Shigatse

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Shigatse, the capital of the province of Tsang, is 275km west of Lhasa. It is located 90km west of Gyantse on the south bank of Brahmaputra at the point where the Nyangchu River flows into it.

The History Of Shigatse

Shigatse has long been the commercial centre of Tsang Province. Formerly it was dominated by a massive castle build on the hillock above the old town. This is where the powerful king of Tsang lived during their rule in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.

Since the fifth Dalai Lama, the city has been the seat of the Panchen Lama and his monastery, Tashi-Lhunpo.  Twenty-seven kilometres to the southwest of the Shigatse along the main highway to Lhatse and Nepal is Narthang-Monastery, founded in 1153 by Tumton Lodro Drakpa, a disciple of the Kadampa master Drom Tonpa. It became famous for housing the woodblocks of the ‘Narthang’ edition of the entire Buddhist canon, which were carved between 1730 and 1742. This formerly noble monastery now just recently renovated and can be seen as the original old high mud-brick walls.

On the northern bank of the Brahmaputra near the town of Daktsuga, East of Shigatse, are two Bön Monasteries; Yungdrungling-Monastery and Menri-Monastery. Both are being renovated, and several Bön monks live there. However, because Buddhism has influenced the native animistic Bön religion, it is hard to distinguish these places from Buddhist temples.

Shigatse Map