Lhasa - Tibet - page 101

DEMONESS-SUBDUING TEMPLES
Buddhism's interaction with the pre-existing Bön - a shamanistic folk religion of spirits,
ghosts and demons - combined with the wild and inhospitable nature of the Tibetan ter-
rain has led to many metaphoric fables about Buddhism's taming of Tibet. The story of
the early introduction of Buddhism to Tibet is represented by the story of a vast, supine
demoness whose body straddled the entire plateau.
It was Princess Wencheng, the Chinese wife of King Songtsen Gampo, who divined the
presence of this demoness. Through Chinese geomantic calculations she established
that the heart of the demoness lay beneath a lake in the centre of Lhasa, while her torso
and limbs lay far away in the outer dominions of the high plateau. As in all such fables, the
demoness can be seen as a symbol, of both the physical hardships of Tibet and the exist-
ing Bön clergy's hostility towards Buddhism; both had to be tamed before Buddhism
could take root here. It was decided that the demoness would have to be pinned down.
The first task was to drain the lake in Lhasa of its water (read lifeblood of the demon-
ess) and build a central temple that would replace the heart of the demoness with a
Buddhist heart. The temple built there was the Jokhang. A stake through the heart was
not enough to put a demoness of this size out of action, however, and a series of lesser
temples, in three concentric rings, were conceived to pin the extremities of the demon-
ess.
There were four temples in each of these rings. The first are known as the runotemples
and form a protective circle around Lhasa, pinning down the demoness' hips and
shoulders. Two of these are Trandruk Monastery in the Yarlung Valley and Katsel Monas-
tery on the way to Drigung. The second group, known as the tandrultemples, pin the
knees and elbows of the demoness. Buchu Monastery near Bayi in eastern Tibet is one of
these. And the final group, known as yandrultemples, pin the hands and feet. These last
temples are found as far away as Bhutan (Paro and Bumthang) and Sìchuān, though the
location of two of them is unknown. You can see a representative image of the demoness
and the temples that pin her down in the Tibet Museum .
First Floor
At this point you should return clockwise to the rear of the ground floor (if you did not do
so earlier) and climb the stairs to the upper floor of the Jokhang. The upper floor of the
Jokhang's inner sanctum is also ringed with chapels, though some of them are closed.