5/27/24: Lhasa's Drepung Monastery, Making Incense, & Monks Debate!

As Steven and I began our second and last full day in Lhasa, Tibet accompanied by our Tibetan guide, Migma, and a Chinese driver whose name we never knew, we passed the first stupa that had been built to enter the city. 

Migma mentioned that to buy gas in the city or elsewhere in Tibet, the driver must register his driver's license and ID card. There were no self-serve gas stations as you can likely guess. Gas prices have increased more than fourfold since Migma began his guiding career in 2006.

He advised us that cameras are present in all cars to transmit what's being said and, if the driver were to fall asleep, he would be called by the police. It was a case of Big Brother like we'd never heard of before!

Police guarded the entrance to Drepang Monastery, our first stop of the day. As was the case the day before, Migma had to present our passports, our tour permit, and his agency's credentials before we could proceed. The monastery, located about eight km west of Lhasa’s Old Town, was established in 1416 by Jamyang Choje, the disciple of Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug or Yellow Hat sect of Buddhism. It is one of the three main monasteries of Yellow Hats: the others were Sera which we would visit later that day in Lhasa, and Ganden located 40km away.

When Buddhism was thriving in Tibet, I read that up to ten thousand monks were living at Drepung, the largest monastery in Tibet. Only three hundred have remained since the Cultural Revolution and the Chinese crackdown on religion as the monks were perceived to foment rebellion. Another factor in the much smaller number of monks was that it is more stringent now to become a monk, and perhaps more importantly, permission must be granted by the police. Monks are seen as sowing division among the people so it is in the state's interest to keep the numbers of monks low.  Before the construction of the Potala Palace was completed by the fifth Dalai Lama, Drepung Monastery was the residence of the Dalai Lamas.

Drepung which means Rice Heap Monastery was surrounded by beautiful parkland at the base of Mount Gephel. 'Rice Heap' was a reference to the white buildings that dotted the hillside further up the mountain. 

One source I read indicated that since the 1950s when Tibet lost its autonomy from China, Drepung Monastery, and its peers Ganden and Sera, have lost much of their independence and spiritual credibility in the eyes of Tibetans since they now operate under the close watch of the Chinese security services. 

The letters signified the six mantras of compassion with the different colors representing the elements of fire, air, water, earth, and metals, according to Migma.

I hate to think how disabled pilgrims or tourists can tour either Potala Palace where we had been previously or Drepung as both require a long hike up uneven terrain including steps.

Inside the ochre-colored building was a large prayer wheel turned by water.

The Yellow Hats' founder, Jamyang Choeje:

In the distance were ruins from many of the monastery's buildings and monuments that were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

Drepung was an important educational center with four colleges. Along with Sera and Ganden monasteries, Drepung functioned as one of the three 'pillars of the Tibetan state.' Though it’s a shadow of its former self with its drastically reduced population of monks, Drepung has continued its tradition in exile with campuses in southern India given to the Tibetan community in exile by Prime Minister Nehru. The monastery in India today houses over 5,000 monks at two different locations. Hundreds of new monks are admitted each year, many of them refugees from Tibet.

Little wonder that Steven needed to take a breather before reaching the top of the steps as Lhasa's altitude was about 12,000 feet and we were several hundred feet above that already!

 A look back to where we'd come: 

The monastery map illustrates just how vast Drepung is!

Our first view of the monastery was of Gaden Podrang or the Main Assembly Hall which served as the home of the early Dalai Lamas. Drepung was known for the high standards of its academic study and was called the Nalanda of Tibet, the great Buddhist monastic university of India. 

Note the women wore the 'apron' covering their skirts as I also mentioned in the previous post. 

Not that we were counting but the elevation in the monastery courtyard was 3,839 meters, close to 12,600 feet, at this spot!

Pictures inside the monastery were again not allowed, much to my dismay. I observed offerings of Coke, cans of beer, and juices in front of the wrathful guardian figures but water only in front of the Yellow Hat Buddha. Migma explained that 98% of Tibetans are Buddhists but they don't differentiate among the four Buddhist sects. Unlike Christians or Muslims who pay homage on special religious holidays, Tibetans go to the monasteries when they have time off.

Monks'dormitories:

Normally in Tibet, monasteries are located atop hills or mountains so that monks are removed from lay people and can meditate or pray with fewer distractions. 

I asked one of the monks if I could please take the following two pictures and he kindly agreed. Too bad I hadn't tried that at Potala the day before! I loved the first image because of its vibrant colors, and the second showed religious texts or scriptures covered in cloth to preserve them because so many were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. 

