Kumbum Monastery

Kumbum Champa Ling (Tibetan: sku 'bum byams pa gling; "Monastery of hundreds of thousands of images of the Buddha Maitreya ", also: Gumbum or Kumbum Monastery ) in the circle Huangzhong (湟 中 县) of Qinghai Province, China, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery dating back to the Ming Dynasty ( 1560). It is considered one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.

History

The first buildings were inaugurated in 1578. 1584 Sonam taught Gyatsho, the third Dalai Lama, on his first visit here the first study of a faculty, which developed into one of the greatest monastic universities of the Tibetan plateau during the next centuries.

The founder of the Gelug Order Tsongkhapa (1357-1419) is said to have been born on the site of the oldest temple hall of the monastery. At the point where at that time the shed at birth blood was drained away after a miraculous tree was expelled, the leaves of a hundred thousand [= countless ] images of the Buddha would have worn. Of these, the Tibetan name of the monastery is derived.

The Chinese name, however - Si Kumbum means "pagoda - monastery" - derives from a Chorten (Chinese: ta = Pagoda, stupa, etc. ) from the Tsongkhapa's mother had built on the site where in 1379 at the birth of the placenta had fallen to the ground. Both names are thus derived from the wonderful birth associated with Tsongkhapa's founding legend from.

Kumbum Jampa Ling stands since 1961 as the Tar Si on the list of monuments of the People's Republic of China ( 1-111 ) and is defined as the location with the best traffic Lamaist Mahavihar attended since the 1980s (from domestic and foreign tourists) most Tibetan religious worship.