Lhasa, the holy city

Lhasa has a population of 300.000 inhabitants, between whom they are included Tibetan and Chinese. If we think that only forty years earlier only it was provided with 20.000 inhabitants we will be able to understand the enormous changes suffered since then. Placed to the shore of the river Kyichu, a tributary of Yarlung Tsangpo (called Brahmaputra in India), is to a 3.600 meters altitude on the sea level. The first impression that Lhasa presents to the traveler is somewhat complex, since a few disappointing wide, impersonal streets flanked of buildings without grace or interest, with a somewhat provincial air, see his horizon broken occasionally for the magnificent temples that they remind to us that Lhasa was one day the capital of a kingdom, of a world. Then, when the traveler is discovering the city, familiarizing itself with his most central quarters, he will be able to feel that the past becomes alive on his markets, in his monasteries, in his streets and especially in the soul of these pilgrims, who following the secular custom, cover the street Parkor shelling his prayers.

The Lhasa history is the history of the Tibet. Since it turned in the capital of the country when it was unified for the first time under Sontsen Gampo, losing his importance with the dismemberment of the Tibet in the IXth century. It will not be a capital again until the year 1642 when Fifth Dalai Lama amounts to the power. Under the baton of this leader it is when there is constructed the Lhasa that is visited at present, since it was for his years of government when there got up the buildings most representative of the city, like the Palace of potala and other monasteries. Since then his importance will not stop growing. During the XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries not only it was the political and religious center of the Tibet, but also the economic center to which there were going the merchants' trailers and the place where the noblemen were sending his children to reside, with the hope to reach the favors of the Government or of some of the big monasteries. The only center of moderately important population in the whole country, he has suffered in the last years the emigration of the Chinese, with important charges in the administration and the militia, being created in fact, two cities. The traditional, Tibetan city; and the modern one, more Chinese.

Palace of potala
It was the political and religious center of the Tibet until 1959. And today it is still an important center of peregrination for the Tibetan ones and for the foreigners anxious to discover the most important construction of this country. The Palace of potala, with his labyrinth of rooms and pavilions it is almost a city, since in him not only there were the numerous rooms destined for the government, his chapels and his treasures, but many others destined for secondary functions: as school, prison, minor offices or stores.

The potala consists, in fact, of two palaces: the Target and the Red one, with dimensions sobrecogedoras: 117 meters high in 13 apartments. 400 meters wide (east-west) and 350 meters deep (north - south). The first one of the palaces, the Target, was finished in 1649, when Fifth Dalai Lama happened to inhabit it. The Red one had to wait until 1694 and in the beginning it was the funeral saying chapel lick. Later it was extended since it turned also into funeral chapel of following Dalai Lamas, with what his construction was continued throughout the centuries, making to inform thousands of workers and craftsmen. That's why it finished with turning into the most important part of the potala. In each of the chapels we will surprise a waste of wealths and artistic objects. Also in the numerous galleries that communicate the different chapels, there are enough tangkas as to study the entire history of the Tibet. From his patios a magnificent Lhasa sight is contemplated.

Monastery Jokhang
In the center of Lhasa. Founded according to the tradition in the VIIth century to protect the statue of Buddha brought by the Nepalese princess Chif-Zuent, from his grounds, his religious importance is major than no other place in Lhasa. From the IXth century the monastery suffered the pursuits against the Buddhism, as well as the general abandonment of this religion during a time. It re-arose again with re-living of the religion that took place in the XIth century. Since then a more important role plays every time in the history of the Tibet. In spite of being a temple, in Jokhang also there were rooms for the most mundane functions of Dalai Lama. The paintings and the sculptures that survive in this temple are between the best and the most ancient of the Tibet.

The School of Medicine and Astrology still nowadays works like traditional medicine hospital. In his interior there is an exhibition of the evolution of the Tibetan medicine, and a series of tangkas that describe with enough detail the different Tibetan therapeutic skills, as well as two statues of the considered parents of the medicine; Yuthong Old man and Khyenrab Norbu.

Norbulingka or summer Palace.
In the proximities of the Hotel Lhasa, a little removed from the multicolored vitality of the Old Helmet of Lhasa Norbulingka is, the Ancient summer Palace of Dalai Lama, today turned into park for enjoyment of the people. This original succession of pavilions and gardens, it was initiated by the Seventh Dalai Lama, in the year 1754, but it was not used like residence of Big Muds until the first years the XXth century. Although the pavilions are replete with objects of art and paintings tangkas, the place infects an ideal relaxed air to oppose to the intense contemplative activity to which he will submit you city is.

Monastery of Sera
To only three kilometers to the north of Lhasa, the building complex of the Monastery of Sera appears before us majestically while we advance for the dirt road that leads us to his doors. Constructed on an elevation of the area, there seems the guard of the whole city. Erected in 1419 by Shakya Yeshe, his importance was growing with the years, turning him especially into an important educational center, with his four schools:

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