Храм Джоканг

Jokhang Temple is the spiritual heart of Lhasa and, for Tibetan Buddhists, the most sacred site in the region. While the Potala Palace dominates the city visually, it is the Jokhang that anchors its devotional life, and for many pilgrims who have traveled across the plateau to reach Lhasa, the temple is the true destination. Inscribed together with the Potala as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Jokhang sits at the center of the old city and orients the entire sacred geography of Lhasa around itself.

The temple was founded in the seventh century by King Songtsen Gampo to house a celebrated image of the Buddha brought to Lhasa as part of the complex web of royal marriage alliances that linked the Tibetan court with the Buddhist cultures of its neighbors. In the eighth century, the renowned Jowo Shakyamuni statue, revered as the most sacred Buddha image in the Tibetan tradition, was installed in the temple and remains its most venerated object. The Jokhang has been rebuilt and enlarged many times, and its present form is the result of centuries of patronage from successive Tibetan rulers and monastic orders.

The atmosphere inside is extraordinary. Yak-butter lamps burn in the dim chapels, the air carries the scent of juniper and incense, and the murals, statues, and gilded roofs represent the high points of Tibetan religious art across many periods. Pilgrims move slowly through the inner circuit, prostrating themselves at the shrines, while outside in Barkhor Square the constant stream of devotees walking the kora around the temple creates one of the most powerful scenes of living faith that a traveler can witness anywhere.

For visitors, the Jokhang rewards a slow and respectful visit. The rooftop offers views across the old city toward the Potala, and the chapels contain works of art that are studied by scholars of Tibetan Buddhism from around the world. More than any single object, however, it is the density of devotion, the sense that one is standing at the center of a living religious tradition, that defines a visit to the Jokhang.