Tashilhunpo, one of Tibet's most important monasteries, is a Geluk monastery in Shigatse that was founded in 1447 by the First Dalai Lama Gendun Drub, whose remains are interred at the site. The location of the monastery is west of the great fortress and above a pre-existing sky-burial site.The monastery serves as the seat of the Paṇchen Lama incarnation line. The remains of the Second, Third, and Fourth Pachen Lama, who was tutor to the Fifth Dalai Lama, are also preserved in a stupa at Tashilhunpo. Reliquaries for the Fifth through Ninth Panchen Lamas were destroyed in the 1960s. The Tenth Panchen Lama was responsible for the construction of a new mausoleum, Dungten Tashi Namgyel, where the remains of his previous incarnations were re-interred. The Jamkhang Chenmo, which was added during the tenure of the Ninth Paṇchen Lama, contains the world's largest gilded copper image that stands 26 meters tall. At its height, Tashilunpo housed close to 5,000 monks.
