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Published: July 16th 2005
Jokhang Temple
The most important temple in whole TibetThe
Jokhang is Tibetan Buddhism’s most sacred shrine, because the temple is not controlled by a particular sect of Tibetan Buddhism it attracts adherents of all the sects as well as followers of Bon-Po, Tibet's indigenous religion. Everyday, pilgrims from every corner of Tibet trek a long distance to the temple. Some of them progress by prostrating themselves throughout their journey until they reach the threshold of the temple. Pilgrims kindle butter lamps with yak butter, or honour the deities with white scarves while murmuring sacred mantras to show their pieties to the Buddha. Situated at the heart of the old town of Lhasa, it was founded by Queen Bhirikuti, the Nepalese wife of Songtsen Gampo, the seventh century unifying king of Tibet who made Lhasa the capital of his newly emerged nation. The temple was built on the principal geomantic power-place in Tibet, the heart of the supine ogress. This strange-sounding expression is an anthropomorphic description of the dangerous terrain of the Tibetan landscape, which king Songtsen Gampo tamed by constructing a series of geomantic temples. In 638, to facilitate the construction of the Jokhang, the Milk Plain Lake was filled in with earth, transported by goats. The previous name
Dharma Wheel
Above the main entrance to the Jokhang is a golden, eight-spoked Dharma Wheel, flanked by two deer of the town, Rasa (‘Place of the Goat’) was subsequently altered to Lhasa (‘Place of the Deity’) following the consecration of the temple. The main entrance of the Jokhang Temple or ‘House of the Lord’ faces west towards Nepal in recognition of Queen Bhirikuti who bore the expense of the temple’s construction. Songtsen Gampo erected the protector shrines to safeguard the temple form the elements. He also concealed his treasures in important pillars in the Jokhang, perhaps following the age-old Tibetan tradition of concealing wealth at the foundation of buildings or pillars. Renovations of the renowned religious place were undertaken as early as the 8th century by king Songtsen Gampo’s second wife Wencheng and never stopped throughout its long history up to the basic restoration of the damages of the Cultural Revolution, when the temple was reopened in 1979 with only nine monks.
The temple is the product of Han, Tibetan and Nepalese architectural techniques. Visitors will be treated to the sight of various exotic and sacred sculptures. It also houses many invaluable cultural relics. The most famous and most valuable of these is the sculpture of the Buddha aged 12. It is one of the very few sculptures
Hidden entrance to the Jokhang Temple
In order to protect the building against fire, the Chinese have moved thousands of lamps from Jokhang Monastery into a special lamp house in front of the temple, thereby obstructing the main entrance of its kind making it even more precious. The image is flanked on both sides by the altars of Songtsen Gampo and his two wives who introduced Buddhism into Tibet. The three-storeyed inner Jokhang forms a square, enclosing the Main Hall which is surrounded by the inner circumambulation pathway, beyond which is the great courtyard and the three-storeyed western extension, containing secondary chapels, storerooms, kitchens, toilets and residential quarters. On the east, west and south sides it is bordered by a monastery and other buildings, this whole complex is surrounded by the intermediate circumambulation pathway (barkhor); which in turn is surrounded by the old city of Lhasa, with the Potala beyond. The outer walkway, on which pilgrims even now circumambulate the entire holy city of Lhasa, forms an outer ring road, and much of it has been incorporated into the modern road infrastructure of Lhasa.
The big square in front of the entrance, the
Jokhang Plaza, today looks rather uninteresting, lacking soul, it is lined by even more rows of market stalls and for us it was the visible border between Tibetan and Chinese Lhasa. On its western end, you will easily find transport (taxis and bicycle rickshaws), and
Myriad of flickering butter lamps
The air in this small room was nearly unbreathable due to the burning of thousands of butter lamps a huge shopping street has its beginning there leading almost up to the Potala Palace. A strange spot is situated opposite the temple entrance portico of the Jokhang Temple, where a shed has been put up that is filled with hundreds of flickering butter lamps, the smoke of which easily reaches the outside world. The new structure for burning the lamps was built against a sacred walled perimeter containing a tree which Tibetans believe to have grown out of a hair of the historical Buddha, as well as a dedication stone remembering a major donation to the Jokhang temple by a Manchu emperor. Demolition of the wall adds to the destruction of the Jokhang precincts carried out in the 1980s when most houses in front of the temple were destroyed and replaced by new buildings and a large plaza which now faces the west of the complex. By its side, as well as on different other spots around the Barkhor, you will find whitewashed furnaces displaying open fire, into which the Buddhist devotees constantly throw either bundles of strong smelling plants or otherwise ground herbs, the emanating smoke smells hilariously of rosemary or other spices. We often had our noses
Actor for a movie shooting
One early morning the main entrance the temple was blocked to turn a new movie in the air sniffing. We were in no way expecting such wonderful smells to fill the air and really enjoyed it, although we still have not found out the meaning of this custom.
