Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/340

 294 ARCHITECTURE IN THE HIMALAYAS. BOOK II. storeys high, and has a spacious assembly hall. Its library is famous for its collection of Sanskrit and Tibetan manuscripts probably all Buddhist. 1 About the beginning of the i$th century Tsong-Khapa, a Lama of Kumbum, re-organised the sect founded by Atisha and re-named it the Gelugpa. His first monastery was that of Gandan, founded in 1409, about 30 miles east from Lhasa, of which he was abbot till his death in 1417. The chief object of veneration here is the lofty mausoleum of the founder, built of marble and ornamented with malachite and with a gilded roof. It encloses a chorten or stupa said to be all of gold, in which is deposited the embalmed remains of the sage. One of Tsong-khapa's disciples founded Sera monastery about 2. miles north of Lhasa in 1417, in which are about $500 monks. Depung, 3 or 4 miles west from Lhasa, is also a monastery of the Gelugpas, and contains fully 7000 inmates, mostly devoted to exorcism and magic. It was founded in 1414, and is said to be named or modelled after the early Indian monastery of Dhanyakataka or Amaravati. 2 Within the enclosure is a large temple surrounded by four chapels, and a palace of the Lhasa Lama. Out of scores of other such establishments, we may mention Tashi-lhunpo, visited by Boyle and Turner in the end of the 1 8th century. It is in western Tibet, near Shigatse, about 140 miles west of Lhasa, was founded by Tsong-khapa in 1445, and contains about 3500 monks. It is the seat of the Pan-chhen Grand Lama, who is next to the Lhasa pontiff* in dignity and influence. Here is the tomb erected by the Chinese emperor Kiu-long for the Lama Erdeni who died on a visit to Pekin in 1779. It is figured by Turner as is also the Go-ku-pea some nine storeys high for the display of religious pictures. 3 Lastly, at Gyan-tse 4 on the route followed by our troops in 1904, is a large fortified monastery, itself forming a little town on the southern slope of a hill to the north of the fort. Its buildings, standing on the edge of the plain, rise in tiers, like a large amphitheatre round the great temple at their base. This temple, shown in Plate VII., is of interest from its form. 5 It is locally known as Gandho-la a name usually applied to the great temple at Bodh-Gaya, of which local tradition names this as being a model. It is about 100 ft. high, 1 Waddell's ' Lamaism,' p. 274. 2 As Amaravati and its monastic estab- lishment had been deserted and dis- appeared a thousand years before this, the connection between the two is imaginary, as in the cases of Sam-yas and Gyan-tse. 3 Turner, ' Account of an Embassy to the Court of Teshoo Lama ' ( 1800), plates ii and 12; 'Mission of Geo. Bogle to Tibet,' etc., pp. 96ffg. 4 Gyan-tse lies about 106 miles west- south-west from Lhasa, in latitude 28 53' N., and longitude 89 34' E. 5 This form reminds us of the Jaina samosaranas at Girnar and Satrunjaya.