Kumbum Monastery

Kumbum Monastery
Kumbum Monastery
Tibetan transcription(s)
Tibetan	སྐུ་འབུམ་བྱམས་པ་གླིང་།
Wylie transliteration	sku 'bum byams pa gling
Chinese transcription(s)
Simplified	塔尔寺
Pinyin	Tǎ'ěrsì
Kumbum Monastery Location within Tibet
Coordinates	36°28′53.18″N 101°35′57.09″E / 36.4814389°N 101.5991917°E / 36.4814389; 101.5991917
Monastery information
Location	Amdo, Tibet
Founded by	3rd Dalai Lama
Founded	1583
Type	Tibetan Buddhist
Sect	Gelug
Dedicated to	Je Tsongkhapa
Number of monks	400

Kumbum Monastery (Wylie: སྐུ་འབུམ་བྱམས་པ་གླིང་, THL Kumbum Jampa Ling), also now called "Little Tower Temple" is a gompa founded in 1583 in a narrow valley close to the village of Lusar in the historical region of Amdo, nowadays the Qinghai province in the People's Republic of China. Its superior monastery is Drepung Monastery, immediately to the west of Lhasa. It was ranked in importance as second only to Lhasa.

Alexandra David-Néel, the famous Belgian-French explorer who spent more than two years studying and translating Tibetan books at the monastery, said of it:

[T]he configuration of the surrounding mountain ranges arrested the passage of the clouds, and forced them to turn around the rocky summit which supported the gompa forming a sea of white mist, with its waves beating silently against the cells of the monks, wreathing the wooded slopes and creating a thousand fanciful landscapes as they rolled by. Terrible hailstorms would often break over the monastery, due, said the country folk, to the malignity of the demons who sought to disturb the peace of the saintly monks.

We were taken first to the great kitchen where priests were brewing Tibetan tea in great copper cauldrons ten feet in diameter, beautifully chased with the Buddhist symbols. The stoves were the usual mud affairs and the fuel nothing but straw, which younger lamas continually fed to the fire."

Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, was born in nearby Tsongkha in 1357. According to one tradition, Tsongkhapa's father took the afterbirth and buried it where the monastery is now and soon a sandalwood tree grew on the spot. Another version has it that the tree grew up where drops of blood from Tsongkhapa's umbilical cord had fallen on the ground. In any case this tree became known as the "Tree of Great Merit." The leaves and the bark of this tree were reputed to bear impressions of the Buddha's face and various mystic syllables and its blossoms were said to give off a peculiarly pleasing scent.