Wednesday 13 January 2021

Tibetan Buddhism: Buddhist Temples, Monasteries and Buddha Images Part 3

Tibetan Buddhism - not Just in Tibet

The Tibetan Tradition

Buddhism probably arrived in Tibet from India in the 8th century. That makes it part of the Mahayana tradition, but as it includes many tantric practices and elements of Vajrayana, it is often treated as a separate branch of Buddhism.

Tibetan Wheel

I offer the above paragraph in good faith; I believe it to be accurate but I admit to not understanding some of the words. I have, though, observed that in Tibetan Buddhism, as in Mahayana, Buddha images often come in threes, Bodhisattva Maitreya (the Future Buddha), the Buddha, and Bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (The Compassion Buddha). Bodhisattvas are important, as are fearsome images of guardians, but there seems less emphasis on Arhats. Like Theravada, Tibetan Buddhism has a strong monastic tradition. Only Tibetan Buddhists use prayer wheels, praying by rotating a wheel about a sacred text, and prayer flags where sacred texts blow in the wind.

Although Tibetan Buddhism has several independent branches, each having its own monasteries and leaders, they remain closely related. The Gelug (Yellow Hat) is the dominant school - not just in Tibet - and the most influential Gelugpa is the Dalai Lama.

Tibetan Monasteries

Tibetan Buddhism is not confined to Tibet, the map above shows the monasteries/temples covered in this post, though there will also be a surprise visit to Beijing. But I will start in the obvious place. We visited Lhasa in July/Aug 2005.

Tibet (officially the Xizang Autonomous Region, China)

Lhasa

Lhasa is an interesting city to visit. At 3,700m (12,000ft) most people suffer some effect of altitude; breathlessness, aching joints, sleep disruption or even a brief collapse. In midsummer the air is pleasantly warm though air-conditioning is not required.

Officially encouraged Han migration has resulted in half the 500,000 population being non-Tibetan. I deplore the destructive Chinese policy of squeezing the culture of ethnic minorities, though from an entirely selfish point of view, the Han presence - and the existence of a Nepali community - allowed us to eat well. Tibetans' own food never quite escapes the distinctive rancid flavour of yak butter.

The Jokhang Temple

The Jokhang Temple is the physical and spiritual centre of Lhasa. In summer the modest frontage on Barkhor Square was permanently semi-blocked by prostrating pilgrims. The interior was dark and the air dense with the smell of wood smoke and burning yak butter candles as devotees jostled to make their offerings.

Entrance to the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa

We escaped to the roof.

Lynne on the roof of the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa

The Potala Palace

From the Jokhang roof we looked across the Square to the dramatically sited Potala Palace the home of the Dalai Lama – though he has lived in exile since 1959.

The Potala Palace from the roof of the Jokhang Temple, Lhasa

Once you have acquired a ticket and turned many prayer wheels…

There are many prayer wheels to turn in Lhasa

…you have the freedom of the palace complex.

Inside the Potala Palace complex, Lhasa

The Drepung Monastery

Five kilometres outside Lhasa, Drepung is the largest monastery in Tibet. At its peak there were as many as ten thousand monks. There are now less than a thousand, and with tight Chinese control the monastery lacks the moral authority it once had, but when we visited in 2005 it seemed a thriving community.

Just Part of the Drepung Monastery Complex

It is a large complex on many levels on the side of Mount Gephel. Climbing from courtyard to courtyard up steps that were often more ladders than staircases was hard work. It was our second full day in Lhasa and the thin air took its toll. Lynne leaned against a wall to get her breath and then slowly slipped down to a seated position. Leaving her in the ticket office in the care of some solicitous and friendly monks....

Solicitous and friendly monks

...I continued alone.

Drepung Monastry

Sadly, she missed the hall full of monks chanting sutras.....

Chanting monks, Drepung Monastery

....the monk's prayer hall near the top of the complex...

Prayer Hall, Drepung Monastery

....and this view of a lone monk standing on a roof, surveying the world. A true son of Tibet, he stands behind the gold encased finials waiting for his kettle to boil.

Waiting for his kettle to boil, Drepung Monastery

As committed tea drinkers the Tibetans make the British look like amateurs. What I cannot understand, though, is why, once they have made a nice pot of tea they always stir in a dollop of yak butter. The advantage of yak butter is that never goes off, the disadvantage is that tastes like it has even when fresh.

Sera Monastery

At Sera monastery back in the city, the younger monks gather in a stony square two or three afternoons a week. The more senior monks test their juniors on points of Buddhist philosophy asking question in an aggressive if stylised manner.

