Learn something about Yumbulagang Palace

Posted by ugfanfan on October 29th, 2014

Yumbulagang Palace is built on Zhaxiciri Mountain, 11 kilometers southeast from Tsetang town of Tibet. It gains the name because of Zhaxiciri Mountain shaped like a doe (Yumbu means doe and Lagang means holy hall in Tibetan). Yumbulagang Palace is the first palace in Tibetan history.

Backgroud of Yumbulagang Palace

Yumbulagang Palace is a small-scaled temple, but it is one of the earliest buildings in Tibet. It was said that it was a palace built by followers of Bon religion (one of the most ancient religions in the world) for the first king of ancient Tibet in 2 century B.C. and it worked as summer resort for the Princess Wencheng and Sontzen Gampo (the 33rd king of ancient Tibet) later on. Now Yumbulagang Palace is a temple of Gelug Tibetan Buddhism, and it mainly shrines the statue of Sakyamuni.

Layout of the Palace

Yumbulagang Palace is divided into two parts. The front part is a multi-layer building and the back part is the main building of a square blockhouse in multi layers.

Watchtower-style Building

The Watchtower-style building is 11 meters high, 4.6 meters long from south to north and 3.5 meters wide. It is like five-layer building in appearance, but actually it has three layers. It has a thick wall and narrow inner space.

Palace Hall

It was said that it was built by Sontzen Gampo, and there was three layers originally. Now Palace Hall is a two-layer building. The front part in ground floor is hallway of 6.3 meters long and 5.2 meters wide. The worshipping hall is 6.3 meters wide from south to north and 9.3 meters long. There are eight pillars supporting. Buddha’s statues enshrined in the hall were all destroyed. According to historical records, there were nine main statues in the hall, including statue of Buddhas of Three Period, statues of Sontzen Gampo and the Princess Wenchen and so on.

On the second floor, there are many bronze statues placed in the cabinet of the back wall. The main statue is Sakyamuni. In a bookshelf of one side wall keeps lots of Buddhist scriptures. Murals on the wall describe vividly the historical story of Tibet, including the first king, the first building and the first farmland of Tibet and so on.

There is a spring in the gully 400 meters northeast from Yumbulagang Palace, which is never dry. It is said the spring water can cure disease.

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