Tashilhunpo Monastery

Foundation

Gendun Drup (1391–1474) was one of the leading disciples of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug school. In 1447 he founded a monastery at Shigatse, the main town of the province of Tsang, under the patronage of local nobles. He named it Tashilhunpo, "heap of glory". After his death, and after the recognition of his successor, the line of reincarnated lamas that began with him came to be called the Dalai Lamas, and Gendun Drup was counted retrospectively as the first.

The Panchen Lamas

The Dalai Lamas soon moved their seat to the Lhasa area. In the early seventeenth century the abbot of Tashilhunpo was Lobsang Chokyi Gyaltsen (1570–1662), tutor of the Fifth Dalai Lama. The Fifth Dalai Lama gave him the title of Panchen, "great scholar", and declared him an emanation of the buddha Amitabha, and his reincarnations became the Panchen Lamas. By the usual count he was the Fourth, three earlier abbots being recognised as his predecessors.

The Panchen Lamas were the second-ranking figures of the Gelug hierarchy, and each line traditionally took part in recognising the other's reincarnation. Their seat at Shigatse gave them their own estates and a following in Tsang, and at times their own relations with outside powers. The Sixth Panchen Lama received the Scottish envoy George Bogle, sent by Warren Hastings in 1774, and died in Beijing in 1780 while visiting the Qianlong emperor.

The monastery

Tashilhunpo spreads up a hillside in a dense complex of assembly halls, chapels, residences and colleges. Its most striking feature is the Maitreya chapel, built in 1914 by the Ninth Panchen Lama, which houses a seated image of the future buddha about twenty-six metres high, of gilded copper. The tombs of the Panchen Lamas stand in chapels of their own. A tall wall on the hillside is used to display a huge painted image during festivals.

The twentieth century

The Ninth Panchen Lama fled to China in 1923 after a dispute with the Thirteenth Dalai Lama's government over taxation, and died in exile in 1937. His successor, the Tenth, was recognised under Chinese auspices and lived mostly in China. In 1962 he presented a long petition criticising Chinese policy in Tibet, and spent years in prison as a result. During the Cultural Revolution the tombs of the Fifth to Ninth Panchen Lamas were destroyed. The Tenth Panchen Lama built a new tomb for their remains, consecrated in 1989, and died at Tashilhunpo a few days later.

In 1995 the Fourteenth Dalai Lama recognised a six-year-old boy, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, as the Eleventh Panchen Lama. The Chinese authorities rejected the choice, took the boy and his family into custody, and installed another candidate, Gyaincain Norbu. The whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima have not been independently confirmed since. The dispute remains one of the sharpest points of contention between the Chinese government and the Tibetan exile community.