For some reason we did not enter through the Great Courtyard at the Jokhang’s western side, but through any side entrance. It is there and up to the entrance portico that one can see the greatest accumulation of pilgrims on their way on one of the circumambulation pathways. Several of them prostrate themselves every few metres all along the intermediate circumambulation pathway, but most of them do so inside the portico, so that its flagstones have been worn smooth by the pilgrims’ never ceasing prostrations. We could not do otherwise than enter the Jokhang’s ground floor by the main gate, through a narrow vestibule decorated with wrathful protector deities (in dark-blue, red or yellow, riding mules or tigers, three-eyed, four- or six-armed, holding sickles, clubs, spears or blood-filled skulls, sitting on human bodies and always endued with horrible flames), really frightening. The vestibule led us directly into the huge
Main Hall, at its western end decorated with two rows of short transverse columns. By the means
Tibetan monk
Tibetan monks' clothes can be adjusted easily, as the temperature may change quickly once the sun is hidden behind clouds of columns, the three-storeyed hall is divided into three sections, two with short columns on the western and eastern sides and nine tall ones in the centre, around which six magnificent statues, up to 8m high, are positioned. Apart from these divisions, the hall is only dimly lit with artificial light, the skylight right in its centre doesn’t allow much light to enter either, and the butter lamps, though in huge amounts, neither shed much light. Up to then moment your eyes get accustomed to the reigning dimness, you do not grasp the hall’s dimensions and even later your eyes are constantly diverted by the powerful columns, the high statues and the numerous chapels. When we arrived, crowds of pilgrims tried to pass through the various chapels in a clockwise manner, all of them quite disciplined, sometimes standing in line because nothing would move on. For Tibetans, pilgrimage refers to the journey from ignorance to enlightenment, from self-centeredness and materialistic preoccupations to a deep sense of the relativity and interconnectedness of all life. The Tibetan word for pilgrimage means ‘to circle around a sacred place’, for the goal of pilgrimage is less to reach a particular destination than to transcend
Large copper cauldron
Next to the entrance this cauldron was really impressive by its huge size through inspired travel the attachments and habits of inattention that restrict awareness of a larger reality. By travelling to sacred sites, Tibetans are brought into living contact with the icons and energies of Tantric Buddhism. The sacred sites themselves, through their geological features and the narratives of transformation attached to them, continually remind pilgrims of the liberating power of the Tantric Buddhist tradition. We decided to join them, not for religious motives, though, rather driven by impious curiosity. This way we could best watch the pilgrims’ behaviour and have a look at the numerous images contained in the twenty or so chapels. It seemed that all the images (most of them replicas because the originals had been damaged or destroyed during the Cultural Revolution) bear a certain importance to the devotees, the degree of which can be measured by the number of offering scarves or amount of bank notes attached to them. Four among these
chapels are of extraordinary importance, as they are provided with a gilded roof. They are the northern inner sanctum, containing an image of the patron deity of Tibet, it id highly revered throughout the country because, according to a legend, King Songtsen Gampo, his foreign
Butter sculptures
Butter sculptures are sacred offerings made from moulded butter and other mineral pigments queens and the gatekeeper deities were all absorbed into it in the form of light; the southern inner sanctum containing a gilded goat’s head, depicting the legendary Queen of Goats who presided over the filling-in of the Milk Plain Lake prior to ten Jokhang’s construction; and finally (not least!) the central inner sanctum, which is the largest and loftiest chapel of the Jokhang and contains Tibet’s most revered image, a 1.5m high statue representing the Buddha at the age of twelve. The sculpture had been brought as part of the dowry of the Chinese Princess Wencheng upon her arrival in Tibet. It is said that upon her husband, King Songtsen Gampo's death, the princess hid the sculpture in the temple. The miraculous survival of this ancient Buddhist sculpture forms part of its sacredness. Already the chapel’s foyer is impressive with a beautiful highly polished wooden floor and two pairs of guardian kings, two with wrathful demeanour and the other two with smiling demeanour. Understandably the biggest accumulation of devotees was to be found there, us among them as a matter of fact. So many pilgrims wished to pray before the sacred image, make offerings and kiss the Buddha’s feet, that
Buddha mural