Debating at Sera Monastery, Lhasa

I have heard that important as this once was, it is now just for tourists. Perhaps, but they entered into it with vigour and thought – and occasionally a little humour.

Mongolia

North from the Tibetan Plateau, across several hundred kilometres of dessert are the huge open grasslands of Mongolia, the least densely populated country in the world.

Buddhism was introduced to the nomadic empires of Mongolia in the 1st century CE though in time it faded into Shamanism.

In the early 13th century Genghis Khan united Mongolia and went on to rule the largest contiguous empire ever seen. It fragmented after his death, but his grandson Kublai Khan started out as ruler of most of Mongolia and northern China. By 1271 he had unified China and established the Yuan Dynasty. He introduced Tibetan Buddhism and monasticism into Mongolia, but after the demise of his dynasty in 1368, Mongolia again slowly relapsed into shamanism.

During the 16th Mongolian cultural revival Altan Khan, a warlord with an eye to reunifying the country made an ally of the Dalai Lama. Tibetan Buddhism returned to Mongolia and was reinforced by the Chinese Qing dynasty in the next couple of centuries.

Ulaanbaatar

In 2007 selecting the southern option of the Trans-Siberian Railway took us to Ulaanbaatar. Mongolians traditionally moved with the seasons, and Ulaanbaatar only settled on its present site in 1789. It is now home to 1.3 million, more than half the vast country’s population

Gandan Monastery

The first buildings of Ulaanbaatar’s Gandan Monastery were constructed in 1809. Buildings have come and gone, but the most impressive, the temple of Boddhisattva Avalokiteshvara was built in 1913.

Temple of the Boddhisattva Avalokiteshvara, Gandan Monastery

Gandan closed in 1938 as Mongolia's client government obediently followed Stalin’s anti-religious line. After the Second World War Stalin decided to make token acknowledgment of traditional cultures and religions across the USSR. The Mongolian government followed suit, reopening Gandan in 1948, though with many restrictions. Since the end of communism in 1990 all restrictions have been lifted, and there has been a resurgence of Buddhism.

(see Ulaanbaatar: Part 11 of the Trans-Siberian Railway)

Bürd Sum

Leaving Ulaanbaatar with a driver and local guide we drove 340 km to the Bürd Sum (district) of Övörkhangai Aimag (province) where we stayed with a local family. The first 50 km of the journey were on tarmac, the rest over open steppe. Övörkhangai is three times the size of Wales but the whole population would almost fit into the Principality Stadium.

(see Across the Mongolian Steppe: Part 9 of the Trans-Siberian Railway)

Shaman Shrine

Next day we visited Erdene Zuu. More driving across grassland brought us to a proper road. At the road junction was a shrine. Mongolian Buddhism has absorbed shamanism, and this is essentially a shaman shrine. We did the proper thing, which is to walk round it three times clockwise and placed a new stone on the top. Most passers-by contented themselves with a hoot on the horn.

A shaman shrine, Ovorkhangai Province

Kharkhorin, Övörkhangai Province

Ghengis Khan built his capital of Karakorum on the site of modern Kharkhorin in around 1220. Not being the settling down sort of guy, Ghengis soon moved on, though the city thrived for a while before being destroyed by a Ming army in 1388. Modern Kharkhorin is a major population centre, by Mongolian standards, with 13,000 inhabitants.

Erdene Zuu

The monastery of Erdene Zuu was built in 1585, using such remnants of Karakorum as were available. The boundary of the rectangular site is marked by 100 small stupas. 108 is the number of attributes of the Buddha, so either 8 stupas have been lost or somebody miscounted during the building process.

Erdene Zuu

The modern city of Kharkhorin sits under the black smoke in the distance - a rare example of Mongolian industry.

Stupas, Erdene Zuu

By the end of the 19th century there were over 60 temples on the site, but in 1939 most were destroyed by the communists.

Surviving Temple, Erdene Zuu

All the surviving temples are open to visitors.

Inside a temple, Erdene Zuu

In 1990 the site was handed back to the monks and Erdene Zuu became an active monastery again.

Monk taking a prayer wheel for a walk, Erdene Zuu

(see With the Mongolian Nomads: Part 10 of the Trans-Siberian Railway)

Buryat Republic, Russia

Our previous stop on the Trans-Siberian had been at Ulan Ude, the capital of Buryatia, one of the constituent republics of the Russian Federation. Buryats are ethnic Mongolians, and so Buddhists, but Buryatia has been Russian since the seventeenth century. Then, Inner and Outer Mongolia struggled under imperial Chinese rule while the Buryats traded with the incoming Russians and enjoyed comparative freedom and prosperity.

