Ta'er Monastery (Kumbum)

One Of The Six Great Monasteries Of The Gelug School, Birthplace Of Tsongkhapa; National 5A Tourist Attraction · Xining, Qinghai

One of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, built around the birthplace of Tsongkhapa, the fourteenth-century reformer whose followers founded the order that later produced the Dalai Lamas. The monastery stands in a bowl of hills south of Xining in Qinghai, and its whitewashed halls, golden roofs and eight white stupas spread across the slope in a mix of Tibetan and Chinese temple architecture. Tradition holds that a sandalwood tree grew where Tsongkhapa's birth-blood fell, its leaves bearing the image of the Buddha, and the Great Hall of the Golden Roof was built to enclose it. Kumbum is famous above all for its yak-butter sculptures, made each winter by monks working in freezing rooms so the butter holds its shape, and displayed as vast, intricately coloured tableaux at the Lantern Festival. Pilgrims prostrate along the kora, prayer wheels turn along the walls, and because Qinghai lies outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, foreign visitors can come without the permits and guides required in Lhasa.

Ta'er Monastery, Lusha'er Town, Huangzhong District, Xining, Xining, Qinghai, China

Daily about 7:00-17:30 from April to October and 8:00-16:30 from November to March; chapels may close in the early afternoon.

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