Phuktal

Phuktal Monastery clings to a cliff above the Tsarap River in southeastern Zanskar. Its buildings rise in tiers around the mouth of a great natural cave, where a spring emerges from the rock. The cave was a place of retreat before the monastery was built; the scholar Pakpa Sherab established a hermitage here in the eleventh century. In the early fifteenth century Jangsem Sherap Zangpo, a disciple of Tsongkhapa, founded a Gelug monastery at the site. His disciple Palden Zangpo later continued and enlarged the establishment. The monastery's remote setting gave it a character of seclusion, while its community linked the valleys of Zanskar to the wider religious traditions of Tibet.