Shannan Prefecture, the birthplace of national culture of Tibet

After four days of long distance driving and more than 5,000 meters above sea level experience, I felt tried, but I still got up early and waited my driver at the road junction at eight o'clock in the next day. However, my driver didn’t come up until 9:00 a.m., so we started at nearly 9:30 at last.



We were a group from various cities. We would visit the Shannan Prefecture this trip, not the hot scenic spots of Tibet. However, the unique natural conditions make the Shannan become one of the birthplaces of the Tibetan people.


The first slavery regime in Tibet was established in Shannan and Shannan was also a base to unite Tibet. Its uniqueness is because the first king of Tibet, the first farmland, the first palace, the first Tibet Tibetan Drama and the first Buddhist monastery of Tibet are all located in the prefecture, so it is regarded as the birth place of Tibetan Civilization.


We visited Trundruk Monastery, Yungbulakang Palace, and Samye Monastery during this trip to Shannan Prefecture. Unexpectedly, this whole trip went very well, even the weather was very good.


The road condition on the highway to Shannan Prefecture was not bad, and we basically travelled along the Yarlung River. Then we came to the Trundruk Monastery.


Trundruk Monastery was founded in the Songtsen period, and its initial scale was very small. Later the monastery was three times of large-scale renovation and expansion to today's scale. After the expansion, the layout of Trundruk Monastery was novel and unique, and can be divided into two parts. The front part is a small courtyard, while the back part is the Lacan Courtyard.


Lakang Courtyard is the main body and architectural essence of Trundruk Monastery. There is tall porch in front of the courtyard, the porch at both ends and around the corridors across the hall outside the turning phase boundary as a circle, is a turn for the calmly walked through corridors. Inside the courtyard, the front and central part is the open courtyard, followed by a hall. Around the open courtyard and hall is the turning corridor.


There are well-protected murals on the wall of the south, north, west direction of the winding corridor, and I saw many painters were seriously working when I visited there.


There are 12 different Lacans distributing around the transit corridors, the believers are directed to worship each Buddha within each Lacan in this way.


The father lacan is larger, and the main Buddha is the Buddha III, with both sides of the plastic ten Bodhisattva statues.




















Leaving Trundruk Monastery, the group was wandering in the mountains. I saw a very eye-catching building group at the top of the distant hills. It is Tibet’s earliest building – Yongbulakang.


Towering on the peak of the east coast of Yarlung River, Yongbulakang was not a monastery at first, but the palace of the early Yarlung tribal leaders.


This is the Huangjiao monastery. After Songtsen Gampo unified the plateau, the capital was changed into Lhasa, and Yongbulakang was changed into summer palace of Songtsen Gampo from the palace of dynasties king of Tibet. I didn’t climb up to the palace, only overlooked under the foot of the mountain.


This is indeed a quite unique palace.