Samye

Samye stands north of the Yarlung Tsangpo, in the heartland of the early Tibetan kings. Founded under King Trisong Detsen in the eighth century, it is remembered as Tibet's first Buddhist monastery. Its plan represents the Buddhist universe: a central temple evokes Mount Meru, surrounded by buildings and walls arranged as continents and mountains.

The king invited the Indian scholar Shantarakshita to help establish a monastic community, and Tibetan tradition also associates the foundation with Padmasambhava. The first Tibetan monks received ordination here, and translators worked to render Buddhist teachings into Tibetan. Around the end of the eighth century Samye became the setting of a celebrated debate between advocates of Indian and Chinese approaches to Buddhist practice. Accounts differ on its exact dates and outcome, but the event remained central to Tibetan memories of the early spread of Buddhism. Samye retained great religious and political influence in the centuries after its foundation. Later it came under the patronage of successive Tibetan Buddhist schools, preserving the importance of a site whose beginnings were bound to the Tibetan empire and its encounter with Buddhist learning from abroad.