SAMYE MONASTERY

The monastery, built on the other side of the Tsangpo at the foot of the Hempori, is accessible by boat only. The ferry is located 40 km west of Tsetang and 130 km from Lhasa. The journey takes one hour and the time of return 45 min due to the current, but sometimes you can get insecure. The monastery is slightly upstream of the arrival of the ferry and is reached at the end of a forty-minute journey, by truck or by car. On foot, it takes two hours. This is the only access to the monastery, unless walking four days from Ganden or from the Gyama Valley.

Samye, whose name means «immeasurable», is the 1 st ^{monastery that was raised in Tibet. Buddhism enters Tibet under Songtsen Gampo, in the seventh century, but remains the privilege of an elite. Trisong Detsen wants to extend it to the entire people and therefore to establish it officially. He used to come and meditate in this place. The temple of Odantapuri (Bihar, India) is taken as a model and construction starts in 770. But the minds who dominate the place oppose it and destroy the night which was built. The king then intends to speak of an exorcist, very popular in India, and named "the one born of the lotus" because it is said that it would miraculously appear in a lotus flower in the Swat Valley. Trisong Detsen invites him, and the three white stûpa carved in the rock at the top of the hill, the "Tchuru", commemorates this encounter between a king and a wise man, where none wants to bow to the other. Finally, in order to demonstrate its power, the wise Padmasambhava spreads flames from his hands and the king prostrates himself before him. This scene is depicted on a fresco of the monastery. The one who will become Guru Rimpoche, a second Buddha for the Tibetans, then submits the bön spirits and local deities, transforming them into guardians and protectors of doctrine. The Samye protection room is particularly impressive in this regard.}

After the monastery ended, in 792, a debate brought the Chinese master Hoshang and Indian master Kamalashila into presence. This debate will last for months and it is said that the Indian master wins, making his thesis of progressive awakening triumph. However, ch 'an Buddhism (which will become Zen in Japan) has survived in secret in Tibet. Shantarakshita then orders seven noble men; they will be the first Tibetan monks to meditate in particular in Pabongka. In 986, the monastery was ravaged by a first fire and was rebuilt with the support of Ra Lotsawa. In the Cultural Revolution, the sanctuaries of the four continents were damaged, the top floor shaved, as well as the enclosure and stûpa. The stones were used to build the houses of the village that grew around the monastery.

The monastery is a three-dimensional mandala whose main temple is Mount Meru, cosmogonic center of the universe. In the four directions, the continents, framed by their subcontinents, are materialized by small sanctuaries, almost all destroyed or damaged. A circular enclosure and four stûpa in the four colors, rebuilt recently, complete the pattern. At the entrance to the main temple, a stun bears the edict of 779 by which the king proclaims Buddhism of state religion. The bell would date from the first kings. The three floors are different influences. The ground floor is Chinese (Kotan), but no one agrees on the following two who would be Indian and Tibetan. The last one was completely restored and its bright colors rounded off the rest of the building.