Sampheling

Sampheling takes its name from Chatreng Sampel Ling, the Geluk monastery founded in the seventeenth century on a hill above the town of Chatreng, one of the main religious centres of eastern Kham. It stands in high mountain country close to the Litang plateau, where the monastery of Litang was converted to the Geluk school by the Third Dalai Lama in 1580.

Litang was then a base for Geluk influence in Kham. In the late Ming and early Qing it was the territory of Gushi Khan, the Qing placed it under Sichuan after their army passed through in 1719, and the Seventh Dalai Lama was born in the district in 1708. Sampheling belongs to this chain of Geluk houses that bound the valleys to Lhasa.