Prophesied by the historic Buddha approximately 2,000 years before his birth, Tsongkhapa (1357–1419) was a child prodigy who went on to establish and inspire Tibet’s most powerful monastic sect. Dissatisfied by the intellectual, religious, and monastic indiscipline of contemporary orders, he reined his disciples and followers into a strict new order. The Gelug sect re-established […]
According to ancient mythology the Yarlung valley – not Lhasa – is the homeland of the Tibetan people. The first Tibetan king stepped off a heavenly ladder onto earth not in Lhasa, but here. The Yarlung valley was also the kingly seat of the first Tibetan kings as well as their burial site. This being […]
By Guy Rubin Centuries ago, in a cliff-face in the midst of China’s vast Taklamakan desert, artists hollowed, sculpted and painted 492 caves, creating over 450,000 square feet of spectacular murals, or more than thirty times the mural area of the Sistine Chapel. But whereas the Sistine Chapel was painted over a few years, the […]
