Athena Review Image Archive ™
Lhasa: Map of Buddhist monasteries
Lhasa: Map of Buddhist monasteries (Athena Review Image Archive)
Located
on a tributary of the Brahmaputra River, and for centuries
isolated by the Himalayas from outsiders, Lhasa ("God's place") has
been Tibet's most important site of religious pilgrimages. In its
center is the Jokhang, a shrine of the Buddha erected in the early 7th
century by King Songtsen Gampo for his Indian wife Princess Bhrikuti.
Lhasa's
most famous shrine is the Potala palace, built in the 17th century by
Ngawang Lozang Gyatso, and after 1642 the home of the Dalai Lama.
This thousand-room structure, featured in the movie (and original book by Harrar) Seven Years
in Tibet, occupies the site of an ancient fort on a ridge overlooking
the northern part of the city. Since 1959, when the 14th Dalai Lama
fled to northern India, the Potala has been converted into a museum.
Other Buddhist sites in Lhasa are the Norbulingka, summer palace of the
Dalai Lama, and several monasteries at Sera, Dreprung, and Nechung, which
lie just outside the city.
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