In which city is the Potala Palace? Potala Palace - ancient architecture
I knew roughly that in Tibet there was a huge palace on a mountain. I decided that I needed to get to know him better. Let's go together.
Potala is a unique ancient palace in Lhasa, located at an altitude of 3767 meters above sea level. No palace in the world is located as high as the Potala. The palace received its name from the name of the sacred mountain located in India, where, according to legend, the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvar (Guanyin) lives.
The first wooden Potala Palace on the slope of the Red Mountain was built in the 7th century for the niece of the Tang Emperor Wen Cheng, who came to Tibet to marry the Tibetan prince Sronzangambo (617-650). Wen Cheng captivated the ruler with her beauty and intelligence, and he ordered a palace to be built for her. The Tang princess is the most famous and revered woman in Tibet, who had a huge influence on the development of this region. She taught local residents grow vegetables, grind flour, distill wine and alcohol and, most importantly, introduced them to Buddhism, which was already widespread throughout China. With her help, Prince Srontsangambo created an administrative and military system in Tibet.
1939
However, already in the 8th century, the palace with 999 rooms was destroyed by lightning and internecine wars, and only in the 17th century, by order of the fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682), the palace was restored, after which the layout of the building did not change. Since then, the Potala has served as the sacred residence of the Dalai Lamas. religious center and the place from which Tibet is governed.
The area of the palace occupies 360,000 sq.m., height - 119 meters. In total, the palace has 9 floors, although from the street it seems that there are 13, and more than 2000 rooms. The majestic trapezoidal structures of the palace were built directly on the mountainside and painted in white and red colors. The walls of the palace are made of granite, and the windows and roofs are made of wood. Interior are illuminated with oil lamps, and the halls are decorated with silk ribbons and sutras. The palace is designed in a typical Tibetan manner architectural style and is the most majestic and vibrant creation of Tibetan architects and craftsmen. Potala Palace is the oldest and famous palace in China it is called “the pearl on the roof of the world.”
The palace consists of two main parts - the Red Palace in the center and two pavilions of the White Palace.
The Red Palace, or as it is also called Potrang Marpo, mainly served for religious ceremonies and prayers. In its premises there are eight stupas containing a portion of the relics of the Dalai Lamas, numerous relics, and items made of valuable metals and stones. The palace is characterized by a complex layout of the halls, a large number of multi-level galleries, with winding and narrow passages.
The most spacious room of the Red Palace is the Great Western Hall, consisting of four temples. This magnificent hall is a clear testimony to the greatness and power of the Fifth Dalai Lama. The hall is famous for its unique paintings, reminiscent of Persian miniatures, which depict scenes from the life of the Fifth Dalai Lama. The columns in the hall are wrapped with special precious fabric from Bhutan.
At the northern end of the hall is a sacred shrine, on the door of which an inscription proclaiming Buddhism was engraved by the Chinese Emperor Tung Ji in the 19th century. flowering field wonderful fruits." Here is ancient statue Avalokiteshvara and his two servants, carved from a precious stone. One floor below, a low, dark passage leads to Fa-vaan's cave.
On the fourth floor of the Red Palace in the Western Temple there are 5 stupas of the Dalai Lamas, including the stupa of the fifth Dalai Lama. Its length is almost 15 meters. The stupa was built of sandalwood, covered with 3727 kg. pure gold, decorated with 18,680 pearls and precious stones. On the left is the stupa of the twelfth Dalai Lama, and on the right is the tenth.
The tomb of the 13th Dalai Lama is located west of the Great West Hall. You can only get here through the top floor with monks or palace guides. Built in 1933, the gigantic memorial stupa is covered with pure gold and priceless stones. The memorial stupa reaches 22 meters in height. Rich religious decorations include elephant tusks from India, porcelain vases, and miniature pagodas made from more than 200,000 pearls. The walls are decorated with traditional Tibetan paintings depicting events from the life of the 13th Dalai Lama.
In the pavilion of the Red Palace of Shushensanjiedian there is an amazing statue of the thousand-armed Guanyin with 11 faces.
The main buildings of the White Palace, the color of which symbolizes tranquility and peace, are the Great Eastern Pavilion, the Sun Pavilion, as well as living quarters for teachers of the Dalai Lamas, trusted monks and officials. The spacious premises of the Great Eastern Pavilion were used for important ceremonies and receptions. The throne of the Dalai Lama is also located here.
