Lhasa Sara Monastery, China

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Sara Monastery

The Sara Monastery set on the foothill of the Sara Wuzi Mountain at the northern Lhasa.

It is a well-known Buddha monastery. There is a beautiful rose garden near by, in Tibetan "sara" means "pretty god"; this is where the name of the Sara Monastery comes from.

The Sara Monastery was built in 1419, by Sakyayixi he is one of the disciples of Zongkaba. The Sara Monastery covered 114,964 square meters. The monastery consists of many palaces and monk villages, in the old days once there are over 5,500 monk studies here.

The center of the monastery is the Cuoqin Palace. In the palace enshrined a statue of the monastery builder Sakyayixi. Later in 7th Dalai Lama time, another Buddha statue ("Qiangba") was add to the palace, on both side of the Buddha statue is a color-molded standing Bodhisattva statue.

This palace also housed the Tibetan scripture that are given by Zhuli emperor of Ming Dynasty (1386 ~ 1644A.D.). This scripture has 105 letters mow. This scripture has very high value either from the viewpoint of history on printing, editing or from the Buddhism realm and even on the historical relics.

The second dignified palace is Jizhacang, here enshrined the legend protagonist "Horse-head Buddha".

Inside the Abazhacang Palace, enshrined 18 Buddhist Saints made from white sandalwood given by Ming Emperor Zhuli (1386 ~ 1644A.D.). At that time, in order to protect the original set, craftsman used clay made another exact set of those Buddhist Saints and put the smaller wood arhat into the earthy arhat.

Each arhat has it own lively expression. The visitors often admired the workmanship by watch these 18 earthy arhats patiently and carefully. Those precious arhats are priceless work or art.

Among all the monasteries in Tibet, Sara Monastery has the most collections of the historical relics from Ming and Ch'ing Dynasty. You can see the porcelains and curtains collection in its palace. Sara Monastery attracted visitors mostly for its collections of the antiques and historical relics. When people come to Lhasa, they always stop by the monastery to visit and worship.