Yungbulakang Palace

Last updated
Yungbu Lakhang Palace
ཁྲ་འབྲུག་དགོན་པ
YumbuLhakhang.jpg
The restored Yumbu Lakhang
Religion
Affiliation Tibetan Buddhism
Location
Location Lhoka, Tibet Autonomous Region, China
China Tibet location map.svg
Gold temple icon.png
Shown within Tibet
Geographic coordinates 29°08′33″N91°48′10″E / 29.14258°N 91.80270°E / 29.14258; 91.80270
Architecture
Demolished1966

Yumbu Lakhang (Tibetan : ཡུམ་བུ་བླ་སྒང།, Wylie : yum bu bla sgang; Chinese :雍布拉康) or Yumbu Lakhar (Tibetan : ཡུམ་བུ་བླ་མཁར​།, Wylie : yum bu bla mkhar, [1] also known as Yumbu Lakhang) is an ancient structure in the Yarlung Valley in the vicinity of Tsetang, Nêdong County, the seat of Lhoka Prefecture, in Tibet.

Contents

According to legend, it was the first building in Tibet and the palace of the first Tibetan king, Nyatri Tsenpo. Yumbu Lakhang stands on a hill on the eastern bank of the Yarlung River in the Yarlung Valley of southeast Nêdong County about 192 kilometres (119 mi) southeast of Lhasa and 9 kilometres (5.6 mi) south of Tsetang. [2]

History

According to Tibetan traditions, Yumbu Lakhang was built for the first Tibetan king, Nyatri Tsenpo, who descended from the sky with his grandmother. It was probably built at the turn of the seventh and eighth centuries. [3] During the reign of the 28th king, Thothori Nyantsen, in the fifth century AD, a golden stupa, a jewel (and/or a form to the manufacture of dough-Stupas) [4] and a sutra that no one could read fell from the sky onto the roof of the Yumbu Lakhang; a voice from the sky announced, "In five generations one shall come that understands its meaning!" [5] Later, Yumbu Lakhang became the summer palace of the 33rd Tibetan king, Songtsen Gampo (604-650 AD) and his Chinese princess, Wencheng. After Songtsen Gampo had transferred the seat of his temporal and spiritual authority to Lhasa, Yumbu Lakhang became a shrine.

A thousand years later, during the reign of the 5th Dalai Lama (1617-82), the palace was turned into a monastery for the Gelug school.

The Yumbu Lakhang was heavily damaged and reduced to a single storey during the Cultural revolution [6] but was reconstructed in 1983. [7] [8]

As of November 2017 the palace is undergoing $1.5m of restoration works to reinforce its crumbling wooden foundations and cracked walls. It was expected to reopen to the public in April 2018. [9]

Interior

The castle is divided into front and rear precincts. The front is a three-storey building while the rear is dominated by a tall tower, like a castle. Enshrined at the palace are the statues of Thiesung Sangjie Buddha, King Niechi, the first King of Tibet, Songtsen Gampo and other Tubo kings.

Zorthang

Traditionally, the largest cultivated area in Tibet, called Zorthang, is located to the northwest, below Yumbu Lakhang. Even today, farmers sprinkle soil from Zorthang on their own fields to ensure a good harvest. There used to be a temple, Lharu Menlha, containing images of the Eight Medicine Buddhas near the area. [7]

