 900 artisans 9 years for building, which still looks lively and maestoso today, indicating the superb technology of the artisans.