Place · Gelug founding monastery · China
Ganden Monastery, Lhasa
Also known as Ganden Gompa
Ganden ('Tushita Heaven') on Wangbur mountain 40 km east of Lhasa was founded by Je Tsongkhapa himself in 1409 as the first and senior monastery of what would become the Gelug 'Yellow Hat' tradition. The abbot of Ganden — the Ganden Tripa — is the formal head of the Gelug school (not the Dalai Lama, who is a hierarchical rather than scholastic head). The monastery was almost totally destroyed in the Cultural Revolution, with Tsongkhapa's relic stupa dynamited; partial rebuilding began in the 1980s. Ganden is re-established in exile at Mundgod, Karnataka, alongside Drepung; the Ganden Tripa line continues from the Mundgod seat.
- Function
- Learning & scholarship
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 29.756, 91.468
Connections (5)
- Site withinLhasa
Ganden is one of the great monasteries of greater Lhasa — the political and religious capital of Tibet from Songtsen Gampo's 7th-century reign to the Chinese annexation of 1950. Lhasa carries the Potala, the Jokhang and the three great Gelug seats (Drepung, Sera, Ganden) in its immediate landscape.
- FoundedJe Tsongkhapa
Je Tsongkhapa founded Ganden monastery on Wangbur mountain east of Lhasa in 1409 as the first and senior Gelug seat; the abbot of Ganden (the Ganden Tripa) has remained the formal head of the Gelug school ever since. Tsongkhapa's relic stupa inside Ganden was the central reliquary of the Gelug tradition until its destruction in the Cultural Revolution.
- Life routeTenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama
Ganden is the senior Gelug monastery and the formal seat of the Ganden Tripa, the scholastic head of the Gelug school; the Dalai Lama is the hierarchical head but defers scholastic authority to the Ganden Tripa.
- Founder ofJe Tsongkhapa
Tsongkhapa founded Ganden Monastery in 1409 on the Wangbur mountain east of Lhasa — 'Ganden' is the Tibetan rendering of Tuṣita, the heaven of Maitreya. Ganden was the mother house of the Gelug school he inaugurated, and its abbot (the Ganden Tripa) remains the formal doctrinal head of the school, in that office outranking even the Dalai Lama.
- Institutionalised atGelug — the Yellow Hat school
Ganden Monastery is the mother house and senior of the three great seats of the Gelug school.
On these journeys
Sources
Standard reference.
Open Ganden Monastery, Lhasa in the repository →