Lamayuru
| Lamayuru Monastery | |
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Lamayuru Monastery
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| Coordinates | 34°16′58″N 76°46′28″E / 34.28278°N 76.77444°ECoordinates: 34°16′58″N 76°46′28″E / 34.28278°N 76.77444°E |
| Monastery information | |
| Location | Lamayouro, Leh district, India |
| Founded by | Naropa |
| Type | Tibetan Buddhist |
| Number of monks | 150 |
| Architecture | Oldest and largest existing gompa in Ladakh |
| Festivals | Annual masked dance festival |
Lamayuru or Yuru Monastery (Tibetan: བླ་མ་གཡུང་དྲུང་དགོན་པ་, Wylie: bla ma gyung drung dgon pa "Eternal Monastery", Urdu: لمیرو گومپا) is a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Lamayouro, Leh district, India. It is situated on the Srinagar-Leh highway 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) east of the Fotu La at a height of 3,510 metres (11,520 ft).
A. H. Francke states that, "according to popular tradition," it was originally the foremost Bon monastery in Ladakh; its name means sauwastika and is a popular symbol in Bon for "eternity". Yungdrung is the name of the most popular school of Bon. It is currently affiliated with the Drikung Kagyu school of Buddhism.
The Drikung history states that the Indian scholar Naropa (956-1041 CE) allegedly caused a lake which filled the valley to dry up and founded Lamayuru Monastery. The oldest surviving building at Lamayuru is a temple called Seng-ge-sgang, at the southern end of the Lamayuru rock, which is attributed to the famous builder-monk Rinchen Zangpo (958-1055 CE). Rinchen Zangpo was charged by the king of Ladakh to build 108 gompas, and certainly many gompas in Ladakh, Spiti Valley and the surrounding regions, date from his time.
The oldest gompas, those dating from Rinchen-zang-po's time — Alchi and Lamayuru, and the less accessible Wanla, Mang-gyu and Sumda — belonged at the time of their foundation to none of these Tibetan schools, whose establishment they antedate. They were at some stage taken over by the Ka-dam-pa, and when it fell into decline they were taken over again, this time mostly by the Ge-lugs-pa. The exception was Lamayuru, which was for some reason claimed by the Dri-gung-pa"
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Wikipedia