The Treasury of Lives

Andre Alexander, The Temples of Lhasa

The three-story Karmashak chapel is so called because it was the residence of the Karmapas during their visits to Lhasa. It's believed to have been the site of one of four protector chapels around the seventh century Jokhang, but its early history is unclear. It seems to have been founded in the mid fifteenth century. When the Karma Kagyu school was stripped of most of their monastic possessions in the mid seventeenth century, Karmashak became a part of Sera Me College. And it became the residence of the oracles of Chatri Chentik, a minister of Tawok Chogyel who was the protector deity of Sera Me. 

Sources

Alexander, André. 2005. The Temples of Lhasa: Tibetan Buddhist Architecture from the 7th to the 21st Centuries. Chicago: Serindia Publications.

Cabezón, José Ignacio, and Penpa Dorjee. 2019. Sera Monastery. Somerville: Wisdom Publications, pp. 310-311.



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