Labrang Monastery

CHINA, Gansu, Xiahe

Labrang is one of the Six Major Monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism and was established in 1709 during the Qing dynasty by the First Jamyang Shepa Ngawang Tsondru. The monastery was listed as a National Cultural Heritage Site in 1982.
The monastery is constructed near the foot of a mountain and is orientated on an east-west axis. It covers a large area and consists of over 60 identifiable shrines and stupas. There are six colleges in the monastery, namely the Lower Vajrayana College, Upper Vajrayana College, Dialectics College, Medical College, Kalachakra College, and Hevajra College.
As the largest building in the monastery, the Dialectics College is the central assembly hall. It was founded in 1709, and faces east, has a rectangular layout and is surrounded by walls. It consists of a temple gate, courtyard, entrance hall, assembly hall, and an inner shrine along its central axis. The assembly hall is a 15-by-11 bay structure supported by 140 columns and covering an area of 1,700 sq m. The inner shrine is three stories high with the third story constructed like a pavilion with a hip-and-gable roof.
The Maitreya Hall, known as the Serkhang Chenmo, houses an 8-story high cross-legged Maitreya Buddha. It was constructed in 1788 and on its roof there is a small shrine with a hip-and-gable roof covered in gilt bronze tiles. The Gongtang Tsang Stupa is located in the southwest corner of the monastery. It is 31.3 m high and consists of five tiers. Inside there is the stupa of the Third Gongtang Tsang and gilded wooden statues of the first, second, fourth and fifth Gongtang Tsangs.
The monastery houses numerous artworks including thangkas and butter sculptures. There are 60,000 volumes of ancient Tibetan text spanning subjects such as Buddhism, medicine, and arts.