The Sun Pavilion, located above the Great East Pavilion, served as the living quarters for the Dalai Lamas. This is where they worked.
In addition, two buildings from the 7th century have been preserved in the palace, the only ones not destroyed during civil strife - the Fa-vana cave and the Pabalakan pavilion. According to legend, King Srontsangambo meditated and studied sacred texts in the cave. To this day, a hearth and a stone vat, which were used by the king himself, have been preserved in the cave.
A large-scale reconstruction of the palace, on which more than 6.6 million dollars was spent, was carried out in 1989 - 1994. At the same time, an expensive premises monitoring system was installed to prevent fires. On December 7, 1994, the palace was included in the UNESCO heritage list. In 2002-2006, more than $40 million was spent on the restoration of the palace. Now the palace is open to tourists and partially works as a museum.
The Potala Palace is built almost entirely of wood. It is illuminated using oil lamps. And the halls are decorated with silk ribbons with sutras. All this creates a fire hazard. The administration of the Potala Palace pays great attention to preventing accidents. Therefore, in 1994, 4.7 million yuan (USD 566,000) was invested in installing a 24-hour monitoring system. Thanks to measures taken, since 1988 there has not been a single fire in the palace. On December 7, 1994, the palace was included in the UNESCO World Heritage List. It has never been previously calculated how many rooms are in the 13-story palace. And only in 1994 the administration finally decided to establish the exact number of premises. It took specialists five whole years to thoroughly examine the palace, longer than the restoration of the building itself. The Potala is a huge treasury of ancient relics. The sacred stupa of the 5th Dalai Lama (1617-1682), made of 5.5 kg of gold and a huge number of precious stones, is kept here.
The Chinese government invested 4.9 million yuan in the palace's fire protection system. During the first phase of the project, from 1989 to 1994, 53 million yuan (6.4 million US dollars) and several tons of gold were spent to restore the appearance of the Potala. Before this, for 300 years, there had been no full-scale reconstructions of the palace. Tibet is home to many cultural treasures. Since the 50s of the 20th century Chinese government spent 200 million yuan on the preservation of cultural monuments in Tibet. Historians, experts in ancient architecture and geologists conducted research to draw up plans for the preservation of the Potala.
The second phase of the restoration project was completed in 2006. The focus of this phase will be on the “snow town” at the foot of Red Hill. By 2001, more than 300 families had settled in the snowy town that was once home to Tibetan nobility. At the first stage, the Red and White Palaces of the Potala were restored, the premises were cleared of rats, and a sewerage system was installed. To preserve the appearance of the palace, experts turned to traditional construction techniques. For example, they coated the roof with a layer of oil to make it waterproof. This technology has been used by Tibetans for centuries. However, even when using oil, roofs leaked during rainstorms when the compacted earth from which they were made began to dissolve. In the second stage, a special chemical was added to the compacted earth to prevent the roof from leaking water. Special attention devoted to wooden structures. They were treated with a substance that repels rats. But new technologies did no harm ancient design palace The purpose of the reconstruction was not to change the original appearance. Special measures were taken to preserve statues, manuscripts and other valuables. Huge statues in multi-layered robes, wooden frames, canvases and sheets of metal were taken out of the palace. During construction they were kept under the supervision of monks. Not a single one of the 100,000 pieces of art was damaged during the work. During the second phase of the project, which began in 2002, specialists abandoned the use of cement for the roof, instead using chemicals. Thus, they avoided the destruction of ancient structures.
The first buildings appeared here in the 7th century, but the Potala acquired its current appearance only in the 16th-17th centuries. The palace was built from 641 to the 17th century. In 1645, construction began on the first, lower part of the Potala - the White Palace (Potrang Karpo). The nine-story structure was completed 3 years later, and in 1649 the Fifth Dalai Lama moved from Drepung to his new residence.
White Palace was a place where courtiers previously lived, there were reception halls, storerooms, etc. They say that treasures, weapons, as well as sacred books and archives that Tibetan kings and Dalai Lamas have collected for centuries are kept here. However, this cannot be verified - tourists are only allowed into a few rooms. In addition, photography inside these premises is strictly prohibited.
