Lying in the southern part of the Gebeiwoze Mountain at the western suburbs of Lhasa, the Drepung Monastery is the largest monastery in Tibet and the home monastery of all Dalai Lamas. Together with the Sera Monastery and the Ganden Monastery, they are known as the “three Largest Monasteries of Lhasa”. Drepung Monastery, which in Tibetan language is called Duimi or Gyimi, means “an auspicious land”. At its peak, over 10,000 people lived in the monastery. The grand monastery was built along the mountains and covers over 200,000 square meters. With numerous mansions and zigzagging alleys, the monastery looks like an impressive city.
Drepung Monastery was firstly built in 1416 by Jamyang Chojey, who was a direct disciple of Je Tsongkhapa and the founder of Gelukpa School of Tibetan Buddhism. It was known for its high standards of academic study, and was called the Nalanda of Tibet, a reference to the great Buddhist monastic university of India.
It was said that in late 1930s Drepung was divided into four colleges, each housing monks from a different locality. As a university along the lines of Oxford or Sorbonne in the middle Ages, its colleges have different emphases, teaching lineages and geographical affiliations. Today its population is much smaller, with merely a few hundred monks. However, the institution has continued its tradition.
The monastery houses many cultural relics, which makes it more superb. Statues of Manjushri Bodhisattva, and Sitatapatra found on the first story of the Coqen Hall, rare sutras on the second story and Jamyang Qoigy’s conch shell given by Tsong Khapa on the third one, all add to the wonder of the monastery. Exquisite statues of Tsong Khapa, Kwan-yin Bodhisttva, Manjushri Bodhisattva, Amitayus, and Jamyang Qoigyi in other sutra halls, as well as flowery murals on walls also fully present the wisdom of Tibetan people.
