The Potala Palace took three years outside and 45 years inside
Rising 13 storeys from a hill in the middle of the Lhasa Valley, the Potala Palace holds more than 1,000 rooms and some 200,000 statues. Its outer walls went up in three years from 1645, but finishing and furnishing the interior took another 45, and copper was poured into its foundations against earthquakes.
The present palace was begun in 1645 by the Great Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lozang Gyatso, on the advice of Konchog Chophel, a senior Gelug figure who saw the site as ideal for government, lying between Drepung and Sera monasteries and the old city. It stands on Marpo Ri, the Red Hill, once crowned by a residence credited to King Songtsen Gampo and conventionally dated to 637. Two chapels in the northwest corner preserve pieces of that older building, including a cave identified as the king's meditation retreat.
Its name comes from Mount Potalaka, a sacred rocky point linked in Buddhist tradition to Avalokitesvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. The decision to build followed a political shift: in 1642 Gushri Khan seized territory from the Tsang regime and offered all of Tibet to the Dalai Lama, who was enthroned as sovereign. The Dalai Lama and his government moved into the White Palace in 1649, and the Potala served as their winter residence until 1959. The Red Palace was added between 1690 and 1694, about twelve years after the Fifth Dalai Lama died.
Built in the fortress-like dzong style at around 3,700 metres, the complex stretches 400 metres east to west and 350 north to south. Its sloping stone walls average 3 metres thick and reach 5 at the base. It rises 119 metres above the hill and over 300 above the valley floor, and contains about 10,000 shrines. During the Sertreng Festival, two giant joined thangkas showing Tara and Sakyamuni were hung down the lower white south face. Some Tibetans simply called it the Peak.
The palace was shelled and damaged during the 1959 uprising, and became a museum after Tibet came under the People's Republic of China. Premier Zhou Enlai's personal intervention spared it during the Cultural Revolution in 1966, though Tibetan historian Tsering Woeser says its huge store of scriptures and treasures was almost entirely looted.
Source: Potala Palace
