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.
Samye (Tibetan: བསམ་ཡས་, Wylie: bsam yas, Chinese: 桑耶寺) was the first gompa (Buddhist monastery) built in Tibet. It was probably first constructed between 775-9 under the patronage of King Trisong Detsen of Tibet who sought to revitalize Buddhism, which had declined since its introduction by King Songtsen Gampo in the 7th century. The monastery is in Dranang, Lhoka. It was supposedly modeled on the design of Odantapuri in what is now Bihar, India. The 18th century Puning Temple built by the Qianlong Emperor of Qing China in Chengde, Hebei was modeled after Samye. The original buildings have long disappeared. They have been badly damaged several times — by civil war in the 11th century, fires in the mid 17th century and in 1826, an earthquake in 1816, and in the 20th century, particularly during the Cultural Revolution. As late as the late 1980s pigs and other farm animals were allowed to wander through the sacred buildings. Each time it has been rebuilt, and today, largely due to the efforts of Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama from 1986 onward, it is again an active monastery and important pilgrimage and tourist destination.
