The Treasury of Lives

Arthur Hopkinson. The Tibet Album. The British Museum. Accessed 14 August. 2017

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. 

Sources

Dowman, K. 1988. The Power-Places of Central Tibet: The Pilgrim's Guide. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, p. 273.

Dorje, Gyurme. 2009. Tibet Handbook. Bath: Footprint, pp. 322-327.

Ryavec, K. E. 2015. A Historical Atlas of Tibet. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 89, 113.

Tashilhunpo

Incarnation Lines

Abbots & Officers

Abbot

Abbot chos kyi rgyal mtshan 1569 -
Abbot Lobzang Chokyi Gyeltsen 1601 -
 

Administrator of Monastery

Administrator of Monastery blo bzang rnam rgyal 1858 - 1865

Images

The Demoness of Tibet

The Demoness of Tibet is a close copy of a well-known image located in the Tibet Museum in Lhasa. The landscape of Tibet is shown as the mythical demoness of Tibetan legend. Important Buddhist temples and monasteries are located across her body, spanning from the Ngari region in the west to Kham in the east. 

Biographies

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