Sera Monastery
Sera Monastery is one of the "great three" Gelug university monasteries of Tibet, located north of Lhasa and about north of the Jokhang.
The origin of its name is attributed to a fact that during construction, the hill behind the monastery was covered with blooming wild roses.
The original Sera Monastery is responsible for some 19 hermitages, including four nunneries, which are all located in the foothills north of Lhasa.
The Sera Monastery, as a complex of structures with the Great Assembly Hall and three colleges, was founded in 1419 by Jamchen Chojey of Sakya Yeshe of Zel Gungtang, a disciple of Je Tsongkhapa.
During the 1959 revolt in Lhasa, Sera monastery suffered severe damage, with its colleges destroyed and hundreds of monks killed.
After the Dalai Lama took asylum in India, many of the monks of Sera who survived the attack moved to Bylakuppe in Mysore, India. After initial tribulations, they established a parallel Sera Monastery with Sera Me and Sera Je colleges and a Great Assembly Hall on similar lines to the original monastery, with help from the Government of India. There are now 3000 or more monks living in Sera, India and this community has also spread its missionary activities to several countries by establishing Dharma centres, propagating knowledge of Buddhism.
Sera Monastery in Tibet and its counterpart in Mysore, India are noted for their debate sessions.
Background
The original Sera Monastery is a complex of structures founded in 1419 by Jamchen Chojey Sakya Yeshe of Zel Gungtang, a disciple of Je Tsongkhapa. Prior to establishing this monastery, Tsongkhapa, assisted by his disciples, had set up hermitages at higher elevations above Sera Utsé Hermitage.The Sera complex is divided into two sectors by pathways; the eastern part contains the Great Assembly Hall and the dwellings and the western part has the well-known three colleges: the Sera Je Dratsang, the Sera Me Dratsang; and the Ngakpa Dratsang, all instituted by Tsongkhapa as monastic universities that catered to monks in the age range 8-70. All the structures within this complex formed a clockwise pilgrimage circuit, starting with the colleges, followed by the hall, the dwelling units and finally ending at the hermitage of Tsongkhapa above the Great Assembly Hall.
The Jé and Mé colleges were established to train monks, over a 20-year programme of tsennyi mtshan nyid grwa tshang, which concludes with a geshe degree. The Ngakpa college, which predated the other two colleges, was exclusively devoted to the practice of tantric ritual. Before 1959, the administration of each college comprised an abbot with council of ten lamas for each college.
Over the years, the monastery developed into a hermitage where about 6000 monks resided. The monastery was one of the finest locations in Tibet to witness the debate sessions, which were held according to a fixed schedule.
The monastery belongs to the Gelug Order and was one of the largest in Lhasa.
History
The history of the monastery is strongly connected to Master Lama Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelukpa Order, a much-venerated and highly-learned guru in Buddhist scriptures. It was under his tutelage — seen by followers as divine — that his disciple Jetsun Kunkhen Lodroe Rinchen Senge established the Sera Jey Monastery complex in the early 15th century AD. Kunkhyen Lodroe Rinchen Senge initially served as a teacher in the Drepung Monastery before he formed the Sera Jey.The religious legend holds that the site was chosen because Tsongkhapa had a vision in which he saw the full text of Prajnaparamita's 20 slokas on Shunyata captioned in the sky. This vision gave him a full insight into the Tsawasehrab text.
Further, he also perceived the "vision of a rain like 'AA' characters descending from the sky". It was only 12 years later that one of his pupils, Jamchen Choje, fulfilled the prophecy of his guru by establishing the Sera Je as a seat of learning knowledge of the complete teachings and practices of the Mahayana tradition.
King Nedong Dagpa Gyaltsen supported the noble venture with required finances. In 1419, he performed the foundation laying ceremony for construction of the monastery. Lama Tsongkhapa oversaw further details including installing sacred images, idols, and other objects of worship. The monastery soon came to be known as "the Seat of Theckchen ling ".
Post-1959 events
The 14th Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 and sought asylum there. Starting from 18 March, Sera Jey Monastery was subject to bombardment, which resulted in death of hundreds of monks, apart from destruction of ancient texts and loss of innumerable, invaluable, ancient and antique works of art. Many of those who survived this onslaught by the Chinese fled to India, under severe winter weather conditions, across the Himalayas. Following this mass exodus of people from Tibet, when they arrived in India, they were resettled at Bylakuppe near Mysore, Karnataka state among many other locations spread across the country, as one of the exclusive Tibetan establishments with ready assistance forthcoming from the Government of India.It was in 1970 that the group of 197 Sera Jey monks with 103 of Sera Mey monks established a special monastery within the resettlement of Bylakuppe as a counterpart of the Tibetan Sera Jey Monastery. As none of the monks of the Ngagpa Dratsang had survived the invasion, only the Sera Mey College and Sera Jey College were re-formed in India. The Bylakuppe Monastery now houses 5,000 Buddhist monks comprising some migrants and many other Tibetans who were not born in their ancestral homeland.
