Stephen's Almost Daily PicBlog
Keeping the Flame Alive
Posted by Stephen Skok (ASCOT VALE, Australia) on 25 July 2008 in Lifestyle & Culture and Portfolio.
One of the many yak butter 'lamps' kept alight by the steady procession pilgrims at the Drepung Monastery. It's located on the Gambo Utse mountain, around 8 klms west of Lhasa, Tibet
According to Wikipedia, Drepung Monastery is one of the 3 great Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet. The other 2 are Ganden and Sera. Drepung is the largest of all Tibetan monasteries and at its peak was the largest monastery of any religion in the world. It was founded in 1416 by Jamyang Chojey, a direct disciple of Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelukpa school. At its largest, before the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1959, the monastery housed fifteen thousand celibate monks.
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