Jokhang Temple

The Jokhang Tempole in Lhasa

History of the Jokhang Temple

The rooftop statues of two golden deer flanking a Dharma wheel is the symbol of the Jokhang Temple.

Three versions of old folk legends about the Jokhang Temple

♦The first one is that the address of the temple was a fresh water lake initially, King Songtsen Gampo promised to a princess, who dropped a ring into the lake, to build a Buddhist monastery here. After the ring was dropped, the lake instantly displayed a grand network of brilliant light and erected a nine-level white pagoda. The temple-building project done by a thousand white goats had begun.

♦The second legend goes that the two princesses, Bhrituti and Wencheng, who were going to be the wives of King Songtsen Gampo, brought two Sakyamuni Buddha statues to Tibet as their most expensive dowries. The princess from Nepal brought the statue depicted the Buddha's eight years old while the Chinese princess was with one, which was a statue of Sakyamuni's twelve years old. Tibetan people thought that these Buddha statues were the earliest ones which entering the Roof of the World and thus worshipped with pious passion. The King Songtsen Gampo wanted to build Ramoche and Jokhang Temples, the earliest Tibetan Buddhist establishments.

♦Jokhang Temple devilish witch is the third legend. It was said that floods often happened during the construction of the Jokhang Temple, King Songtsen Gampo did not know why. Princess Wencheng told him that a devilish witch, to whom her heart was located in the lake and the water, was her blood, and her whole body was the entire Tibetan Plateau. Therefore, in order to build the temple successfully, they had to blow away her heart and fill the lake. The princess also recommended the king to build 12 smaller temples in remote, surrounding areas in addition to the Jokhang. This was to overwhelm the arms and joints of the devilish witch. And to fill the lake, they had to use about a thousand goats to carry sand and earth from the mountains, so the temple's foundation would have made.

a supine evil female indicating Tubo's terrain, Tibetan Museum

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