The central part of the complex - Red Palace(Potrang Marpi) is red-brown, like the clothes of lamas. Here were the apartments of the Dalai Lama, the main Lamaist shrines, tombs (suburgans) of the Dalai Lamas, starting from the Fifth.
The circumstances of the construction of the larger, upper Red Palace remain the subject of controversy to this day. It is known for certain that the Fifth Dalai Lama died in 1682, and the fact of his death was hidden until the completion of the construction of the Red Palace in 1694, that is, for 12 years. According to some sources, the work was started by the regent who ruled Tibet from 1679 to 1703. According to other sources, the Red Palace was conceived by the Fifth Dalai Lama as a mausoleum, and by the time of his death work was already in full swing. In any case, the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama was not announced until his body was placed in the newly completed Red Palace.
There are also several opinions regarding the name of the palace. The most likely explanation is that it came from a Tibetan name adopted to designate Pure World Avalokiteshvara, also known as Potala. Taking into account the fact that both Songtsen Gampo and the Dalai Lama are considered the earthly incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, this explanation seems quite acceptable.
In total, both palaces have more than 1000 rooms and 13 floors. On the territory of the Potala, in Phakpa Lhakhang Temple there is a statue of Ariya Lokeshvara, sacred to Buddhists. The Dalai Lama’s personal monastery, religious school, monks’ cells, treasury and storage rooms are also located here.
Since its construction, the Potala has served as the home of each of the subsequent Dalai Lamas, although since it was built in the 18th century summer palace in Norbulingka, it began to serve only as a winter residence. The Potala also housed the Tibetan government, and with all the chapels, halls, philosophical and religious schools, and tombs of the Dalai Lamas, the palace was a world of its own. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama undertook some renovation work on the palace in the early 20th century, removing some sections of the White Palace in order to expand some of the cells.
The Potala also came under fire during the popular uprising against the Chinese in 1959. Fortunately, the damage was not significant either during the uprising or in the subsequent years of the Cultural Revolution.
For many years after the Chinese occupation, the palace was closed to the public, and only in 1980 it was reopened. In 1985, restoration work was completed, on which about $4 million was spent.
In 1645, the Potala Palace was rebuilt by the Fifth Dalai Lama. The reconstruction process lasted 50 years. After that, over the course of three hundred years, the palace was partially rebuilt and completed. The Potala Palace today has 9 tiers (although there are 13 in appearance) and rises 110 meters along the mountainside. This is a mixed structure made of stone and wood. The walls are built of granite. The greatest thickness of the walls is 5 meters. Molten Gougong was also poured into the front part of the walls to strengthen the structure and increase its resistance to earthquakes. At the same time, gold decorative details were made, which made it possible to ingeniously solve the lightning rod problem. Over hundreds of years, the Potala Palace has been tested by lightning, thunder and earthquakes. However, as before, it rises in all its glory. The Potala Palace consists of the White Palace (residence of the Dalai Lamas) flanked by a central Red Palace (Buddhist pavilions and halls of the Dalai Lamas) and the western white Buddhist halls. In front of the Red Palace rises the white Saifotai tower, where large thangkas hang - woven icons (or appliqués) with the image of Buddha. All the buildings of the Potala were erected in different periods, but during construction they cleverly used mountainous terrain and used excellent design solutions. The Potala Palace has reached a high aesthetic level. The Red Palace is the main object of the entire ensemble. It contains halls of Dalai Lamas of different generations and various memorial and prayer halls. Including the most famous hall with the stupa of the fifth generation Dalai Lama Losanjiatso. The stupa is almost 15 meters high. It has a square foundation and a round roof. The body of the stupa can be divided into three parts: the foundation, the body-“decanter” and the roof. The body of the fifth generation Dalai Lama, with incense and red flowers, was buried in a "decanter". The stupa is lined with 3724 kg. gold leaf and decorated with more than 15 thousand precious stones such as diamonds, rubies, emeralds, green jade, pearls, agates. Vessels for sacrifices are installed on the foundation of the stupa. The western hall is called Xiangtan. This is the largest hall in the palace of the fifth generation Dalai Lama. The roof of the structure is supported by 48 large wooden columns 6 meters high. During construction, the architects used an arched structure, which is often used in buildings of Han architecture. There are many wooden sculptures of Buddha, lions, elephants and various animals. During the reconstruction and expansion of the Potala Palace in the 17th century. Famous Tibetan masters have created tens of thousands of beautiful wall paintings, which are displayed in the halls and galleries. The content of the paintings is varied. They depict historical characters, plots of tales and legends, moments in the history of Buddhism, and also reflect everyday life, folk customs, sports entertainment and games. All these paintings are priceless works of art of the Potala Palace.
