ÿþ<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /> <TITLE>History of Potala Palace - TibetTravel.Org</TITLE> <meta name="description" content="In 637, when Princess Wen Cheng of the Tang Dynasty of China came here to marry King Songtsen Gampo, the King took his meditative place to build the palace for his bride. 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Konchog Chophel, a spiritual adviser of Dalai Lama, suggested that the position of the site was an ideal place for a seat of government, as the palace was situated between Drepung and Sera monasteries and the old city of Lhasa. Following his advice, the government moved to the the Potrang Karpo ('White Palace') in 1649, so did the Lama himself. The construction lasted for a long time--until 12 years after the death of the Lama. From then on, the palace was the winter palace for the Dalai Lama to spend his winter there. Between 1690 and 1694, the construction of the Potrang Marpo ('Red Palace') was completed. The name came from a sacred mountain in India: a hill honoured the bodhisattva of compassion Avalokitesvara, or Chenrezi. For Tibetan people, if they want to name the sacred place, they would used &quot;Peak Potala&quot; or only &quot;the Peak&quot;.&nbsp;</p> <p>In 1959, the Tibetan uprising brought some slight damage to the palace: the shells of Chinese broke the windows of the palace. During the Cultural Revolution, thanks to the efforts of Premier Zhou Enlai, the Palace remained untouched from the Red Guards. However, more than 100,000 volumes of scriptures, historical documents and other works of art were removed, damaged or destroyed.&nbsp;</p> <p><img height="290" alt="Potala Palace Reflection of the former days" width="400" src="/images/Potala-palace/OLDPT.jpg" /></p> <p>In 1994, the UNESCO World Heritage List added the Potala Palace. In 2000 and 2001, the List added Jokhang Temple and Norbulingka as its extensions. The UNESCO was highly concern about the atmosphere around the palace, expressing that the rapid growth of modernized constructions may do damage to it. Then a a rule was made which bars any building taller than 21 metres in the area. UNESCO also doubted <img height="374" alt="Potala Palace becomes more beautiful nowadays" width="300" align="right" src="/images/Potala-palace/NEWP.jpg" />about the materials used for the Palace's restoration, but the palace's director, Qiangba Gesang, expressed that all the materials used were exclusively traditional, which cost a hundred and eighty million Yuan. Another restoration of the Palace was in the year between&nbsp; 1989 to 1994, which took fifty-five million Yuan.&nbsp;</p> <p>In 2003, a restriction of the daily number of visitors(no more than 1,600) was carried out, with another reduction of opening hour to six hour per day. Before the restriction, the Palace might receive more than 5,000 a day, and the average number was as high as 3,100. In 2006, the structure's roof was banned from visiting in order to avoid further structural damage. On July 1,&nbsp; 2006, due to the opening of the Qingzang railway into Lhasa, the government raised the visitor number to 2,300. But the number can hardly meet the demand: by mid-morning, the quota is usually full. The government also extended the opening hour in July to September, which was the peak time for tourists, and more than 6,00 would pay a visit to the Palace.</p> <p align="left"><span class="STYLE5"><em>The word files of this webpage and some images are original works of Tibettravel.Org. Any unauthorized use and duplication is prohibited.</em></span> </div></div> <div class="topblue"> More Information Related to History of Potala Palace</div> <div class="topblue2"> <xoYu_CMS_CODE:NEWS:NEWS_TOP><a title="Fundamental Informations of Potala Palace" href="../Html/2010411224041-1.Html">Fundamental Informations of Potala Palace</a><p><a title="Reserve Tickets to Potala Palace in advance" href="../Html/2010411211136-1.Html">Reserve Tickets to Potala Palace in advance</a><p><a title="Songtsen Gampo and Princess Wencheng" href="../Html/2010411204950-1.Html">Songtsen Gampo and Princess Wencheng</a><p><a title="The Potala Palace Visit Routemap" href="../Html/201041120363-1.Html">The Potala Palace Visit Routemap</a><p><a title="Potala Palace " href="../Html/2010411203215-1.Html">Potala Palace </a><p><a title="The Great 5th Dalai Lama - Ngawang Losang Gyatso" href="../Html/201012823929-1.Html">The Great 5th Dalai Lama - Ngawang Losang Gyatso</a><p><a title="The 6th Daila Lama - 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