GANDEN MONASTERY
The ruins of this great monastery lie about 45 km, east of Lhasa. The main road to east is good tarmac beyond Dagze and then rough gravel for the last few killometers. A track turns south past two villages and zig zag for nearly 600 Meters up the mountain side to the Monastery. It is situated 4300 M, I n a bowl like an amphitheatre, Ganden was Lhasa's second biggest monastery at times strongest of the three that dominated the government. Tsong Khapa established it in 1409, earlier than either Drepung or Sera, as a place to train moral disciplined monks and to work out the reformed version of Tibetan Buddhism that soon evolved in to the yellow hat sect. Today Ganden's massive effort to rebuild after the disaster of the Chinese invasion goes on, largely with the help of Local volunteer effort about 200 monks have returned.