In addition, the Potala Palace contains tens of thousands of scroll paintings, samples of stone and wood carvings, clay sculptures, historical values, such as Beiejing (Buddhist canon on shells), as well as traditional art products such as Tibetan carpets, Jingfan (Canon on silk or wool), ceramics, porcelain, jade products, etc. They not only have high artistic value, but also reflect the ancient thousand-year history friendly contacts and cultural ties between the Han and Tibetans. Being the “pearl of the Roof of the World”, the Potala Palace is known throughout the world for its palace buildings, clay and wooden statues, metalwork, drawings and paintings, as well as various carvings. It showcases the finest techniques of Tibetan, Han, Mongolian and Manchu masters, as well as the magnificent achievements of Tibetan building art. In 1994, the Potala Palace was officially included in the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage List.
- priceless treasure Tibet, sami th tall ancientpalace in China, and throughout the world, whose height reaches 3,767 m (12,359 ft). It is located on Red Hill – Marpo Ri to the center e Lhasa – and historical capital of Tibet. The Potala gets its name from the holy mountain in South India in Sanskrit, “The Abode of Avalokiteshvara (Buddha of Mercy).”
The palace was built on the spot where the ruler of Tibet, Songtsen Gampo, used to meditate. The first structure was built here in 637. Later, he decides to make Lhasa the capital of Tibet and, as legend has it, in honor of his betrothal to Princess Wen Cheng of the Chinese Tang Dynasty (618 - 907) in the 7th century, Songtsen Gampo built a 9-story building - a palace with thousands of rooms.
Later, with the collapse of the Songtsen Gampa dynasty, the ancient palace was almost destroyed in wars. The image we see today is the architecture of the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911). The Potala Palace consists of 2 parts, the Red Palace - the center and the White Palace, located as two wings. 
Red Palace or Potrang Marpo- the highest part of the Palace, it is dedicated to teaching and religious Buddhist prayers.
As intended, it represents majesty and strength. The Red Palace consists of a complex arrangement of various halls, chapels and libraries on many levels with many small galleries and winding corridors: The Great West Hall, the Dharma Cave, the Saint's Chapel, the Tomb of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, etc.
The Great West Hall - the largest hall of the Potala Palace , with beautiful frescoes on its interior walls. Around it are three chapels, the chapels of the East, the chapels of the North, and also the chapels of the South. Dharma Cave and the Saint's Chapel are the only two surviving 7th-century structures with statues of Songtsen Gampa and Princess Wen Cheng inside.
White Palace or Potrang Karpo once served administrative building local government, as well as the residential premises of the Dalai Lama. Its walls are painted white to convey peace and quiet. The Great Hall of the East on the fourth floor was the site of special political and religious events.
The fifth and sixth floors are used as living quarters and offices for the regents while the seventh floor, the top one, is the living quarters of the Dalai Lama, consisting of two parts called the East Sunshine Chamber and the West Sunshine Chamber due to the abundance of sunlight.
The Potala Palace has other structures, including schools of Buddhist logic, seminaries, printing houses, gardens, courtyards and even prisons. For over 300 years, the palace has housed many cultural relics such as frescoes, stupas, statues, thangkas and rare sutras.
Potala Palace today
- the center of Tibetan religion, politics, history and art, and today - a large-scale museum of local history. It houses more than 2,500 square meters of frescoes, about 1,000 stupas, more than 10,000 sculptures and about 10,000 thangka paintings. The collection also includes paintings, wood carvings, classical scriptures, gold items, jade and local handicrafts that reflect the wisdom and intelligence of the Tibetans. Funeral stupas here are built to preserve the remains of the Dalai Lamas at the time of their death.
There are currently eight luxurious stupas, one for each Dalai Lama except the sixth, who was removed from that service. Funerary stupas differ in size, but have the same structure, consisting of an upper part, a body and a base. All stupas are decorated with gold and precious stones. The most majestic of all is the stupa of the fifth Dalai Lama.