One of the most special days to visit Drepung is in August during the Shoton Festival or Yogurt Festival. Monks of Drepung then display a monumental thangka to give blessings to all visitors. Thangka is a type of vertical Buddhist art painted on silk or cotton scrolls that originated in Tibet in the 11th century. It's often used as a teaching and meditation tool. Migma added that during the festival, Tibetans visit Drepung early in the morning to walk underneath the Thangka like the one in the center below. It's a very popular family celebration.

There were far more steps to reach Tsokchen Temple or the Main Assembly Hall next. As the name implies, it was the largest building in the entire monastery. 

I wish I'd asked Migma why these particular scriptures were used in May when meat wasn't eaten. 

In front of Tsokchen:

If you click on the picture to make it bigger, you'll get a better look on the left of the Lhasa River which flows into the Indian Ocean. 

I so admired the colorful, Buddhist door thingamajig I bought a couple the following day in Lhasa' Old Town.

I think these were the only times I saw a monk outside the monastery walls so I was happy that I was able to capture the moments before they waked out of my frame.

Our final image of Drepung:

Elaborate, fanciful gates were commonplace in Lhasa. I don't think I'm being too sinister to wonder if the Chinese government used them or might use them to control the flow of traffic in times of civil unrest.

When I looked for the photo on Google Lens, I learned the Golden Yak Monument was erected in 1991 by the Chinese government to celebrate Tibet's "independence."

On the way back from Drepung, Migma pointed out the Memorial Pillar of the Liberation Army, i.e. when again China was seen as 'liberating' Tibet.

The Muslim Gate heralded the entrance to Lhasa's Muslim quarter. 

Lhasa's Muslim Quarter was centered around Da Qingzhen Si or the Great Mosque, the spiritual focal point of the city's Muslim community. As I had no information about the distinctive area in the guidebook, I read online that the area was originally intended for immigrants from Kashmir and Ladakh. The community's origins in Tibet date to at least the 14th century. The quarter is home to Hui Muslim residents.

The mosque was built in 1716 by Kashmir traders and expanded in 1793. However, the mosque has been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times, and very little of the original structure remains. During the Cultural Revolution, it was used as a committee office and agricultural cooperative site, and in 2008 it was burned during a period of huge unrest throughout Lhasa and the rest of the region. 

When Steven and I planned our trip to Tibet, one of the things we wanted to include was a visit to a handicraft school we'd read about. We got some pushback from the travel agency, however, saying there wouldn't be time, they don't take people there, etc, but we insisted. When we found out it was located in the Muslim Quarter, we were happy we hadn't backed down as it allowed us to explore an area I'm pretty sure we wouldn't have seen otherwise. 

The 'Handicraft School' consisted of a couple of rooms three floors above the Chag Tsel Bookstore in a narrow alley off the main square. There was no advertising as it opened just a year ago for tourists in its current location.

We were welcomed with copious amounts of steaming black tea and were encouraged to drink the black tea more as Lhasa’s air was so thin and the sun was scorching. The instructor advised us we'd be making cone-shaped incense but that Tibet is also known for its spiral and stick incense. He told us we needed to sit behind and in the shade of the incense to benefit from its aroma. Cone-shaped incense has a sharp tip to light easily and, if made well, doesn't roll around because of its flat base. Stick incense doesn't travel well because it's very fragile and breaks easily.

Tibetan incense is made for medicinal purposes, to maintain the bodily flow of energy, and the three principles of harmony: wind, bile, and phlegm. He said we need that balance to be healthy. He stressed that Tibetan medicine is all about maintaining that harmony and that everything in the universe is made out of five proto elements. Furthermore, all originate from the four medical Tantras that came from the weighty 11th-century tome that doctors and 'medical Buddhas' adhere to. Acupuncture, cup oil treatments, the use of herbs, and medical instruments depicted in the ancient medical text are still very popular today in Tibet. 

In China, and other Southeast Asian countries including India, incense is normally wrapped around a bamboo core but that's not the case in Tibet. Incense was used one hundred years ago to measure the passage of time because different types of incense burn at different rates of time. Incense was used in Vedda Hindu scriptures before being adopted in China and Tibet. Tibetan incense is also made in Bhutan and in the Himalayas. There are two base ingredients: the bowl on the left had tree bark powder from aspen trees; and the bowl on the right contained fuel-dried wood powder from the cypress tree. The former acts as a glue and is used in all incense. Two other bowls contain aromas for the incense but he stressed that no sandalwood, myrrh, or frankincense is used in Tibetan incense. 

