Potala Palace

Description

The history of Tibet is here. History, architecture and mystery…Potala Palace (3700m), the treasure house of Tibetan culture and history, has enough reasons to be the fantasy for every history buff. Perched on Red Hill, the landmark of Tibet dominates Lhasa with incredible architecture. For years, it has remained one of the focal points of religious pilgrimage and the top highlight of Tibet tour. Through the white-washed marble stairs, magnificent walls of the palace, and loads of religious treasure and secret chambers inside, Potala Palace keeps whispering the timeless stories of glorious Tibetan history. Who has seen the Potala Palace will be surprised and wonder what kind of structure can hold it stand on the Red Hill for hundreds even thousands of years. It consists of the White Palace in the east, the Red Palace in the middle. In front of the Red Palace, there is a white towering wall for hanging large Buddha tapestry on Buddhist festivals The base exterior wall is 2~5 meters thick, and the foundation straightly buried into rocks, because of material choose (granite) and mixed with iron, it is strong enough to survive till today. In 7th century AD, the Tubo emperor Songtsen Gampo gave orders to build a great palace on Red Mountain, name it “Potala”, means “the holy place” in Sanskrit, in order to marry a noble princess Wencheng from Tang Dynasty. The initial Potala was a nine-story building which has 1,000 rooms, the walls were ten meters high and mixed with watering iron to reinforce. After two hundred years, with the perdition of Tubo Dynasty, many palaces were damaged during wars in 9th century AD, there were only two houses left. Until 17th century AD, Dalai Lama V came to power, he commanded rebuilding the palace immediately. And it took three years to build the White Palace, the east part of the Potala Palace. Dalai Lama V had lived in the White Palace since then. Dalai Lama V died in 1682, the king followed his will, hided his death and continued to build the palace in 1690, three years later, Red Palace completed. The Potala Palace had been continued expanding in the next three hundred years, mainly are the spiritual tower of generations of the Dalai Lama, include the East Sushine Apartment built by Dalai Lama XIII.

Facts about Potala Palace

• As an unwritten rule, there isn’t a building in China taller than The Potala Palace which stands at 117 meters or 384 feet up a mountain.
• Forget the house, car, or yacht as a wedding gift for a bride to be. A palace not only pushes the envelope on gift-giving but totally topples it over- King Songtsan Gampo gifted the Potala Palace to his bride to be in 637 AD.
• Making up the stupa’s décor are pearls, corals, amber, and agate jewels that are more than 18,000 in number It is also overlaid with 3, 721 kilograms of gold!
• The Potala Palace was once abandoned N its history, the Potala Palace has at least 800 years sans occupancy! This was due to the fact that regimes that came after King Songstan Gampo simply did not have their capitals at Lhasa.

Details Of This Palace

1	old name		:		the White or Red Palace
2	Old		:		373 years old
3	material		:		wood, stones and mud bricks
4	Length		:		400 metres (1,300 ft)
5	Height		:		3,700 m
6	Width		:		360 meters

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