Sangke grassland

Sangke grassland

Sangke grassland is located in Xiahe, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, 18 kilometers southwest of Labrang, Xiahe County, with a direct highway. Sangke grassland is a meadow grassland with an average altitude of more than 3000 meters and a grassland area of 70 square kilometers. It is one of the main animal husbandry bases in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. It has a small population and a large area, with only over 4000 herdsmen and vast grassland. It is an extremely valuable natural tourist attraction. There are two Tibetan tent reception stations. From July to September every year, Tibetan bags are set up to prepare fresh milk tea, Zanba, Tibetan bags, hand grasping mutton and other Tibetan flavor for tourists, as well as grassland tourism programs such as horses, yaks, shooting bonfire party and so on. Visitors can enjoy the mysterious and simple Tibetan customs here.

Traffic information

After visiting Labrang temple, you can take a 15 minute bus, rent a bicycle from Xiahe to Sangke grassland for 10 yuan a day, take a bus from Lanzhou to Xiahe for 75 yuan, and then take a taxi to Sangke grassland for 25 yuan / vehicle.

Main attractions

Labrang monastery

Labrang temple, formerly known as zaxiqi temple, is located on Sangke grassland on the Bank of Daxia River, 1km west of Xiahe County, Gansu Province. It is one of the six famous monasteries of Tibetan Buddhist Gelug Sect (yellow Religion) in China. It was once the political, religious and cultural center of Tibetan people in the adjacent areas of Gansu, Qinghai and Sichuan. "Labrang" is a Tibetan transliteration, which means the location of the Buddhist palace. Labrang temple covers an area of 8.2 hectares, with a construction area of 823000 square meters. It was first built in 1709, the 48th year of the reign of Emperor Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty. The main building surfaces are Wensi courtyard (also known as Dajing Hall), xubu lower courtyard, xubu upper courtyard, Shilun courtyard, medical academy, xijingang courtyard, etc., and Shiba Nangqian (living Buddha Office) and Shiba LAKANG (Buddhist temple). There are also Scripture pagodas, Scripture debating altar, Scripture building, and the printing house. The whole building is well arranged, magnificent, magnificent and unique in style. Shouxi temple is the highest building in the temple, which is a six story palace.

Wensiyuan is the center of the whole temple, which is divided into three parts: front hall, main hall and back hall. The front hall is for matsuzan dry cloth statue. In the main hall, there is a plaque granted by Emperor Qianlong. There is a large courtyard in the Sutra hall for 4000 people to chant sutras at the same time.

There are many bronze pagodas in the temple, some of which are from India, Nepal and other countries. There is also a gilded Buddha statue in the temple, 10 meters high, which is a masterpiece of Nepalese craftsmen. Here is also a rare treasure of Ganzhu Scripture written in gold and silver juice. There are tens of thousands of cultural relics, more than 60000 Tibetan classics and books, which are very influential in Chinese Lama temples.

In 1982, the State Council announced that Labrang temple is a national key cultural relic protection unit.

festival activities

Xianglang Festival

Xianglang Festival is a traditional festival for Tibetans on Sangke grassland in Gannan. Xianglang can be translated as "collecting firewood" in Tibetan. Every June, the grassland is picturesque with sweet milk and delicious meat. The monks of the temple come to the field to gather firewood with their families for entertainment for a few days on the pretext of collecting firewood. Later, it became a custom.

Before and after the 15th of June of the lunar calendar, it is the golden season in Tibetan areas. The meat and milk in the pastures are delicious. People's families travel to the beautiful prairie, set up tents, and live a relaxed and leisurely life for ten and a half days. Even the monks in the temple are envious of this kind of attractive activity in the embrace of nature. They all want to have fun with the common people for a few days. After a long time, it has been followed and formed today's "xianglang Festival". The ancient traditional "xianglang Festival" also has a Festival ceremony.

On the morning before the festival, people put on their festive costumes and come to the top of the mountain of labuzai (Tibetan, meaning the pagoda of sacrifice to gods). After that, we started all kinds of entertainment activities.

The first ceremony is to "simmer mulberry" at the top of the mountain, that is, to light the prepared cypress branches and leaves, and to put the Tibetan people's favorite food, such as butter, fried noodles, Qula, into the fire. Under the reflection of the blazing fire of cypress, the fragrance of cypress, oil and food wafted in the open field at dawn. The men rode around the fire and fired.

Then there was an arrow inserting ceremony, which was to insert a wooden arrow as high as ten meters into a big wooden fence on the top of the mountain. During the festive period, Tibetans also need to carry out some entertainment activities full of life interest and national characteristics. Such as horse racing, yak racing, tug of war, wrestling, running, singing, dancing, etc. If you travel to Tibet to catch up with the season, you can play with the hospitable herdsmen. The event is hosted by the elders in the village. The main contents include horse racing, cattle racing, wrestling, tug of war and other events. All men, women, young and old are eager to participate. At night, the Tibetan compatriots, who are good at singing and dancing, gather around the burning campfire, sing melodious songs, dance and enjoy themselves. Until late at night, some middle-aged and old people and children go away one after another. A couple of young lovers leave the tent, go to the hillside, trees or riverside, sing laye (love songs) and pour out their love to each other The future of China.

Legend of scenic spots

This is the place where the famous hero King Gesar worships the God and the horse. In Tibetan, it is called "sanghuo" and "xusang", so it is called "Sangke". It is surrounded by mountains, open and flat in the middle, and the Daxia river flows slowly from south to north.

Address: 10km southwest of Labrang temple, Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture

Longitude: 102.569724

Latitude: 35.003031

Ticket information: free.

Chinese PinYin : Sang Ke Cao Yuan