Ganden Monastery

Ganden Monastery is one of the three great Gelugpa monasteries of central Tibet, founded in 1409 by Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, on a ridge of the Wangbur Mountain 47 kilometres east of Lhasa. Much of the complex was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and has been gradually rebuilt since the 1980s. The kora path around the monastic hill provides a panoramic view of the Kyichu River valley below and the Tibet plateau stretching south. The site's elevated and isolated setting gives it a different character from the urban monasteries of Lhasa.