Ivolginsk Datsan

Before the Russian Revolution, there were hundreds of Datsans in Buryatia and thousands of monks, but by the 1930’s the Datsans had all been closed and the monks dispatched to the Gulags. In the 1940s Stalin decided it was time for more religious tolerance and so a Datsan was constructed at Ivolginsk, 30 km west of Ulan Ude. It opened in 1947 on a site carefully chosen by astrologers.

Ivolginsk Datsun, near Ulan Ude

The architecture and decoration of the Johkang Temple, Potala Palace and Drepung Monastery in Lhasa are almost identical. Gandan and Erdene Zuu are cut from similar cloth, but the main building at Ivolginsk, 3,000 km north of Lhasa, looks, unsurprisingly, less Tibetan and ever so slightly Russian.

The Temple at the Ivolginsk Datsun, near Ulan Ude

…but from some angles the Tibetan look predominates.

Tibetan style stupas, Ivolginsk, near Ulan Ude

Andre, our Christian European Russian guide was here when the Dalai Lama visited this outpost of his flock in the 1980s. He was very taken by his serenity and almost tangible charisma.

Prayer wheels, Ivolginsk Datsun, near Ulan Ude with Tibetan script (her right) and Mongolian script

(see Ulan Ude (1) Buddhists, Old Believers and an Enormous Head of Lenin: Part 6 of the Trans-Siberian Railway

China

Or, more accurately, China again as Tibet is part of China. Chinese Buddhism follows the Mahayana tradition, but that does not mean there are no ‘Tibetan pockets.’

Beijing

The Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959 over his disagreement with the Chinese authorities. He is a man of integrity and peace from whom the Chinese could learn much, but instead they regard him rather like the Americans regarded Osama bin-Ladin. It was not always that way.

Stupa, Beihai Park

Beihai Park, just north of Beijing’s centre was allegedly created by Kublai Khan. The stupa on the artificial island was built to commemorate the visit of a 17th century Dalai Lama to Beijing.

Stupa on the artificial island, Beihai Park, Beijing

(see Beijing (2): Xicheng and Beihai Park. Part 2 of Beijing, North Korea and Shanxi)

Yonghe Gong

The Yonghe Gong was our first ever Buddhist temple on out first ever visit to Beijing. It is a rare example of a Tibetan Temple in the Han heartland, though I doubt we realised that at the time.

It was built in 1649, as a residence for court eunuchs. It then became the palace of Prince Yong, who turned part of the complex into a lamasery when he became emperor in 1722. On his death in 1733 Tibetan Buddhists were invited to take over the whole site. Developments since then have produced buildings which mix Tibetan and Chinese styles.

Lynne at the Yonghe Gong

The temple complex survived the Cultural Revolution and re-opened to the public in 1981. One of the charms of the place is that after so many years of religious repression many would-be devotees do not seem sure of what they should be doing.

Uncertain worshippers, Yonghe Gong

The temple contains a remarkable 18m high statue of the Buddha carved from a single piece of sandalwood.

Maitreya Buddha carved from a single piece of sandalwood, Yonge Gong, Beijing

India

Buddhism has all but died out in the country of its birth, but it is still possible to see dramatic Buddhist temples

Kushalnagar, Karnataka

The Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government-in-exile live in Dharamsala in the extreme north of India. We have not been there, but in 2010 we visited the small town of Kushalnagar in the southern state of Karnataka - as far south of Lhasa as Ulan Bator is north - where the state government has settled 10,000 exiled Tibetans.

Namdroling Monastery

As well as the usual secular requirements of any settlement, there are two Gelugpa monasteries and the much larger Namdroling Temple which follows the Nyingmapa tradition from Eastern Tibet.

Namdroling Monastery, Kushalnagar, Karnatica

As can be seen both from the outside and the interior, Namdroling is well financed. It is known as ‘The Golden Temple’- and with good reason.

Interior of Namdroling - The Golden Temple, Kushalnagar

The temple looks typically Tibetan and even displays a trio of Buddhas - as promised in the introduction. July in Lhasa had been pleasantly warm but air-conditioning was unnecessary, people merely left doors and windows open and allowed in the fresh, if rather thin, air. At other times of the year it can be viciously cold. February in Kushalnagar was hot and humid (it is equally hot, though far wetter in the monsoon season) and the vegetation around the temple could not have been less Tibetan. Namdroling looked like an exotic transplant from a faraway land.

Namdroling, The Golden Temple, Kushalnagar

Buddhist Temples, Monasteries and Buddha Images

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Mahayana Buddhism
Part 3: Tibetan Buddhism
Part 4: Theravada (1) Sri Lanka
Part 5: Theravada (2) Myanmar
Part 6: Theravada (3) Laos, Cambodia & Thailand

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