the Potala Palace

Potala Palace (hereinafter referred to as "bugong"), the highest and most magnificent palace in the world, is the most important symbol of Lhasa and even Tibet. It was originally built by Zanpu Songzanganbu of Tubo Dynasty to marry Princess Chizun and Princess Wencheng. After more than 1300 years of continuous construction, it has such a magnificent appearance.

The bugong is mainly composed of the Red Palace and the White House. The highest Red Palace in the middle is an important place for religious ceremonies. The white house around it is mainly a place for the Dalai Lama's life and political activities. There are also some ancillary buildings, including the snow city at the foot of the mountain and the Zongjiao Lukang park at the back.

The tour route of Potala Palace is fixed, and you can only follow the guide sign of the tour route. Open palaces are constantly changing, but the most important palaces are open almost every day.

Snow city: "Snow", meaning below. Snow city is the general name of the buildings under the cloth palace. Here, you can see the office space set up by the former Lord, the institutions providing living services for the rulers, the houses of monks, nobles, officials, and the residences of low-level staff, craftsmen, and serfs.

Treasure Museum: Treasure museum is in the snow city. Under the appearance of typical Tibetan architecture, it is a modern museum, displaying many cultural relics and treasures related to Tibetan culture, history and art. It takes at least half an hour to visit the museum carefully. If you want to visit it, it is recommended to enter the gate of bugong 2 hours in advance.

Jinding group: Jinding group is a building group composed of the Jinding of Dalai Lama's pagoda hall. Here, you can not only enjoy all kinds of exquisite Jinding from a close distance, but also have a panoramic view of the ancient city. You might as well take a picture with the most Tibetan characteristics here.

the Potala Palace

Potala Palace (Tibetan: པོ་໫་?) is located on the mabri mountain in the northwest of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region of China. It is the world's highest elevation grand building integrating palaces, castles and temples. It is also the largest and most complete ancient palace building group in Tibet.

The Potala Palace is built on the hill and the buildings are overlapping. It is an outstanding representative of the Tibetan ancient architecture. It is said to originate from the szzzi Zong Bao. The essence of the ancient Chinese architecture is the fifth landscape pattern of 50 yuan notes.

. The main building is divided into two parts: the White House and the Red Palace. The main building is 117 meters high

There are 13 layers on the outside and 9 layers on the inside. In front of the Potala Palace is the Potala Palace Square, which is the highest city square in the world.

Potala Palace was originally built by Zanpu Songzanganbu of Tubo Dynasty to marry Princess Chizun and Princess Wencheng. In 1645 (the second year of Shunzhi reign of the Qing Dynasty), Gushi Khan, the protector of the Dharma, and sonan Qunpei, the Regent of the Gelug Sect, rebuilt the Potala Palace. After that, they became the residence of the winter palace of the Dalai Lama, the place where major religious and political ceremonies were held, and also the place where the pagoda of the Dalai Lama was worshipped. In the old days, they were the ruling center together with the Yamen of the ministers stationed in Tibet. From 1988 to 1994, it was repaired again on a large scale.

Potala Palace is the holy land of Tibetan Buddhism (Gelug Sect), where there are countless pilgrims and tourists every year. In March 1961, the State Council listed it as one of the first batch of national key cultural relics protection units; in December 1994, UNESCO listed it as a world cultural heritage; in January 2013, the National Tourism Administration listed it as a national AAAAA tourist attraction. From November 1, 2018 to March 15, 2019, the Potala Palace is free of charge.

According to the needs of prevention and control of pneumonia caused by New Coronavirus infection, the Potala Palace has been closed since January 27, 2020, in order to avoid cross infection caused by staff aggregation.

On March 1, the Potala Palace was opened for the first time.

Historical evolution

"Potala" is a Sanskrit translation, which originally means "holy land of Buddhism".

The basic features of the Potala Palace are mainly the white house rebuilt by Gushi Khan and the fifth Dalai Lama in the 17th century and the red palace built after their passing away. "Since then, successive Dalai Lamas have expanded one after another, eventually forming the scale of the Potala Palace today." In the old days, it was the ruling center together with the Yamen of the minister stationed in Tibet (gaxia was the executive organ).

During the Tubo Dynasty:

Potala Palace was built in the 7th century A.D. during the reign of Songzanganbu, king of Tibet in Tubo Dynasty, with a history of 1300 years.

At the beginning of the 7th century, after Songzanganbu moved its capital to Lhasa, in order to marry Princess Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty, three nine storey buildings with a total of 1000 palaces were built on the red mountain, named Potala Palace. According to historical records, there are three besieged cities inside and outside the red mountain. There is a silver and copper bridge between Songzanganbu and Princess Wencheng's palace. Outside the east gate of Potala Palace, there is a racecourse in Songzanganbu. When the Tubo Dynasty established by Songzanganbu was destroyed, most of the Potala Palace was destroyed by war.

