Palkhor Monastery

Palkhor Monastery, also known as Palcho Monastery, is a unique Tibetan monastery for it has the characteristics of Tibetan, Han, and Nepal architectural styles and is home to three sects of Buddhism, the Sakyapa, Kadampa, and Gelugpa sects. It is located about 230 km south of Lhasa and 100 km east of Shigatse at the foot of Dzong Hill.

Palkhor Monastery is a Buddhism monastery architecture combined stupa and temple, with temples in the stupa, stupas in the temple. The Palkhor Monastery means lucky and happy monastery in Tibetan language. It also has a Chinese name Baiju Monastery.

Palkhor Monastery has two features: there are three classes of Buddhism (Sakyapa, Kadampa, and Gelugpa) existing harmoniously in this monastery. Those three classes of Buddhism had ever experienced repulsion and rivalry for a long time, but peaceful with each other in it now. So both the oblation and the architecture style in the monastery embrace and adopt good points from all quarters. Palkhor also features its "Bodhi stupa", or "Kumbum" in Tibetan. Deemed as the symbol of the monastery, the spectacular "stupa" consists of hundreds of chapels in layers, housing about a hundred thousand images of various icons. These icons include Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Vajras, Dharma Kings, Arhats, Disciples, great adepts of different orders in Tibetan Buddhist history, and outstanding figures in Tibetan history such as Songtsen Gampo and Trisong Detsen. In total there are about 3,000 statues, so it is called "Myriad Buddhas Stupa". people often call it “Myriad Buddhas Stupa ", but not its formal name.