With forest land allotted by the Government of India, two arms of the Sera Monastery, representing the migrant monks of the Tibetan Sera Je and Sera Me colleges were established; 193 Sera je monks got and 107 monks of Sera Me got an allotment of the balance area. Further, 38 tenements were built with grants by the Government of India for the Monks to reside and pursue their vocation of monkshood coupled with tilling the surrounding allotted land for raising food crops for survival. Well established as an organised Monastery with dedicated efforts of the monks, an Assembly Prayer Hall that could accommodate 1500 monks was also completed in 1978. This Monastery is now the nodal monastery, with its affiliation to several smaller monasteries spread across various regions in Tibet; its popularity could be gauged by the 3000 or more monks living here now. Encouraged by this success and noting the pressure on existing infrastructure, an additional, much larger and an impressive Assembly hall has been built that can accommodate 3500 monks to assemble for prayers. With this development, Sera has now two facets, the original “Tibetan Sera” and the Bylakuppe “New Sera” of the “Tibetan Diaspora” with the counterpart Jé, Mé monasteries, with the Ngakpa college counterpart also added recently. The Sera-India monk community of the Bylakuppe Monastery, has gone global with their missionary activity by establishing “dharma centres” in many parts the world, thus removing the cultural isolation of pre-1959 years in Tibet.
Geography
The monastery is located on the northern outskirts of Lhasa, the capital of Tibet Autonomous Region. As built in 1419, it encompassed an area of.Its geographical location is at the base of Pubuchok mountain, also known as Tatipu Hill, located in the northern suburb of Lhasa City, which forms the watershed of the basins formed by Kyi Chi and Penpo Chu rivers.
Architecture
The monastery complex, encompassing of land, housed several institutions in its precincts. The structures of notability were the Coqen Hall Tsokchen, the three Zhacangs and Kamcun also called Homdong Kangtsang. In the main hall, scriptures, statues, scent cloth and murals were seen in profusion. The descriptions given here relate to the scenario that existed at the monastery prior to the 1959 invasion by China but most of the monasteries are stated to be since restored, though the strength of the monks are said to be small.Great Assembly Hall
The Great Assembly Hall, the ‘Tsokchen' or 'Coqen Hall', dated to 1710, a four-story structure to the north east of the monastery, facing east, is where several religious rituals and rites are conducted. The hall measured an area of built with 125 pillars and was constructed by Lhazang Qan. The entry portico had ten columns.The five chapels in this building have statues or images of Maitreya, Shakyamuni, Arhats, Tsongkhapa, and Kwan-yin with one thousand hands and eleven faces. The ancient and delicately written scriptures ‘the Gangyur of Tripitaka’ also spelt 'Kangyur' in 105 volumes written in Tibetan is the treasured possession of the monastery. It is said that Chengzhu, emperor of the Ming dynasty, presented these scriptures to Jamchen Chojey, the builder of the monastery.
The entrance to the hall was through a portico built on 10 columns. Large appliqué Thangkas were suspended from the ceiling on the side walls. A skylight at the centre provided the light in the hall during the day. Image of the founder of the monastery Jamchen Choje Shakya Yeshe was deified as the central image. Other deities installed were of Maitreya flanked by statues of two lions, Dalai Lamas V, VII and XII, Tsongkhapa, Chokyi Gyeltsen, Desi Sangye Gyatso and many more.
The three inner chapels, sequentially, are the Jampa Lhakhang, the Neten Lhakhang and Jigje Lhakhang. A high image of Maitreya was deified in Jampa Lhakhang ensconced by Eight Bodhisattvas, the treasured Kagyur and guarded by Hayagriva and Acala at the entrance. Jigje Lhakhang houses the image of Bhairava with his consort Bhairavi, Shri Devi and other protector deities.
On the second floor, there were three chapels: the Zhelre Lhakhang from where Maitreya could be seen embossed with a small Tsongkhapa on its heart; the Tu-je Chenpo Lhakhang that had an Avalokiteshvara with eleven faces, Tara and six–armed Mahakala. The idol of Shakyamuni Buddha flanked by images of Gelukpa Lamas were placed in the Shakyamuni Lhakhang.
The third and the fourth floors were used as private apartments for the Dalai Lamas and the preceptors of the Main Assembly Hall.