Jokhang Temple embraces a million pilgrims in winter

As the most sacred temple in Lhasa, Jokhang Temple embraces more than one million pilgrims in this winter.

Suojie, a fammer from Nagchu county of northern Tibet, and his father came to the Jokhang temple for their annual pilgrimage to Lhasa. Winter is the slack farming season for Tibetan people. They covered more than 500 kilometers to Lhasa by taking a bus.

Although just after 10 am, a sea of people before the Jokhang Temple. Suojie looked around, Jokhang Temple pilgrims line up to enter the depths of people have lined up Barkhor, no end in sight. And helped his father, walking clockwise along the Barkhor. In a kilometer away, they found the pilgrims at the end of the team, they hand-mouth twist beads chanting the text, with the team slowly to the Jokhang Temple.

The Jokhang temple is already surrounded thousands of pilgrims although it is just after 10 am. Looking around, Suojie finds that a long line of pilgrims have lined up to enter the Jokhang temple from Barkhor Street. No end in sight. He and his father walk over one kilometer clockwise along the Barkhor and find the end of the line. Then they move slowly with the team to the Jokhang while chanting and twisting beads. Their ultimate piligrimage destination is in front of them – the 1300 years ago Jokhang temple.

King Songtsän Gampo might built the Jokhang temple in 642. At that time, it was referred to as the Rasa Tulnang Tsuklakang or the House of Mysteries, the Magical Emanation at Rasa. All important Buddhist statues and images, bought as part of their dowries by Bhrituti and Wencheng, the Nepalese and Chinese wives of Songsten Gampo, were housed here.

The Bönpo king, LangdharmaIt boarded up the temple. In the 11th century, the famous Buddhist Master Atisha taught here, and from then on, people has considered it as the most important temple in Lhasa ever since. For centuries, pilgrims flocked here, segardin git as a key center of Buddhist. Though the Mongols sacked the temple for several times, it survived anyhow, and now covers an area of about 25,000 sq. meters.