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Tibet’s sacred monastery a living relic
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大昭寺 (dà zhāo sì) The Jokhang Temple
Built in the 7th century, the Jokhang Temple is not only the most sacred monastery in Tibet, but also a complex of the oldest wood-earth buildings in existence in the region today.
In AD 647, Tibetan King Songtsän Gampo (AD 617-650) decided to build a temple in the old town of Lhasa to house the statues of Buddha Sakyamuni brought into the kingdom by his two new wives — Princess Wencheng from the Tang Dynasty (AD 618-907) and Princess Bhirkuti from Nepal.
However, according to legend, the king’s effort was challenged by an unusual turn of events as the workers failed to erect a single building that would stand. Later, Princess Wencheng pointed out that the topography of the place wasn’t good for construction and suggested they fill up a lake and build the temple on it. The plan worked.
Now, covering an area of more than 25,100 square meters, the temple consists mainly of an entrance porch, a courtyard and a Buddhist hall. It is surrounded on all four sides by storehouses and accommodation for monks.
The architecture of the temple combines the Indian vihara, the Tang Dynasty and Nepalese designs. The main hall in the complex is a four-storey construction with gilded roofs. On the rooftop, there are statues of a pair of golden kneeing deer flanking a Dharma wheel, a distinctive symbol of Tibetan Buddhist temples.
Most buildings in the complex feature the iconic whitewashed walls and the red pembe frieze, a decorative horizontal band along the upper part of the walls. The temple also contains numerous wood sculptures and spectacular murals. One large mural depicts the early Potala Palace and the story of filling up the lake for construction of the Jokhang Temple. There is also a mural describing the consecration ceremony of the temple upon its completion 12 months after the construction began.
Today, the temple attracts thousands of Tibetan pilgrims and millions of tourists from all over the world every year.
The Jokhang Temple has a sister temple — Xiaozhao Si or Ramoche Temple — located about 500 meters to its north.
The Ramoche Temple is also considered a very important Tibetan Buddhist monastery, second only to the Jokhang Temple.
Also built in the mid-7th century, the Ramoche Temple was built by Han and Tibetan constructors under the supervision of Princess Wencheng. Naturally, it features a mixture of the Tang Dynasty and Tibetan architectural styles.
Its roofs are covered with Han-style gilded tiles and the 10 giant pillars in the main hall, each with a diameter of more than 80 centimeters, are decorated with distinct ancient Tibetan carvings.
Covering an area of more than 4,000 square meters, the Ramoche Temple has burned down and been reconstructed several times over the centuries. It once served as the institution of highest learning for the Dge-lugs-pa sect of Tibetan Buddhism.
Most of the halls in the temple also contain murals of the early years, but many of them are hardly visible today because they have been darkened by centuries of smoke from burning of yak butter lamps and incense.
The Jokhang Temple and the Ramoche Temple were named as key cultural relic sites under state protection in 1961 and 2001, respectively.
In November 2000, the Jokhang Temple became part of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of “Historic Ensemble of the Potala Palace,” which also includes the Potala Palace and Norbulingka.
边玛墙(biān mǎ qiáng) Pembe Frieze
Pembe frieze is one of the unique features of traditional Tibetan architecture. It’s a decorative horizontal band along the upper part of the walls of a building, which is made of tamarisk, a shrub native to the Tibetan plateau.
To build such a wall band, workers would first skin and sun-dry the twigs of the shrub. Then they would cut the dried twigs to the length of about 30 centimeters and bind them into bundles of nearly 8-9 centimeters in diameter.
The wall band was built with layers of the tamarisk bundles sandwiched with layers of clay. Finally, it was plastered with red ochre, adding a bright color to the largely white walls of Tibetan buildings.
In addition to its decorative effect, pembe frieze is also designed to reduce the weight of the top part of the walls of ancient Tibetan buildings, which were usually built with rammed earth.
Due to the scarcity of the raw material, complicated building process and expensive cost, the pembe frieze was applied only to religious buildings or houses of the nobilities in the region.
Today, such wall bands are used only for repairing ancient Tibetan buildings to keep their original look.
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