In 631 ad (the year of the Tibetan iron rabbit), the Potala Palace was built by Songzanganbu, Tubo. At that time, there were 999 palaces and 1000 monasteries on the mountain, which were seriously damaged by lightning and war.

After the fall of the Tubo Dynasty, most of the ancient palaces were destroyed by war. Coupled with natural disasters such as lightning strikes, the scale of Potala Palace became smaller and smaller, and even was once incorporated into the Jokhang Temple as its branch for management. Today's Potala Palace only has the then Fawang cave and pabalakang.

Heshuote Khanate period:

At the end of Ming Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty's vassal state Heshuote Khanate (1637-1641 ruled Qinghai, 1642-1717 further ruled Tibet) began a new period. Gushi Khan, the protector of the Dharma, helped suonan Qunpei, the Gelug regent, and the fifth Dalai Lama and his master, the fourth Panchen Lama, to establish the Gelug government or sub regime. They formed four giants, among which Gushi Khan and suonan Qunpei were called the sun and moon in the sky It's a powerful person.

In 1645 (the year of Muji in Tibetan calendar), Gushi Khan (the supreme ruler of Qinghai Tibet plateau at that time) and suonan Qunpei, the Regent of Gelug Sect, consolidated the political and religious government of Heshuote Khanate and the Dalai Lama system at that time (among them, the gandanpozhang government stage was the government of zhebong temple, which existed before the completion of the new bugong, and later became the government of Potala Palace, and the dynasty was the one) He Shuo te Dynasty), reconstruction of Potala Palace. In 1690 (the year of the iron horse in the Tibetan calendar), sangjiejiacuo built a pagoda for the fifth Dalai Lama and expanded the "Red Palace". In 1693, the project was completed. Since then, the Dalai Lamas have built five additional golden roofs and some ancillary buildings. In particular, after the completion of the 13th Dalai Lama's pagoda hall in 1936 (the year of the Tibetan fire rat), the Potala Palace became the scale of today.

After the end of the Tubo dynasty founded by Songzanganbu, most of the ancient palaces were destroyed by war. In 1645, the Potala Palace was rebuilt.

Dalai Lama's addition in the past dynasties

Since then, Dalai Lamas have successively built the Potala Palace, which has a later scale.

Since then, Dalai Lamas have successively expanded the Potala Palace, so it has today's scale. The unique Potala Palace is also sacred. Because in today's China, whenever it is mentioned, it will naturally be associated with Tibet. As if in people's hearts, this ancient building group, which condenses the wisdom of Tibetan working people and witnesses the cultural exchanges between Han and Tibetan, has become the symbol of Tibetan nation absolutely with its magnificent posture and the status of Tibetan Buddhism holy land.

In 1690, under the leadership of di basangjiejiacuo, the red hall V Dalai stupa was modified and completed in 1693. Later, he went through the expansion of the Dalai Lama. Over the past 300 years, the Potala Palace has collected and preserved a large number of historical relics. Among them, there are more than 2500 square meters of murals, nearly a thousand pagodas, tens of thousands of statues, tens of thousands of thangkas; there are also precious scriptures and classics such as the Beiye Sutra and the Ganzhuer Sutra; the Ming and Qing emperors, who showed the relationship between the Tibetan local government and the central government in history, granted the Dalai Lama gold books, gold seals, jade seals, as well as a large number of gold and silver products, porcelain, enamel ware, jade ware, brocade forging products and craft treasures, These cultural relics are colorful and rich in themes.

The 13th Dalai Lama's stupa hall is the latest building of the Potala Palace. It was started in 1933 and completed in 1933. In addition, there are Shangshi hall, Puxian follow hall, Xiangtong hall, Shilun hall, Sakyamuni Nengren hall, Sakyamuni Baixing hall, Huashi hall, Bodhi daoci hall, Zhiming hall, hereditary hall, etc.

In August 2015, Tibet passed the regulations of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the protection and administration of the cultural heritage of the Potala Palace. As a world cultural heritage, the Potala Palace will be further protected.

In 2016, according to the application of the Potala Palace Management Office for renovation projects, the State Administration of cultural relics successively allocated more than 31 million yuan. In 2017, it officially launched the renovation projects of seven gold buildings and seven Aquarius on the top floor of the Potala Palace, as well as five gold roofs of the fifth, seventh, eighth and ninth Dalai Lama's pagoda hall and the palakan hall.

On November 7, 2018, the completion and acceptance of the renovation project of Jinding group of Potala Palace marked the successful completion of the one and a half year old renovation project of Jinding group of Potala Palace and its ancillary facilities.

In April 2019, the southwest tourism area alliance jointly launched by eight units including Potala Palace in Tibet was established in Chengdu Wuhou Temple Museum.

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Chinese PinYin : Bu Da La Gong