Why is lhasa important

Finally, two of the three great seats of Gelukpa monasticism — the monasteries of Sera and Drepung — have been located here since the fifteenth century. The city of Lhasa is located in the southern part of the Tibetan high plateau at an altitude of meters above sea level and on roughly the same latitude as Cairo.

It is one of the highest cities in the world with an altitude of 3, meters. The Lhasa River flows about 50 km to the southwest lower left of the image , then joins the great Yarlung Zangbo River, which flows to the east. Figure 2 shows the central part of Lhasa. Jokhang Temple, surrounded by a wall, is visible at the right side of the image. The Jokhang is composed of the main Jokhang temple and Tulnang, which surrounds the main temple.

Jokhang Temple was constructed in the middle of the seventh century. It is the first temple of Tibetan Buddhism. This temple is the holiest and most important one in Tibet. It is said to have been constructed in dedication to the statues of Buddha that were brought by a princess of the Tang dynasty of China who came to marry a Tibetan prince.

The Potala Palace, which was constructed on the south face of a Marpo Ri hill, is visible at the center of the image. It extends about meters east and west, and about meters north and south. It was named after Mt. Potala, where the Buddhist Goddess of Mercy was said to live. The Potala Palace was first constructed in the middle of seventh century.

The Chinese have explored maintaining the current lake level by adding water pumped meters uphill from the Yarlung River. After visiting a few chapels, climb to the top story for a magnificent view of photogenic Gyantse Dzong fort , one of the best preserved in Tibet, which occupies a commanding position on a rocky promontory above the river valley. It was built in to guard the southern approach to the Yarlung Valley and Lhasa.

You can easily spend several pleasant hours wandering through the vast residential complexes, gawking at the The stupas were ransacked during the Cultural Revolution in the mids to mids, but the 10th Panchen Lama rebuilt them and reinterred what relics and remains the locals could recover.

This project concluded just six days before the Panchen Lama died in His stupa was completed in Most tours approach Everest Base Camp, the headquarters for large spring and fall mountaineering campaigns, from Shigatse along the so-called Friendship Highway, which the Chinese built to link Tibet with Nepal.

Along the way, our group stopped at Sakya Monastery, the seat of the Sakya Sect, whose Mongolian-inspired architecture varies from most other Tibetan monasteries. The road to Everest Base Camp leaves the Friendship Highway at the scruffy town of Tingri, which is set in a barren landscape of contorted schist.

As India was thrust beneath the Lhasa Terrane, these sediments were first buried and metamorphosed, then scraped off the downgoing Indian Plate and became incorporated into the stack of thrust sheets that now make up the Himalayas.

When we visited in , Tingri lay at the end of the pavement; it took hours to drive the last 85 kilometers, jostling the whole way, to the Rongbuk Monastery and Everest Base Camp. Now, a 1. At first, you may be disappointed that the view of Mount Everest is commonly obscured by mist. When you do see the mountain, its majesty is awe-inspiring. The answer is an enthusiastic, childlike yes. When my Kailash- Mansarovar yatra was taking shape this July, Lhasa was a place that had showed up as an overland route option.

Home to holy sites like the Jokhang and Sera monasteries, Norbulingka Palace, and the Potala Palace once the winter residence of the Holy Dalai Lama , Lhasa has always been a prominent name in the Himalaya. So even when the flying time between these two places is a mere one-and-a-half hours, flight rates run on the higher side. Lhasa has a cool semi-arid climate with mild summers and frosty winters. I was told the atmosphere there contains 68 per cent of oxygen as compared to sea-level, and so we were asked by people around us to take baby steps in completing our daily routines.

Running around with a checklist in Lhasa could lead to breathlessness even before any work began. My morning began with a visit to the Jokhang Monastery—the most important spiritual and religious centre for all Tibetan Buddhists. Spread across six acres in Barkhor Square, the 7th-century temple is currently managed by the young Gelug school, but receives devotees from all sects. The presiding deity is the Shakyamuni, a highly-venerated form of the Buddha.