Footnotes

  1. "Places»Place Types»Sites»Palace»yum bu bla mkhar/". Tibetan Buddhist Research Center. Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  2. Mayhew (2005), p. 153.
  3. Snellgrove, D.; Richardson, H. (1968). A Cultural History of Tibet. New York, London: Frederick A. Praeger. p. 51.
  4. Khenchen Palden Sherab Rinpoche: The Eight Manifestations of Guru Padmasambhva Archived 2005-01-21 at the Wayback Machine (ratna.info)
  5. Eva M. Dargyay: The Rise of Esoteric Buddhism in Tibet (Delhi, Motinal Banarsidass 1979), ISBN   81-208-1577-7, S. 4.
  6. Dowman (1988), p. 180.
  7. 1 2 Dorje (1999), p. 195.
  8. Victor Chan, Tibet. Guide du pèlerin, Éditions Olizane, Genève, 1998, p. 590 : "L'actuel Yumbu Lagang est une reconstruction (1982) du bâtiment originel, preque totalement détruit pendant la Révolution culturelle. Sa tour fut si gravement endommagée que seul un morceau de sa base demeura en place".
  9. "Tibet's oldest palace to undergo reconstruction work". FINDCHINA.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bhrikuti</span> Tibetan queen

Princess Bhrikuti Devi of Licchavi is the first wife and queen of the emperor of Tibet, Songtsen Gampo, and an incarnation of Green Tara. She was also known as "Besa", and was a princess of the Licchavi kingdom of Nepal. She became the queen consort of Tibet c. 622.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Songtsen Gampo</span> Tibetan king and founder of the Tibetan Empire

Songtsen Gampo, also Songzan Ganbu, was the 33rd Tibetan king and founder of the Tibetan Empire, and is traditionally credited with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, influenced by his Nepali consort Bhrikuti, of Nepal's Licchavi dynasty, as well as with the unification of what had previously been several Tibetan kingdoms. He is also regarded as responsible for the creation of the Tibetan script and therefore the establishment of Classical Tibetan, the language spoken in his region at the time, as the literary language of Tibet.

The Tibetan calendar, or Tibetan lunar calendar, is a lunisolar calendar, that is, the Tibetan year is composed of either 12 or 13 lunar months, each beginning and ending with a new moon. A thirteenth month is added every two or three years, so that an average Tibetan year is equal to the solar year.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trisong Detsen</span> Tsenpo

Tri Songdetsen was the son of Me Agtsom, the 38th emperor of Tibet. He ruled from AD 755 until 797 or 804. Tri Songdetsen was the second of the Three Dharma Kings of Tibet, playing a pivotal role in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet and the establishment of the Nyingma or "Ancient" school of Tibetan Buddhism.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shannan, Tibet</span> Prefecture-level city in Tibet, China

Shannan, also known as Lhoka, is a prefecture in the southeastern Tibet Autonomous Region, China. Shannan includes Gonggar County within its jurisdiction with Gongkar Chö Monastery, Gonggar Dzong, and Gonggar Airport all located near Gonggar town.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Muru Nyingba Monastery</span>

Muru Ningba or Meru Nyingba is a small Buddhist monastery located between the larger monasteries of Jokhang and Barkhor in the city of Lhasa, Tibet, China. It was the Lhasa seat of the former State Oracle who had his main residence at Nechung Monastery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tsetang</span> Town in Tibet Autonomous Region, Peoples Republic of China

Tsetang or Zedang, is the fourth largest city in Tibet and is located in the Yarlung Valley, 183 km (114 mi) southeast of Lhasa in Nedong District of the Shannan Prefecture in the Tibet region of China. It is the capital of Shannan Prefecture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yerpa</span> Tibetan Buddhist monastery near Lhasa, Tibet, China

Yerpa is a monastery and a number of ancient meditation caves that used to house about 300 monks, located a short drive to the east of Lhasa, Tibet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kyichu Lhakhang</span>

Kyichu Lhakhang, is an important Himalayan Buddhist temple situated in Lango Gewog of Paro Dzongkhag in Bhutan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tradruk Temple</span> Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Yarlung Valley, Tibet, China

Tradruk Temple in the Yarlung Valley is the earliest great geomantic temple after the Jokhang and some sources say it predates that temple.

Gungsong Gungtsen was the only known son of Songtsen Gampo, the first Tibetan Emperor and the Prince of Tibetan Empire in Yarlung Dynasty.

