In this video you will see the holiest place in Tibetan Buddhism and walk with monks and lamas and devoted pilgrims to experience radical devotion at this sacred space.
The Jokhang (Tibetan: ཇོ་ཁང།, Chinese: 大昭寺), is a Buddhist temple in Barkhor Square in Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet Autonomous Region of China. Lhasa city sits at an elevation of 3,650 meter or 12,000 feet so this makes for a great half day trip before you head up to Everest Base Camp in Tibet. Tibetans, in general, consider this temple as the most sacred and important temple in Tibet. The temple is currently maintained by the Gelug school, but they accept worshipers from all sects of Buddhism and pilgrims come from 1000's of kilometers around the Tibetan Plateau to worship here. The temple's architectural style is a mixture of Indian vihara design, Tibetan and Nepalese design.
The Jokhang Temple, considered the "spiritual heart of the city" and the most sacred place in Tibet, is at the center of an ancient network of Buddhist temples in Lhasa. It is the focal point of commercial and spiritual activity in Lhasa, city with a maze of streets radiating from it through out the Barkhor Square. The Jokhang is 1,000 metres (3,300 ft) east of the Potala Palace and the walk can be made in about 15 minutes. Barkhor, the market square in central Lhasa, has a walkway for pilgrims to walk around the temple (which takes about 20 minutes) and we think you will love walking this square with the local pilgrims.
The Barkhor Square is marked by four stone sankang (incense burners), two of which are in front of the temple and two in the rear and you can see these in our video.
The Jokhang was founded during King Songtsen Gampo's reign of the Tibetan Empire. According to tradition, the temple was built for the king's two brides: Princess Wencheng of the Chinese Tang dynasty and Princess Bhrikuti of Nepal. Both are said to have brought important Buddhist statues and images from China and Nepal to Tibet, which were housed here, as part of their dowries. The oldest part of the temple was built in 652. Over the next 900 years, the temple was enlarged several times with the last renovation done in 1610 by the Fifth Dalai Lama. Following the death of
Songtsen Gampo, the holy statue of the Buddha in Ramcho Lake temple was moved to the Jokhang temple for security reasons. When King Tresang Detsen ruled from 755 to 797, the Buddha image of the Jokhang temple was then hidden, as the king's minister was hostile to the spread of Buddhism in Tibet. During the late ninth and early tenth centuries, the Jokhang and Ramoche temples were said to have been used as stables. In 1049 Atisha, a renowned teacher of Buddhism from Bengal taught in Jokhang.
Around the 14th century, the temple was associated with the Vajrasana in India. In the 18th century the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty, following the Gorkha-Tibetan war in 1792, did not allow the Nepalese to visit this temple and it became an exclusive place of worship for the Tibetans. During the Chinese development of Lhasa, the Barkhor Square in front of the temple was encroached. During the Cultural Revolution, Red Guards attacked the Jokhang temple in 1966 and for a decade there was no worship. Renovation of the Jokhang took place from 1972 to 1980. In 2000, the Jokhang became a UNESCO World Heritage Site as an extension of the Potala Palace (a World Heritage Site since 1994). Many Nepalese artists have worked on the temple's design and construction.
#Lhasa #tibet #Jokhang
#Barkhor
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