The art of Tibetan Buddhism religious architecture

Blabrang Monastery

Blabrang Monastery is located in an oval basin elongated east and west, with a river on the southern fringe. Main buildings are arranged at the foot of Beishan Mountain. Tall buildings were constructed near the foot of hill at the center of the whole monastery, such as scripture hall, Buddhist halls and Living Buddha mansions. Small yards with residences for ordinary monks occupy the largest area, crowded on the three sides east, south and west. The outermost part is a Buddhist wheel-turning corridor with 500-odd rooms encircling the monastery on three sides. The monastery is dotted with streets and lanes, resembling a small town.

Blabrang Monastery is centered on the largest Wensi Institute. The Wensi Institute is arranged along the vertical axis from the front to the back from front gate, front courtyard, scripture hail with verandah and towering back-hall close to the scripture hall.

Arranged inside the scripture hall are square grid columns, dense beams and flat-top. Like Sha-lu Monastery, the flat-top in the center rises up. All the back wall contains Buddhist niches. There are scripture cabinets near the back part of the left and right walls; other walls are covered with murals. The floors, columns and flat-tops are all covered with fabrics, tangka (a kind of silk scroll drawn with Buddhist portrait), while sutra streamers hang down everywhere. The space is low, deep and wide, and the atmosphere is heavy; the weak butter oil lamp glitters in the golden ritual implement, giving of f a mystical color climbing the flight of stairs at the back wall of the scripture hall, one can enter the back hall.

This is partitioned into several rooms erected respectively with Buddhist statues, stupa where the remains of Living Buddhas of all ages are buried and the Dharmapala god with a ferocious image. The hall is not deep, but is very high. The front wall protrudes above the truncated roof of the scripture hall. The tall windows are open, but the light only reaches the head and chest of the Buddhist statue, adding to the mystical atmosphere.

On the flat-top of the scripture hall, the second floor is on the height stretching along the left, right and front edges; facing inward are corridors or rooms. The sides of the scripture hall rise gradually from the front to the back, with a strong kinetic potential and rhythm and an extroverted character.

The Buddhist hall is second only to the scripture hall, and is often built on the elevation of the slope, making it appear more imposing. Gild roof small halls of the Han style are often built on the top floor.

In its heyday, there were 30 mansions for Living Buddhas in the Blabrang Monastery, but now only about a dozen or so remain. These are two-or-three-storied plane rectangular buildings with a truncated roof. The outer walls are generally painted red, and only the walls of mansions for eminent monks are painted yellow.

The Potala Palace

In Tibet, there was a kind of government structure called “Zong shan”. “Zong” means a local Tibetan administrative unit, equivalent to a county in interior areas. The government center of a “Zong” was mostly constructed on the hill, thus becoming a castle called “Zong shan”. Lhasa’s Potala Palace, the greatest building in Tibet, is both the highest “Zong shan” and the temple of the gods of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Potala Palace, built on the Potala Hill, is an extremely magnificent castle, the only example in ancient China and a masterpiece rare even in world architectural history. In outward appearance, it consists of 13 stories 117 meters high, and covers an area of 100,000 square meters. Work to construct the Potala Palace began in the second year (1645) of the rule of Qing Emperor Shizu, around the time when the fifth Dalai Lama went to Beijing to have an audience with him. It took 50 years to complete.

The outer walls of the central part of the Potala Palace are painted red, earning it the name of the Red Palace. Inside, is the stupa hall containing stupa for the Dalai Lamas of all ages, as well as Buddhist halls. The east and west of the Red Palace are linked to the east and west White Palaces. The east White Palace held the living area of the Dalai Lamas, while the west White Palace provided monks’ living rooms. Extending forward from the lower part of the Red Palace is a white terrace linking the East and West White Palaces, inside which are various warehouses.

The Red Palace is the highest and the largest. In the middle, there is a concave balcony belt running through the upper and lower parts, along with many gilded copper-tile roofed small halls on the flat-top, which enrich the composition of the whole palace and naturally become the composition center commanding the whole situation. A dark brown wall belt runs horizontally on the upper end of the whole palace, making the outline of the structure more distinct, echoing the Red Palace in color. Below the dark brown wall belt of the Red Palace is a white wall belt echoing the wall surface of the White Palace.

The structure is in tacit agreement with the chevron. The middle part of the front edge, set back a bit along with the hill, is the highest point of the structure right at the peak of the hill. The outer wall is inlaid with stones, its surface clearly inclined and appearing natural and steady. All these are close to the composition texture of natural hill stones. There is no distinct demarcation between the footing of the structures and the hill, man’s work and nature being in harmony and tacit agreement.