Perched on top of the towering Red Hill that rises above the city of Lhasa is the majestic Potala Palace, one of the masterpieces of world architecture. Located at 12,000 feet above sea level – the loftiest palace ever built – this imposing 13-storey monument was the political and religious heart of Tibet.
It is the seat of the Tibetan government, the winter home to generations of Dalai Lamas, a centre of Buddhist learning and training, and still one of the holiest pilgrimage sites for Tibetan Buddhists.
The city of Lhasa, which means ‘Place of the gods’ in Tibetan, was establishes c. AD 633 by King Songtsen Gampo, who built a citadel on the site of the current Potala. This early palace was destroyed by fire, but two small chapels are said to have survived and were incorporated into the Potala Palace, the epic project initiated in c. 1645 by the Fifth Dalai Lama.
It took approximately 8 years and thousands of workers, artists, and craftsmen to build the White Palace, the immense structure that forms the outer perimeter of the Potala. The Fifth Dalai Lama died in 1682 and did not live to see it competed. It is said that he asked for news of his death to be withheld from the public in order not to impede completion of the central Red Palace, which was built between 1690-94.
It is an engineering feat rising 383 feet high, with over 1,000 rooms and untold numbers of statues, shrines, and paintings. Workers dug up the earth from the hill behind the palace, creating a deep crater that was made into a lake; in the centre of the lake the Fifth Dalai Lama built a temple filled with sacred murals that he and subsequent Dalai Lamas used for personal meditation.