All four ingredients were put into a bowl in front of me where I mixed them thoroughly, added a tiny bit of water, kneaded the mixture into small pieces, and then attempted to mold them into cone shapes. The key was the correct amount of water to make it stick together but not be mushy. The teacher told us that the incense would take 24 hours to dry unless too much water was put in. 

Making the incense was like a trip down memory lane making mud pies as a young child back in my hometown of Ottawa!

Wahoo, my finished cone-shaped incense - it was great fun learning all about incense and trying to make it, although sadly it got all moldy before we got home and had to be thrown out.

He then showed us a panel of different calligraphic scripts that came from Brahmi (sp?) scripts which were very similar to Sanskrit scripts. There are thirty letters and four vowels in the Tibetan language which the children learn by singing a song akin to the ABC song. There are an amazing eight different script styles in the Tibetan language - imagine having to learn so many! Luckily, there are 'just' four main ones. 

The top one on the board, ochen style, was created in the 9th century and is characterized by heavy horizontal lines. It's mostly used by scholars to record religious documents. It's considered a lost art for newer generations as it's so tough to learn, no one cares about it.  The next one on the board, ome headless, is more like cursive and is used in day-to-day lines for daily correspondence. The third one, tsungmag, is the artistic one, and the fourth, queak, is for fast letters or shorthand as it's highly abbreviated. 

Children in public schools must learn to write and speak Mandarin Chinese and also speak it at home and in public, according to him. As you might imagine, it's very discouraging that the Tibetan language is not taught in school as it's very hard to keep the language alive. Most of the classes in school are taught in Chinese with only one or two taught in Tibetan. 

In an adjacent room, we spoke with a calligrapher who's employed by a coffee shop owner but loves to share his expertise with others. He orders handmade paper from China for his work as Tibetan paper is thinner and far more expensive. 

His four writings on the wall demonstrated the four scripts we'd just learned about. Different brushes are used based on the script style or the font. They were like works of art but were just his own hobby!

It was Steven's turn to take a crack at learning to write the well-loved Buddhist mantra that children learn as soon as they begin to talk: om mani pad me om commonly translated as “The jewel is in the lotus.” It's at the heart of many Buddhist traditions because every one of the Buddha's teachings is believed to reside within this one powerful mantra.

I'm proud to say that Steven did a far more masterful job writing the mantra than I did trying to create the incense! The instructor kept saying "Good job," and deservedly so. He generously gifted Steven with a calligraphic pen so he could continue practicing his writing. The instructor kindly penned 'Good Health' in Tibetan cursive for me and signed and dated it.

Our experience at the school was such a joyful one, and it was so unlike what we normally do. We wouldn't have missed it for the world.

Steven and I then toured more of the intriguing Muslim Quarter with Migma including stopping at Dropenling, an impressive nonprofit arts and crafts store. Since Steven and I returned to the shop and the quarter the following day by ourselves, I'll leave the pictures I took until the next post.

As we drove to Sera Monstery, our last stop of the day and of our Lhasa tour, I asked Migma about the constant but intermittent flashing light at intersections. He said it was due to photo radar and picked up when drivers weren't wearing seatbelts, parked on the wrong side of the street, or ran red lights. He added it was just starting to be required for motorcycle riders to wear helmets. If there was an infraction for any of these rules, the offender would immediately be ticketed and notified by phone!

Ahead on the hill was Sera Monastery's meditation center for monks. The monastery, one of the largest and oldest in Lhasa, stands at the base of Pubuchok Mountain about thirty miles north of Lhasa. Like Drepung and Ganden monasteries, Sera adheres to the Gelug sect or Yellow Hat type of Buddhism. Sera's name comes from the wild blooming flowers similar to roses that grow on the mountain behind the monastery.

Shops selling snacks, drinks, and souvenirs greeted us before we reached the monastery.

No wonder Steven needed more oxygen as Sera, was located at an altitude of almost 14,000 feet, making it one of the highest monasteries in the Himalayas!

Atop the entrance gate were two golden deer with the Wheel of Dharma. For Buddhists, the word means, "the doctrine, the universal truth common to all individuals at all times, proclaimed by the Buddha." When Migma mentioned the word dharma, the hilarious American sitcom Dharma and Greg which ran for five years immediately came to mind. Sorry for being irreverent!

Worshipped not just as one of the six main Gelug monasteries of Tibet Buddhism, Sera Monastery has assumed another responsibility of cultivating eminent monks by serving as a religious education institution. Like Drepung, Sera Monastery was originally built by Jamchen Chojey, a disciple of Tsongkhapa in 1419.