It stands almost 15 meters (about 49 feet) high, and is decorated with 15,000 pearls, carnelian and precious stones. Murals in the corridors depict historical figures, religious legends, Buddhist stories, folk customs and architecture.
Tibet, Lhasa (which in Sanskrit means “land of the gods”), the ledge of the Marproi rock (“Red Hill”) - right here, above holy city, there is a palace called Potala. It was built specifically for the spiritual and political ruler of Tibet, the founder of Lamaism, the V Dalai Lama (1617 - 1682).
The palace building seems like an impregnable rock. It's hard to imagine, but this structure, which has more than 30 floors, was built in 1694, when high-rise buildings were not built. At one time, it was perhaps perceived in the same way as skyscrapers are today.
The Potala Palace, towering over the entire city, impresses with its appearance even a sophisticated person of the 21st century. The building on a rock ledge with countless windows carved into a snow-white wall creates a feeling of something majestic and almost fabulous.
Location of Potala Palace in Lhasa
Tibet is perhaps the most mysterious country on our planet. The policy of self-isolation used to be characteristic of many, but only Tibet embodies it to this day. This, of course, is facilitated by the unique geographical location. Large Tibetan cities are located at an altitude of more than 3,000 meters above sea level, and some at more than 4,000. Steep passes and thin air make travel to Tibet very difficult.
The city of Lhasa is built in a rarefied airspace, at an altitude of more than 3,650 meters. Until the Chinese occupation in 1951, monks made up the majority of the population here.
The main building of Tibet is the Potala Palace. This huge structure is clearly visible from afar from different points of the city and especially clearly from the top of the Chagpo Ri hill. While in Lhasa, you catch yourself thinking that it is impossible to take your eyes off this building. Potala is located at 3,700 meters above sea level, its height is 115 meters, total area more than 130,000 square meters. There is no exact data on how many rooms and halls there are in the Potala. Their number is “somewhere over a thousand,” as the guides say. Until now, no one has ever walked through all the rooms in this palace.
History of the Potala Palace in Lhasa
The name "Potala" comes from the Sanskrit word meaning "mountain of Buddha". On this site in the 7th century AD stood the palace of Songsten Gampu, dedicated to the Buddhist ruler of Tibet.
Centuries later, in 1645, the V Dalai Lama, also the ruler of Tibet, ordered the construction of a palace on the site of the destroyed residence. Construction began on the first, lower part of the Potala - the Palace (Potrang Karpo). The nine-story structure of the upper part was completed 3 years later. In 1649, the Fifth Dalai Lama moved from Drepung to his new residence.
The circumstances of the construction of the upper Palace (Potrang Marpi), the second, larger building, remain the subject of much controversy to this day. When the Dalai Lama died in 1682, construction was not yet completed. The death of the Dalai Lama was kept silent until 1694, when the palace was finally built. According to some sources, the Red Palace was conceived as a mausoleum.
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama at the beginning of the 20th century undertook some renovation work, removing some sections of the White Palace in order to expand some of the chapels. Until the 50s of the 20th century, the palace remained the seat of the Tibetan government.
The Potala came under fire during the popular uprising against the Chinese in 1959. Luckily, the damage was minor both during the uprising and in the subsequent years of the Cultural Revolution.
The palace remained the winter residence of the Dalai Lamas until 1959, when the current Dalai Lama XIV emigrated to. For many years after the Chinese occupation, the palace was closed to the public, and only in 1980 it was reopened. In 1985, the last restoration work was completed, on which about $4 million was spent.
Features of the Potala Palace in Lhasa
The palace was built from earth, stone and wood using the most basic means. People delivered all building materials on themselves or on donkeys. It is not difficult to guess that the work was extremely difficult.
To get inside the palace, which is shaped like a truncated pyramid or trapezoid, you need to walk through a wide area located on all sides of the building. Only after passing through them can you approach the slope, along the entire surface of which are scattered many zigzag stairs connecting all parts of the palace.
The Potala Palace is divided into two parts - Pozhangabo and Pozhangmabo (Red and White Palace). Pozhangabo is the place where the personal chambers of the Dalai Lama are located and solemn ritual ceremonies are held. Pozhanmabo is the abode of monks and servants. There are Buddhist halls and funeral pagodas-stupas located here.
