Samye Monastery
( 2005-10-27 )

Utse is a unique building with three floors.

The ground floor is Tibetan, with a turning wheel cloister full of extraordinarily splendid murals. Before the hall, visitors will see a stone stele, which was erected to memorize Trisong Detsen's vow of his piety to Buddhism. Inside there are several chapels in which different deities are enshrined. The holiest one is a Sakyamuni statue carved out of a huge rock from the sacred Mt. Hepori.

The second floor is a sutra hall in Chinese style which houses about 472 Chinese stone Buddhas. The southeast corner is an apartment Dalai Lamas used to live in during visits to Samye. The Indian-style toproofcontains arhats (enlightened Buddhists) of Indian features. The hall is totally covered with murals, depicting the life of Sakyamuni, Padmasambhava, the Great Fifth, Samye's panorama layout, and Tibetan history.

Southwest of Utse is the sutra translation center, where hundreds of translators from Tibet, India, and inland China translated huge volumes of sutra into Tibetan. Murals in the center recorded the grand event. Now it is a college where lamas rest and debate sutras.

Alongside Samye's colossal collection of artifacts, its murals are prestigious throughout Tibet. Samye has many valuable murals which can't be seen anywhere else. For example, there are murals depicting Padmasambhava's life (on the ground and second floors of Utse), murals telling the history of Samye (south cloister on the second floor of Utse) and other murals reflecting the local folklore. The Samye murals are actually an encyclopedia of Tibetan culture and religion.

After the peaceful liberation of Tibet in 1951, the Chinese Government paid due attention to the old architecture and the protection of the relics in the monastery, and earmarked special funds for its maintenance. In 1962, the government listed the monastery as a key cultural relics unit under the prefecture's protection, and in 1996, listed it as a key cultural relics unit under the State's protection.