Drepung Monastery

Drepung is one of the most important monasteries of the Gelug school and was one of the big three so-called " State monasteries " of the former Tibet, not quite 10 km west of Lhasa located.

History

Drepung was 1416 Jamjang Chojey Trashi Pelden ( ' jam dbyangs chos rje bkra shis dpal ldan ) - a disciple of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug Order - founded. As a former residence of the Dalai Lamas ( prior to their settlement in the Potala Palace Lhasa ) had always played an important role in the politics of Tibet, the abbots of Drepung, for example, to in the annual adoption of the municipal government of Lhasa to the Monlam Festival ( Tibetan New Year ) manifested. The abbots of Drepung were always the closest advice of the Dalai Lama and often held important posts such as the Regent between the death of a Dalai Lama and the government takeover of the next (which is often a 20- year term meant ).

1618 attacked the Karmapa school of Tsang Lhasa and " strewn mountains to Drepung with the bodies of the monks ". (see 10th Karmapa )

In the years 1911 to 1913, when the 13th Dalai Lama tried to expel all Han Chinese from Tibet, the monks of Drepung Loseling especially those of the faculty presented, together with the monastery in Lhasa Tengyeling on the side the Chinese government and against the Dalai Lama. Thousands of monks from Drepung were punished by the government in Lhasa, Drepung, but escaped the fate of Tengyeling sold its monks and its property was confiscated and that was razed to the ground.

From 1913 to 1919, the Dalai Lama was the conflict in the east ( Kham / Xikang ) and the Shimla Conference busy, but in 1920, the confrontation between Drepung and the Government of the Dalai Lama came to a head again. In May 1921, the government took advantage of a conflict between the monastery and one of his former managers at a plot of land, lured the three highest administrator of the Loseling Faculty Zhol after she had him arrested, flogged and banished from Lhasa and confiscate their property; it attracted thousands of monks from Drepung the Norbulingka and demanded to be admitted to the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama had contracted the Tibetan army at Drepung; in August camped around 3,000 government soldiers in Lhasa; they faced 4000 to 5000 monks. Drepung gave way, around 60 monks were arrested, beaten and put in the pillory. The Dalai Lama dismissed all stewards of the monastery departments and set a new one.

Before 1959 lived at Drepung over 10,000 monks, it was the largest monastery in Tibet and had 186 farms, owned approximately 20,000 serfs, 300 pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen.

During the Cultural Revolution Drepung was saved from destruction by the Red Guards; Mid-1980s there was again twenty monks, in 2005 there were about 640 The monastery stands since 1982 on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China.

Plant

As part of the so-called Cultural Revolution, the monastery was, as well as the also nearby Great Sera Monastery, hardly destroyed, while 40 km east of Lhasa is situated on a lofty ridge monastery town of Ganden was more or less razed to the ground. In Drepung also the central meeting hall, the meeting halls of the four faculties of the monastery ( Loseling, Gomang, Ngagpa and Deyang ) and the former government palace of the Dalai Lama ( Ganden Phodrang ) have been preserved.