In classical Tibetan historiography, the restoration of an organized and monastic tradition of Tibetan Buddhism is attributed to him. He built Tholing Monastery in 997 when Tholing was the capital of Guge. Yeshe-Ö' sponsored noviciates, including the great translator Rinchen Zangpo.
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Tholing Monastery (or Toling, mtho lding dgon pa མཐོ་ལྡིང་དགོན་པ) (Tuolin si 托林寺) is the oldest monastery (or gompa) in the Ngari Prefecture of western Tibet. It is situated in Tholing (Zanda), Zanda County, near the Indian border of Ladakh. It was built in 997 AD by Yeshe-Ö, the second King of the Guge Kingdom. In Tibetan language 'Tholing' means "hovering in the sky forever" and is reflected by the location of the monastery at an elevation of .
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Zanda is a Chinese name given to the ancient town known as Tholing, which was once the capital of the Ngari district in western Tibet. The town, the monastery, and Tsaparang, a rocky range with forts, played an important role the history of Tibetan Buddhism in west Tibet. Tholing and Tsaparang were the capital cities of the Parang-Guge Kingdom during the 10-11th centuries when Tibetan Buddhism civilization developed. Tholing was on an important trade route between India and Tibet.
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During his stay in Tholing, the famous Buddhist work he wrote was "Lamp of The Path to Enlightenment." He along with the first Abbot, Bin-chen Bzang-po, of Tholing were responsible for introducing the South Asian art to Tibet, particularly the murals depicting a fusion of Indian, Nepalese and Kashmir styles. The famous murals are the "16 Vajara Dancers" and "The Birth of Sakyamuni," the founder of Buddhism. The monasteries were built in Tsaparang and Tholing with mud bricks, along with other temples and monasteries.
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Its sanctity in the Trans Himalayan Buddhism is considered as second only to that of the Tholing Monastery in Tibet.
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View of Tholing Monastery, built in the time of the Guge Kingdom. The Guge Kingdom was established by Chogyal Yeshe-Ö in AD 967, with Tholing as the capital. Under his reign, Tholing became an important centre for Indian scholars to visit and spread Buddhist religion and culture. Before that, at the initiative of the King, specially chosen batch of 21 young and bright students from the monastery were sent to India and Kashmir to be trained in Buddhism and to translate Sanskrit texts on religion and the Tibetan language and to study at Vikramashila, a specialist institution in tantra.
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He dressed himself like a monk and resided in the Tholing Monastery. In 1042, the third king invited the Indian master Atiśa to Guge. Later in the 11th century a Buddhist conference was arranged at Gyatsa Jhakhang (also known as Yeshe-Ö Temple), an original 10th-century temple now in ruins. The Indian monk Atisha, stayed for three years at Tholing and became a famous master in Tibet.
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Guge was founded in the 10th century. Its capitals were located at Tholing and Tsaparang..Snelling, John. (1990). The Sacred Mountain: The Complete Guide to Tibet's Mount Kailas. 1st edition 1983.
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Statue of Avalokiteśvara made in the Guge Kingdom during the rule of Yeshe-Ö Purang-Guge kingdom () was a small Western Himalayan kingdom which was founded and flourished in the 10th century. It covered parts of remote western Tibet and northern Ladakh. The original capital was at Burang () but was moved to Tholing in the Sutlej canyon southwest of Mount Kailash. It was divided into smaller kingdoms around the year 1100 CE. Tholing, at , the last town before Tsaparang in the kingdom of Guge was then its capital, (163 miles from Darchen).
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It was founded by the great-grandson of Langdarma, who was assassinated, leading to the collapse of the Tibetan Empire. Buddhist monuments at both Tsaparang and Tholing are now mostly in ruins except for a few statues and scores of murals in good condition, painted in the western Tibetan style. While Langdarma persecuted Buddhism in Tibet, his descendant, King Yeshe-Ö, who ruled the Guge Kingdom in the 10th century with Tholing as its capital, was responsible for the second revival or "second diffusion" of Buddhism in Tibet; the reign of the Guge Kingdom was known more for the revival of Buddhism than for its conquests. He built Tholing Monastery in his capital city in the 997 AD along with two other temples built around the same time, Tabo Monastery in the Spiti Valley of Northeast India and Khochar Monastery (south of Purang); both these monasteries are functional.
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The Tholing Monastery complex has many rectangular buildings. It is a walled complex facing east. Built of mud bricks, the style became the forerunner for similar temples built in the kingdom. Before the Cultural Revolution the monastery had six chapels.
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Tholing (, literally "high place";), Toling, Tuolin, or Toding, alternatively Zanda, Tsanda, Tsada, or Zada, is a town and seat of Zanda County, Ngari Prefecture, in the west of Tibet Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China. The town was the former capital of Guge Kingdom in western Tibet when it was ruled by Langdarma. Now an isolated military town, it has a well laid out new street, a post office, and telecommunication facilities. The Tholing Monastery, established in 997 AD, is in the suburbs of the town, in the Grand canyon of the Langchen Tsangpo (Sutlej River).
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The earthquake was reported to be felt in Ngari, Zanda and Tholing, and as far away as Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Kashmir, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, parts of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, northern Pakistan, western Nepal, eastern Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Almaty, in Kazakhstan.
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Lama Anagarika Govinda and Li Gotami Govinda visited the kingdom of Guge, including Tholing, and Tsaparang, in 1947–1949. Their tours of Central and Western Tibet are recorded in stunning black-and-white photos.Li Gotami Govinda, Tibet in Pictures (Berkeley, Dharma Publishing, 1979), 2 volumes.
