The Jokhang Temple

I visited India and Nepal for the first time on a Buddhist pilgrimage led by Shantum Seth in 2007. The following is from my 2008 trip to India, Nepal, and Tibet. The Jokhang Temple is located in Lhasa, the capitol of Tibet.

After lunch, Gyantzing and I met up again at the hotel lobby, and we walked to the shop a couple doors down that sold bottled water. I stocked up on four more bottles. (I just can’t get enough water.)

We then walked to the Jokhang Temple.

In front of the temple is a huge expanse of pavement, maybe stone rather than cement blocks. These form a courtyard ahead of the Jokhang Temple, quite the happening place.

Pilgrims circumambulated and prostrated before the Jokhang. Some people were out shopping. You can get both your spiritual and material needs (and wants) in the same place, the Barkhor, the walkway around the Jokhang. People wore clothing from different regions of Tibet, and a variety of prayer wheels twirling in pilgrim’s hands. In front of the temple stood a stupa-shaped stove where people burned offerings of juniper in the morning, as we had seen when we arrived at the Drepung Monastery early enough to see people pick up the green branches and place them in a stove in front of the monastery.