Tibetan Buddhism

Buddhism reached Tibet from India and China from the 7th century; according to tradition, Lhasa’s Jokhang was founded then to house a Buddha statue brought by a royal bride. Over the following centuries Indian masters and Tibetan translators built a tradition of its own, rich in ritual, meditation and art, and several schools grew up, including the Gelug, founded in the 14th–15th centuries by the scholar Tsongkhapa. Its painted scroll thangkas, mandalas, gilded statues and yak-butter sculptures are among the great religious arts of Asia, and the tradition also spread to Mongolia and to imperial courts: Qing emperors built Tibetan-style temples in Beijing and Chengde. What visitors notice first is practice: pilgrims walking the kora clockwise around a temple, spinning prayer wheels carved with the mantra *om mani padme hum*, prostrating at the gate and adding butter to the lamps. Follow their lead: walk clockwise, do not photograph inside the halls unless told you may, and ask before photographing people.