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In 1848 Strachey was the first European to find the Siachen Glacier, and ascended it for 2 miles. In 1849, Strachey and his brother Richard briefly entered Tibet by following the Niti Pass out of Garhwal. Their route included Tholing Monastery and Hanle. Strachey's Tibetan surveys won him the Royal Geographical Society's Patron's Medal in 1852.
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Ruins of Guge Kingdom Recent maps only use the Zanda name, and not Tholing. Zanda sits at an elevation of . There are caves in the hills, and a few ruins of chortens located closer to the Sutlej River; the ruins are mostly destroyed but the murals are in very good condition. There are a few poplar trees in the town.
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The ruins of Tsaparang, the ancient capital The kingdom covered parts of western Tibet and northern Ladakh. Its first capital was Burang and the second one was Tsaparang, west of Tholing along the Sutlej. The old city of Tsaparang, now in ruins, is a "fairy tale of caves, passageways, honeycombed in a tall ridge of ancient ocean deposits". The king's palace is located on the upper part of the hills.
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It has a maze of chambers, and a balcony and windows looking into the valley. Following the capture of the kingdom by Ladakh in 1630 CE, most buildings fell into decay except for a few temples which have survived in the lower flanks of the ridge. Like Tholing, their walls are studded with mural art and is now a museum. The main images are surrounded by mythical animals and floral designs.
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The monastery is one of the first temples built at the start of the "second diffusion" of Buddhism in Tibet. It was built in 997 AD by King Yeshe-Ö, when Tholing was the capital of Guge. The king sponsored lay young men who would become noviciates of the monastery. For this purpose, he sponsored a fellowship for Rinchen Zangpo to travel to Kashmir and India to study and translate.
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From Kasar Devi, Govinda and Li Gotami undertook journeys to Tibet in the late 1940s, making a large number of paintings, drawings and photographs. These travels are described in Govinda's book The Way of the White Clouds.Collection on Lama Govinda, C.V. Starr East Asian Library, Columbia University Libraries. While on the expedition to Tsaparang and Tholing in Western Tibet in 1948–49, sponsored by the Illustrated Weekly of India, Govinda received initiations in the Nyingma and Sakyapa lineages.
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The others succumbed to the extreme weather conditions of northern India. Rinchen Zangpo was such an impressive student that Yeshe-Ö made him responsible for the translation of other Sanskrit scriptures, as well as the building of monasteries in Tibet. The first one in western Tibet, Tholing, was built in 997, after Yeshe-Ö had been king for thirty years. The other main monasteries built under the king's initiative were Tabo Monastery in Ladakh, and the Khochar monastery.
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In the later part of the 11th century, a Buddhist conference was arranged at Gyatsa Jhakhang (also known as Yeshe-Ö Temple) a 10th-century temple which was in ruins and has since been restored. White Temple Two chapels, dated to the fifteenth century, were used to store grains during the Cultural Revolution. Both have notable murals but those at Lakkhang Karpo are more prominent. Tholing became a portal to Tibet for Indian scholars to visit and spread religious-cultural ideas of Buddhism.
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Avalokiteshvara painting of a fisherman in distress during a storm, in the northeast stupa of the Temple of Yeshe Ö, Tholing, (Kashmiri origin, 11th century) The tenth century Yeshe-Ö temple is currently under reconstruction after the Red Guards damaged it during the Cultural Revolution in 1967. In the Lotsava Lakhang in Riba, in Ngari Prefecture, field research revealed a painting of eight monks, including Rinchen Zangpo, sent to Kashmir by Yeshe-Ö to bring texts of scriptures of Mahayana Buddhism from there to western Tibet.
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The influence of the Guge Kingdom, particularly the monastic center of Tholing, was felt from Kashmir to Assam in India also. Guge's capital was shifted to Tsaparang by 15th century. History also records that from 1624 to 1635 an effort was made by a mission headed by António de Andrade, a Portuguese Jesuit, to convert Guge to Roman Catholicism and some locals became Catholics and a church was also built. However, as result of local resentment at the Guge ruler's persecution of Buddhism monks, they approached the kingdom of Ladakh to intervene.
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Tholing's monastery ruins are within the town limits, while Tsparang's ruins, Gurugem monastery, are away. Visits to Tholing monastery and the ruins of Tsaparang are only authorized by permit; it is issued by the Cultural Relics Bureau located at Lhasa. A 2011 report, on the "Art and History of the Cultural History of Western Tibet, 8th to 15th century, and Cultural Preservation", states that the Inner Asian Art Style has been identified in the paintings discovered from the cave temples in Zanda of Ngari. Much of the art and architecture were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.
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The monastery was built by the Buddhist king (also known as Royal Lama) Yeshe-Ö in 996 A.D. It was renovated 46 years later by the royal priest Jangchub O'd, the grandnephew of Yeshe-Ö. They were kings of the Purang-Guge kingdom whose ancestry is traced to the ancient Tibetan monarchy, and extended their kingdom from Ladakh to Mustang by building a large network of trade routes, and built temples along the route. Tabo was built as a 'daughter' monastery of the Tholing Monastery in Ngari, western Tibet. This royal dynasty was instrumental in re-introducing the Indian Mahayana Buddhism in Tibet, the second major spreading of Buddhism in Tibetan history.
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