Sacred Arts of Tibet (.pdf) - Asian Art Museum | Education

What’s inside?
Sacred Arts of Tibet
Part palace, part fortress, part treasure-house, part temple, part tomb, part administrative
center, it is a titanic building of over 900 feet long, with countless rooms. Over the centuries
it became the repository for Tibetan culture. Store rooms were filled with priceless
tangkas (religious paintings on silk), vast libraries, religious statues made of precious metals,
and endless other things.—Hicks, p. 36
In 1959, the Chinese invaders tried first to destroy it with bombs, but it is so strongly built, with walls 26
feet thick at the base, that they gave up and instead removed the precious contents and turned it into a
headquarters of the army.
The red buildings at the center are the Potrang Marpo, the red palace, where religious services took place.
The Potala was also the seat of the Tibetan government until the Chinese take-over. Among the many
rooms are some impressive throne rooms where the Dalai Lamas would receive official guests. It even
houses the stupas, which contain the mummified remains of bodies of the former Dalai Lamas (see Slide
5 for more on stupas). The Potala has become a symbol of Tibetan nationhood.
What was it like to live in this palace as the Dalai Lama?
Famous stories about Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, tell of his adventures in the Potala.
Since his position prevented him from mixing with the people of Lhasa like other boys his age, he
explored the city from the roof-top of the Potala by spying on the people below with telescopes and binoculars.
(Harrer, p. 185) He lived in the Potala from the age of 4 in 1939 until the age of 24 in 1959,
when he left his country for exile in India. For first hand accounts of the Potala, see Readings 1 and 2.
Discussion Points/Teaching Suggestions
1) Read and discuss the descriptions of the Potala by the Dalai Lama and Heinrich Harrer (the Austrian
mountaineer who escaped a British prison in India to Tibet in 1943; Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad
Pitt, tells of his adventures ). (Readings 1 and 2.) Have the students write a descriptive passage of their
own about an extraordinary place they have visited, or one they imagine. They should try to give the
reader a visual picture of the place and the people in it.
2) Compare The Potala with other great buildings and monuments, such as the pyramids in Egypt,
the Vatican, the Forbidden City in Beijing, the US Capitol, PacBell Park, San Francisco City Hall, etc.
Discuss the functions of the buildings—are they seats of government? religious institutions? How does the
way they are built and decorated convey ideas? Does the building look like it was meant to defend attack
or does it look inviting?
30
Asian Art Museum