Namri Songtsen, also known as "Namri Löntsen" was according to tradition, the 32nd King of Tibet of the Yarlung dynasty. During his 48 years of reign, he expanded his kingdom to rule the central part of the Tibetan Plateau. He also had a good diplomatic partnership with other tribes and Empires. His actions were decisive in the setting up of the Tibetan Empire, to which he can be named co-founder with his son, Songtsen Gampo. He Sieged in Kingdom of Sumpa in early 7th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nyatri Tsenpo</span> King of Tibet

Nyatri Tsenpo was a king of Tibet. He was a legendary progenitor of the Yarlung dynasty. His reign is said to have begun in 127 BC and in traditional Tibetan history, he was the first ruler of the kingdom. The Dunhuang chronicles report that he is said to have descended from heaven onto the sacred mountain Yarlha Shampo. Due to certain physical peculiarities – his hands were webbed, and his eyelids closed from the bottom and not the top – he was hailed as a god by locals, and they took him as their king.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tibetan Empire</span> Empire in East Asia from 618 to 842/848

The Tibetan Empire was an empire centered on the Tibetan Plateau, formed as a result of imperial expansion under the Yarlung dynasty heralded by its 33rd king, Songtsen Gampo, in the 7th century. The empire further expanded under the 38th king, Trisong Detsen, and expanded to its greatest extent under the 41st king, Rapalchen, whose 821–823 treaty was concluded between the Tibetan Empire and the Tang dynasty. This treaty, carved into the Jokhang Pillar, delineated Tibet as being in possession of an area larger than the Tibetan Plateau, stretching east to Chang'an, west beyond modern Afghanistan, and south into modern India and the Bay of Bengal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Valley of the Kings (Tibet)</span>

The Valley of the Kings or Chongye Valley branches off the Yarlung Valley to the southwest and contains a series of graveyard tumuli, approximately 27 kilometres (17 mi) south of Tsetang, Tibet, near the town of Qonggyai on Mure Mountain in Qonggyai County of the Shannan Prefecture.

<i>Old Tibetan Chronicle</i> Collection of texts

The Old Tibetan Chronicle is a collection of narrative accounts and songs relating to Tibet's Yarlung dynasty and the Tibetan Empire. The three manuscripts that comprise the only extant copies of the Chronicle are among the Dunhuang Manuscripts found in the early 20th century in the so-called "hidden library" at the Mogao Grottoes near Dunhuang, which is believed to have been sealed in the 11th century CE. The Chronicle, together with the Old Tibetan Annals comprise Tibet's earliest extant history.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sera Utsé Hermitage</span> Tibetan Buddhist hermitage near Lhasa, Tibet, China

Sera Utsé Hermitage, Sera Utse, Sera Ütse, Sera Tse or Drubkjang Tse is a historical hermitage belonging to Sera Monastery. It is located on the mountain directly behind Sera Monastery itself, which is about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north of the Jokhang in Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China. It is older than Sera Monastery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yarlung Valley</span> Human settlement in China

The Yarlung Valley is formed by Yarlung Chu, a tributary of the Tsangpo River in the Shannan Prefecture in the Tibet region of China. It refers especially to the district where Yarlung Chu joins with the Chongye River, and broadens out into a large plain about 2 km wide, before it flows into the Tsangpo River. It is situated in Nedong District of the Shannan Prefecture and includes the capital of the prefecture, Tsetang, one of Tibet's largest cities, 183 km southeast of Lhasa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Architecture of Lhasa</span>

Lhasa is noted for its historic buildings and structures related to Tibetan Buddhism. Several major architectural works have been included as UNESCO's World Heritage Sites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yarlung dynasty</span> Semi-historical Yarlung Dynasty of Pre-imperial Tibet

The Yarlung dynasty, or Pre-Imperial Tibet, was a proto-historical dynasty in Tibet before the rise of the historical Tibetan Empire in the 7th century.

References