Drigung Kagyu West Sanhu Lord Hall

The West Sanhu Main Hall is located in the middle of many vendors’ stalls on Barkhor South Street and Lugu Lane. The facade is not obvious, so although it is only a five-minute walk from the Jokhang Temple, it is not easy to find. Starting from the police station at the southwest corner of the Jokhang Temple Square, if you keep asking people “Nurisongla Kangkabaye” repeatedly in a friendly manner, and firmly believe that it does exist, it is possible to find it. If you like to search for secrets by yourself, the specific way is to walk west from the Jokhang Temple Square to the end, at the junction with Danjielin Road, turn left and walk along Danjielin Road to Lugu Road, turn right into the market, and then walk five After six storefronts, find a big sign on the left wall that says "Nurisangla Palace", and then enter through the small door below the sign. The courtyard is a residential building, and the small house on the right is the Sanhu main hall. On the temple nameplate of the Sanhuzhu Hall, it says "Nurisong Gongbu", which is the Tibetan transliteration of "Xi Sanhuzhu".

Temple nameplate above the entrance

The scale of this hall is extremely small, hidden among the messy dwellings, and it is managed by monks appointed by the famous Zhigong Temple (to be precise, it should be said that it is managed by Yangrigang Temple, a subsidiary of Zhigong Temple).

The statue of the Three Patriarchs in the temple

The Buddhist altars in the main hall are dedicated to Tsongkhapa, Amitayus, the Three Protectors, and pagodas. On the upper floor of the main hall, there is a small side hall, in which a very solemn statue of a lama is enshrined, which is the patriarch of the Drikung Kagyu Sect, Jigten Songgung (1143-1217):

The statue of Jitian Songgong, the founder of the Drikung Kagyu School enshrined upstairs

The Western Sanhu Lord Hall is adjacent to the Sakya Monastery in Lhasa. Interestingly, at the end of the 13th century, there was a great dispute between the Sakya Monastery and the Drikung Monastery. The Mongolian soldiers who supported the Sakya Sect went straight to the Drikung Monastery, resulting in the exodus of the main monastery and almost no monastery. But in Lhasa, the branch of the Sakya Monastery and the Sanhu Lord Hall under the Drikung Monastery are only a few steps away, but they live in peace.

Drikung Monastery

The Drikung Sect is a branch of the Kagyu Sect, and the Drikung Monastery, located more than 100 kilometers northeast of Lhasa, in the Drikung Valley of Mazhugongka County, is its base. It was built by Master Jitian Songgong in 1179. It once had a very glorious position in the local political and religious history of Tibet. There were more than 100,000 monks who came here to practice, and the gathering of up to 180,000 monks was a grand occasion.

The celestial burial ground in Zhigong Temple is well-known in Tibet. The Consciousness Relocation Dharma Assembly held every year in Zhigong Monastery attracts a large number of believers to participate in it. It is a grand event in Tibetan Buddhism.