Before the Cultural Revolution, there were five colleges with more than 5,000 monks living and studying at Sera Monastery. During the upheaval, the colleges were damaged and ancient texts and some artwork were destroyed. Even though only a few hundred monks live there now, it is still considered one of the most important monastic centers. The complex includes the only printing press using modern printing techniques in Tibetan Buddhist temples. There are just three colleges at Sera in addition to the monks’ quarters below.  

Unlike the other monasteries we'd toured, there were not countless, almost impossibly steep stairways to climb, serene chapels with monks praying, stunning images of Buddha to admire, and long lines of tourists to contend with. At Sera, there was a tree-lined, cobblestoned path with the traditional, white Buddhist buildings on either side. 

The largest and most impressive building in the complex was the four-story Tsokchen or the Assembly Hall which was constructed around 1710. Migma hadn't brought us to tour it or any of the other buildings in the complex, however, unlike our visits to Potala Palace, Jokhang, or Drepung monasteries. Instead, we’d come to watch the monks debate!

Monk debate is a form of discussion of Buddhist knowledge which originates from India. Monks of the Gelug order believe that together with studying the texts, it is equally important to practice what they’ve learned. At Sera, they gather in the courtyard to ask each other questions about religious topics to ensure that they understand their Buddhist teachings well by debating.  

Ahead was Sera Monastery's cobble-stoned debating courtyard where monk debates are held everyday afternoon from 3pm to 5pm except Sundays. Because the monk debates at Sera are the largest scale among Tibetan monasteries, our tour agency had strongly encouraged us to include the activity in our Lhasa itinerary. Were we glad we agreed, too!

Well before arriving, we could hear monks debating ardently with hands clapping as we approached the debating area. 

We’d arrived too late to see that before debating began, the monks had been divided into two pairs of monks of equal rank. Migma said the training monks all came from the Lhasa area and their average age was 25. The monks standing were the questioners and those sitting were the defenders. The debate among monks is held in the presence of their teachers, with a very defined set of rules of procedure for the defender and the questioners.

Credit to Tibet Visa/Tibet Travel for their excellent explanation of monk debates for the following info: 

The questioner has to succinctly present his case related to Buddhist topics and the defender has to answer within a fixed time frame. In the limited time, the defender should prove his point of view on the subject proposed for debate. If the defender fails to reply within a time frame, an expression of derision will be witnessed. During the debating sessions, no role for an adjudicator is set. When there is an obvious contradiction on the defender’s part, the outcome will be formally decided.

We watched monks debating vigorously by employing dramatic gestures, with each gesture having a different meaning with some gestures thought to have symbolic value. The following day, the pair of monks would switch places so the questioner would become the defender and vice versa. I wonder how that mixed things up!

Migma explained that if the answer was correct, the questioner would pull his Buddha beads - think of a rosary - from his wrist toward his shoulder and stamp his feet on the ground. Laziness, anger, desire, and bad thoughts go away when they stomp on the ground. If the answer was wrong, the questioner would clap upside down repeatedly! The monks could be enlightened, according to Migma, when they purify their bad thoughts. 

Lest you think the debate was all about intimidation, there were lots of smiles, laughter, and joviality going on side by side with plenty of consternation for those poor souls who didn't know the answer!

After a bit, I wandered around to gain another view of the action. Migma told me the senior monks used to rest here.

The clapping of hands also meant that the questioners were about to ask a question or urge the defenders to answer the question quickly. We noticed the defenders occasionally touch their Buddha beads for inspiration from the Buddha. The questioners certainly weren't above screaming loudly to unnerve the defender!

Although the monks have gotten used to onlookers, visitors were encouraged to be self-disciplined and not speak loudly. 

Even though we didn’t know Tibetan, the whole experience was anything but boring. Aggressive momentum and dramatic gestures were engaging enough to enthrall us. The experience was hugely fun and entertaining to watch, like a delightful trip to the theater but with far more animation! 

Shots of our nighttime stroll around Barkhor Square and nearby: 

Barkhor's Jokhang Temple at night:

Next post: Walking the Barkhor Pilgrim's Circuit.

Posted on August 25th, 2024 from our home as we're getting ready to fly away again in a couple of weeks for another, almost two-month-long trip, lucky us. I feel like I've hardly the time to catch my breath from our Asia trip but am still so excited to hit the road again. Please take care of yourself and your loved ones, and stay safe.