In the main part of the building, government premises, rooms for the staff, consisting exclusively of monks, and a monastic school were built. Previously, there were also meditation rooms, libraries, armories, granaries, storerooms, torture chambers and a punishment cell.
Inside the building there are more than 1,000 different rooms, where 10,000 shrines and at least 20,000 statues are hidden. Numerous chapels and sanctuaries are filled with statues, silk-embroidered paintings, incense vessels and other ritual objects. The gold-covered roofs of the palace, granite walls, elegant cornices with gilded decorations give architectural ensemble splendor and grandeur.
One of the main attractions of the palace is the many frescoes depicting various everyday and ritual scenes. Some of the frescoes were not available for public viewing for a long time. Only in the late 90s they were hung in the halls, and now they can be seen by all pilgrims and tourists who come to the Potala.
Many of the frescoes depict the twelve-armed god Avalokitersvara and his wife goddess Tara. The fact is that these deities are considered the main patrons of Tibet. Tibetan craftsmen used agate, amber, gold and silver powder to make these frescoes.
On the roof of the Red Palace are the main shrines of the palace - tombs, which are richly decorated with gold and precious stones. The tallest tomb belongs to the 18th Dalai Lama, who died in 1933. It reaches a height of 10 meters and is richly decorated with bas-reliefs depicting figures of Lamaism. The Dalai Lama's sarcophagus is made of silver.
The oldest part of the palace is the lower room, made of rough and unhewn stone. In the center of the room there is a hill with a sacred casket (“chorten”) placed on it. It is this room that thousands of pilgrims who come to the Potala Palace strive for.
The sacred building of the Potala is visited every year by a great number of pilgrims and tourists. The premises of the palace are open to everyone. It’s true that you won’t be able to see the entire palace - the Potala is open only 2 days a week and only 2 hours a day.
Lhasa translated from Tibetan means “Land of the Gods” and here you can really feel the presence of the divine everywhere.
When you come to Lhasa, especially on your first trip to Tibet, the first thing you notice is the Potala Palace (Tib.: པོ་ཏ་ལ potala, Chinese: 布达拉宫 budalagong), rising on Mount Marpo Ri in the center of the city , which for many centuries was the winter residence of the Dalam Lamas. The palace is named after Mount Potalaka, the mythical habitat of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, whose living embodiment is the Dalai Lama.
Construction of the Potala began in 637 by the king of Tibet, Songtsen Gampo. However, after a fire and internecine wars, the palace was completely destroyed and acquired its present appearance already under the fifth Dalai Lama in the mid-17th century.
In 1645, the Fifth Dalai Lama ordered the construction of the White Palace to begin. Three years later, in 1649, the 9-story structure was completed, and the Dalai Lama moved into it from Drepung Monastery. Subsequently, construction began on the Red Palace, which was erected by 1694. An interesting fact, which is still the cause of various disputes and disagreements, is that until the completion of the palace, the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama was hidden from the people. According to data, the Fifth Dalai Lama died in 1682, but this news was kept in deep secret. There are many opinions about the reasons for concealing the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama. One version says that death was hidden from the people in order to complete the construction of the Red Palace. After all, the people building the palace were inspired by the deepest faith and respect for the Fifth Dalai Lama. The news of his death could stop the construction of the Palace, so his death was hidden for 12 years until the construction of the palace was completed.
The Potala consists of 13 floors with a total height of 118 meters. Inside there are one thousand rooms containing more than one hundred thousand altars and two hundred thousand Buddhist statues and images. Particular attention is paid to the stupas, which house the relics of the Fifth and Thirteenth Dalai Lamas. Currently, the Potala attracts thousands of Buddhist pilgrims. They walk kora (ritual walks) around the Palace, recite mantras and prayers, and make prostrations.
Opposite the Potala rises Mount Chakpo Ri. In the 15th century, a medical college was located on this mountain, which, unfortunately, was destroyed in 1959. Now Chakpo Ri attracts pilgrims and tourists with its rock paintings. Many of them have survived since the time of King Songtsen Gampo (7th century).
I want to return to this place of power again and again, to deeply breathe in this rarefied air with the aromas of incense, yak oil and crystal freshness, to slowly make kora around the Potala, absorbing its history and wisdom.