The Inner Circumambulation around the Inner jokhang Temple is lined with prayer-wheels and fantastic murals several monks clad in saffron robes took care that none of them lingered on too long and shoved them along rather impatiently, only we were looked upon with a benignant smile. The statue was reputedly made of an alloy of precious metals mixed with jewels and is said to be so heavy that 300 men cannot move it. However, it is impressive to look at, with its gem-studded headdress and ear-ornaments, the pearl-studded robe and ornate silver-plated pillars with dragon motifs supporting an overhead canopy and a silver sphere above the crown. We did not follow the pilgrims’ prescribed circuit to the letter, but stepped out of line in order to admire for instance the elaborate restoration work of images going on right inside the chapels where they belonged. Or we watched pilgrims press their ears to a stone column with a hole at the top in order to hear the sound of a mythical bird at the bottom of the filled-in lake. As usual, the Main Hall’s walls were covered all over with murals, some of them of special importance because they depict the foundation of the Jokhang and the events of Songtsen Gampo's reign, including the construction of
Mural detail
Klaudia was especially fascinated by what was going on inside the clouds the first Potala Palace. The casting of Princess Wencheng’s ring (the king’s second wife who identified the Jokhang’s correct site) into the Milk Plain Lake prior to the construction is also vividly depicted. We roamed around in the smoke-filled hall freely, watching the pilgrims in their religious activities, or monks collecting the superfluous offering scarves or bank notes in order to make place for new ones, with astonished eyes. The diverse images or murals were overwhelming but too much for our eyes; what most impressed us, however, were the people in their deeply religious bearings, many of them came along with copper pots filled with liquid yak butter as an offering, what forced the monks to constantly rush to and fro with different pots in order to empty the butter receptacles again.
Unfortunately, the stairs leading up to the Jokhang’s upper floors were already blocked and we were anxious that the whole temple might be closed soon (it was close to 1 p.m.), which left us rather frustrated because we absolutely wanted to climb on the fascinating
roof. So we left the Main Hall and turned north in search of the ascent to the roof. We found ourselves inside
On the way to buddhahood
These saints were already very close to the supreme state a narrow corridor lined with incredible murals on both sides, this turned out to be the inner circumambulation pathway. All of a sudden, the roofs were forgotten as well as the eventual closing hour, we were there completely on our own, no pilgrims, no monks, no tourists (whom we had already missed inside), we leisurely gazed at the most minute details displayed, father and son took one picture after the other, Klaudia was mostly ahead and showed them the next fascinating scenes they could photograph. After probably half an hour that we spent in complete peace, we discovered somebody above us and were reminded of our original intentions. We finally found our way to the roof and were very glad that the weather had so much improved, when we came to the bright sunlit roofs. What a stark contrast to the dark smoke-filled chapels of the Jokhang’s interior! Not many people were there yet, only a group of monks gathered for lunch break and cheerfully chatting away the time before returning to their customary chores. Others were already active, separating myriads of white offering scarves so that they could be sold again, in addition plucking out the bank notes they
Wheel and Deers
Wheel and Deers are one of the most traditional features that characterize Tibetan temple architecture contained, which then lay on the floor in large heaps. What an extraordinary occupation indeed! We completely forgot about our lunch that day when we discovered all the different roofs and their elaborate decoration. There was so much to discover, admire and take pictures of! Pavilions with bright orange walls, gilded towers set in the corners, from which strands of yak hair dangled, groups of workers restoring the balustrades or renovating the paintings, we crossed narrow corridors beneath on a wooden plank and stroked tiny cats half asleep in the warm sunlight. We peered into the monks’ quarters, to which they merely responded with warm smiles, and did not get tired of walking round and round as well as enjoying spectacular views across the Barkhor and the roofs of Lhasa towards the Potala Palace.
We spent a marvellous day in the Jokhang Temple and were so happy that we had had the chance to experience it with all the pilgrims, we returned to the Main Hall before leaving definitely, but then it lacked its spiritual soul, all the chapels were barred with iron gates and heavy padlocks.
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qian nu
non-member comment
the 3 cute figures
hi :) about the picture with the 3 figures, just look at Tibet's flag: there are the 2 lions and the eagle is representing the mountain reaching the sky! of course, this is only my interpretation. wonderful blog you've got here! all the best qian nu