Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
and, by the door, the Nechung oracle. Look for bull-headed Chögyel to the side, his hand
almost thrusting out of the expanded glass cabinet.
To get a feel for what Drepung was like before the renovation teams arrived, detour
melancholic ruins.
As you follow the pilgrim path (clockwise) around the back of the assembly hall you
butter on the wall and then peer in to glimpse holy rock images of Jampelyang and Drölma
and get hit on the back with a holy iron rod. Just a little further, tucked in on the right, is
paintings.
Loseling College
BUDDHIST, CHAPEL
Loseling is the largest of Drepung's colleges, and studies here were devoted to logic. If
you have time, pop into the small debating courtyard west of Loseling College. Monks
sometimes practise their music in the garden here, blowing huge horns and crashing cym-
bals.
The
main hall
houses a throne used by the Dalai Lamas, an extensive library, and a long
altar decorated with statues of the fifth, seventh and eighth Dalai Lamas, Tsongkhapa and
former Drepung abbots. The two chörtens of Loseling's earlier abbots are covered with of-
ferings. There are three chapels to the rear of the hall. The one to the left houses 16
arhats
.
The central chapel has a large statue of Jampa and a self-arisen stone painting of the
Nechung oracle on the opposite wall; the chapel to the right has a small but beautiful
statue of Sakyamuni.
On the 2nd floor you'll pass a small printing press to enter a small chapel full of angry
deities, and then you pass under the body of a stuffed goat draped with one-máo notes be-
fore entering the spooky
gönkhang
(protector chapel). There are more protective deities
here, including the main Dorje Jigje (Yamantaka), plus Nagpo Chenpo (six-armed Ma-
hakala), Dorje Drakden and Dorje Lekpa.
Gomang College
BUDDHIST, CHAPEL
