Tashilhunpo Monastery
The Grand monastery of Tashilhunpo is a town in itself - a vast spread of buildings faced in cream, brown and ochre. Built in1447 by the first Dalai Lama the monk population has dwindled from around 4,000 (1950s) to some 700 today although most of the monks are not actually at the Tashilhunpo monastery.Many earn their keep by operating a farm about 20 km east of the temple (barley cultivation, several hundreds yaks and goats). The monks living at the Tashilhunpo, as elsewhere in Tibet are on Beijing's payroll. The center piece of Tashilhunpo Monastery is the Hall of the Maitreya which is housed in a fortress-looking building toward the west side of the Monastery
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