Drepung Monastery (Wylie: 'bras spungs dgon pa, "Rice Heap Monastery"), located at the foot of Mount Gephel, is one of the "great three" Gelug university gompas (monasteries) of Tibet. The other two are Ganden Monastery and Sera Monastery. Drepung is the largest of all Tibetan monasteries and is located on the Gambo Utse mountain, five kilometers from the western suburb of Lhasa. Freddie Spencer Chapman reported, after his 1936-37 trip to Tibet, that Drepung was at that time the largest monastery in the world, and housed 7,700 monks, "but sometimes as many as 10,000 monks." "What we don't hear about Tibet", The Guardian (Comment is Free). (Wednesday 11 February 2009 22.00 GMT) Since the 1950s, Drepung Monastery, along with its peers Ganden and Sera, have lost much of their independence and spiritual credibility in the eyes of Tibetans since they operate under the close watch of the Chinese security services. All three were reestablished in exile in the 1950s in Karnataka state in south India. Drepung and Ganden are in Mundgod and Sera is in Bylakuppe.
Ralung Monastery (Wylie: ra lung dgon), located in the Tsang region of western Tibet south of Karo Pass, is the traditional seat of the Drukpa Lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. It was founded in 1180 by Tsangpa Gyare, 1st Gyalwang Drukpa, a disciple of Lingje Répa (Wylie: gling rje ras pa) who founded the Drukpa Lineage. Ralung is one of the most sacred places in Tibet, for it is here that the great Dugpa school of red-hat monks originated, a school still influential with numerous adherents in Southern, Northern, and Eastern Tibet, and in Bhutan, which latter country is, in fact, called Dugpa owing to the preponderance of this sect. The Ralung-til, the head monastery of the Dugpa, is to the south-east of this village. This monastery owes its name to the fact that it is surrounded by mountains as the heart (mt'il) of a lotus is by the corolla.
