>> City Tours And Guides >> Lhasa Tours and Guides >> Suzhou Top Attractions >> Drepung Monastery

Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region with an elevation of 3650 meters (12,000 feet) above the sea level. Nicknamed Sunlight City, it is the highest city in the world. This ancient sprawling city, settled 1,300 years ago, is the region's political, economic and cultural center as well as a sacred place of Tibetan Buddhism. A tour to the roof-of-the-world is a dream of many people. A typical tour of Lhasa takes 4 days (3 nights), which covers all the necessary sites in Lhasa: Potala Palace, Jokhang Temple, the flourishing Barkhor Street, the Norbulingka Park, Drepung Monastery and the Sera Monastery. But if you want to stay a few more days or even as long as two weeks in this wonderful region, there are always a few add-ons to the nearby areas available.

Drepung Monastery

Drepung Monastery is one of the great three Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet, along with Gandan and Sera Monasteries, located at the foot of Mount Gephel in the west of Lhasa. Looking far into the distance, row upon row of white structures spread over the hillsides, giving the appearance of a huge pile of rice. Therefore, the temple was named “Drepung”, literally “Rich Heap” in Tibetan language, symbolizing the “prosperity”.

Drepung Monastery was built in 1416 by Jamyang Chojey, a direct disciple of Je Tsongkhapa who is the founder of the Gelukpa School. Occupying an area of 250,000 square meters, the temple is grand in scale, consisting of 4 Zhacangs, functioning as places for learning sutras. Numerous famous monks have learnt there, and there were once almost 10,000 Buddhist monks in the monastery, making it the largest monastery in the world at that time. The existing building was built mainly during the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Among them, the Main Assembly Hall is quite majestic, with 183 finely decorated upright columns, which could hold 8,000 monks to chant sutras at the same. A great number of ancient Tibetan documents and scriptures are housed in the Drepung Monastery.

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