The structure, 320 m long and 110 m high, around which eagles soar, is divided into the White and Red Palaces. The white Potala Palace with a defensible plinth in its current form arose under the 5th Dalai Lama starting in 1645 with the participation of a large number of serf workers. Almost nothing remains of the more ancient fortress that existed on this mountain since the time of Songtsen Gampo (7th century) - although legend says that the relics of that time are the meditation cave (see below) and the Phagpa Hall. The White Palace contains rooms that serve purely practical functions, including sleeping quarters, study rooms and an audience hall for the Dalai Lama. In addition, there is a monastery route, administrative premises and warehouses. The most important shrines are located in the Red Palace, built under the regent of the 6th Dalai Lama until 1694. Since then, the appearance of the Potala has remained almost unchanged.
Inspection
The main entrance to the Potala Palace, through which pilgrims proceed, leads up the side of the fortress mountain (the so-called Red Mountain) that faces the Old City, to the eastern part of the White Palace. Tourists on a booked program are taken along a road from the west to the north side of the Red Palace to enter the inner sanctum through the back door, so to speak. From there one follows a viewing route leading to all the important rooms with an unusually large number of magnificent objects of art.
Great West Hall
The center of the Red Palace is the Great Western Hall, the enthronement hall. Its walls are decorated with paintings depicting episodes from the lives of the Dalai Lamas, Tibetan kings and incarnations of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. The four rooms surrounding the western hall can, based on their religious meaning, be considered as the history of Tibetan Buddhism: the Padmasambhava hall tells the story of its origins; it is dedicated to that Indian saint who arrived in Tibet in the 8th century and subdued the demons local religion and instructed them from now on to stand guard over Buddhism. The next room is the hall of the reformer Tsongkhapa, whose heir later became the 1st Dalai Lama. The third room is dedicated to him and his four subsequent incarnations. The fourth contains tomb stupas with the bodies of the 5th, 10th and 12th Dalai Lamas. We are talking about 14-meter high, lavishly gilded and bejeweled pagodas with relics. The central stupa of the 5th Dalai Lama is the most luxurious decoration of the Potala. In similar caskets in the Red Palace lie the mortal shells of eight Tibetan priest-kings. From the outside, their exact location is shown by the gilded roofs of the Red Palace.
Top floor
The stairs in the northeast of the western hall lead through an intermediate floor with wall paintings that, among other things, depict the construction of the Potala, to reach the upper floor with other significant halls and remarkable images. Here in the northeast corner is also the meditation hall of King Songtsen Gampo. This room with models of rocks, designed like a grotto, dates back to the founding of Lhasa and the origins of the Potala Palace, as well as Tibetan Buddhism in general. Plastically, the king is depicted between the thirty-eight-armed Avalokiteshvara and the 5th Dalai Lama; further on you can see statues of the wives of Songtsen Gampo, Padmasambhava and other persons.
Phagpa Hall
A circular corridor leads further to the hall of peaceful and wrathful gods, as well as two halls full of many valuable metal sacrificial gifts. Above them is the Phagpa Hall. At the left entrance there are footprints and handprints allegedly left by Padmasambhava, Tsongkhapa and the 12th Dalai Lama. The main statues in the room are three sandalwood statues of Avalokiteshvara, which supposedly emerged as natural formations from a split tree trunk; Therefore, believers see in these figures a manifestation of the otherworldly, and the veneration shown to them is correspondingly great.
Stupa of the 13th Dalai Lama and private quarters
If you go to the left, you can reach the tomb stupa of the 13th Dalai Lama, who died in 1933. Next are the private chambers of the 6th Dalai Lama, a life-loving man who disobeyed monastic vows and was later allegedly assassinated. Amitayus, the Buddha of Longevity, is today venerated in this room. The staircase leads to the attic floor with the Maitreya Hall, in which stands the throne of the 8th Dalai Lama. Opens from the roof platform beautiful view to the city. Next, a circular corridor leads to the private chambers of the 13th and 14th (current) Dalai Lama. Since the latter fled Tibet in 1959, the premises allocated to him have practically retained their original appearance. Through the courtyard and extremely luxurious portals you can go up the stairs on the south side of the palace and go down into the city. Opening hours: daily. 9.30-12.00, 15.00-17.00.
