Sera

Tibetan name
Tibetan script : སེ་ ར་
Wylie transliteration : se ra
Official transcription of the PRCh : Sera
THDL transcription : Sera
Other spellings: Sera
Chinese name
Traditional : 色拉寺
Simplified : 色拉寺
Pinyin : Sèlā Sì

Sera ( Tib . : se ra ) is one of the "Three Great Monasteries " (Tib .: gdan-sa gsum ) of the Gelug order of Tibetan Buddhism . It is located north of Lhasa , the capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China .

Sera Monastery 2009

history

Sera means " wild rose " or " rose hip ". The monastery is about three kilometers north of Lhasa. Legend has it that Tsongkhapa (Tib .: tsong kha pa ; 1357–1419), the founder of the Gelug order, wrote his commentary Rigpe Gyatsho (Tib .: rigs pa'i rgya mtsho ) on a work by Nagarjuna in 1409 Hermitage called Sera Chöding (Tib .: se ra chos lding ) above the place where the monastery is today. While writing, one of the pages is said to have been blown away in the wind; golden letters are said to have emanated from the side and set themselves on a stone. Tsongkhapa prophesied that a great site of Buddhist scholarship would be built here, especially for the Madhyamaka doctrine of the void, and in 1419, when Tsongkhapa died, one of his disciples - Chamchen Chöje Shakya Yeshe (1354–1435) founded it this place the Sera Monastery. Sera, Ganden and Drepung are considered the Three Great Monasteries of the Gelug Order.

Originally the monastery was a center for the study and practice of Tantra , but soon after its foundation the focus was shifted to a scholastic - philosophical direction.

The third abbot of Sera, Gungru Gyeltshen Sangpo (Tib .: supply ru rgyal mtshan bzang po ; 1383-1450) shared the monastery in four Dratshang (Tib .: grwa tshang ) called faculties : 1. Gya (Tib .: rgya ) 2 Dromteng (tib .: 'brom steng ) 3. Tö (tib .: stod ) and 4. Me (tib .: smad ). Soon after, these four were merged into two faculties, namely Sera To and Sera Me; In the second half of the 15th century Sera Tö was merged with a newly created faculty - Sera Che (Tib .: se ra byes ). For over two hundred years these have been Sera's two faculties. At the beginning of the 18th century a third faculty - Ngagpa Dratshang (Tib .: ngnags pa grwa tshang ) - was established. Sera Che and Sera Me were philosophical faculties (tib .: mtshan nyid grwa tshang ), at which a Geshe title (tib .: dge bshes ) was awarded after twenty years of study . The Ngagpa Dratshang was, as the name suggests, a tantric faculty.

The Sera Che and Ngagba Dratshang faculties used the textbooks of Jetsünpa Chökyi Gyeltshen (Tib .: rje btsun pa chos kyi rgyal mtshan ; 1469–1544); Sera Me used the textbooks of Khedrub Gedün Tenpa Dargye (Tib .: mkhas grub dge 'dun bstan pa dar rgyas ; 1493–1568).

The three faculties were subordinate to a total of 35 departments, called Khangtshen (Tib .: khang tshan ), to which the monks were assigned depending on their origin.

Until 1959, each faculty had its own administration and its own abbot. The so-called Council of Ten Lamas (Tib .: bla ma kha bcu ) under the leadership of the abbots of the three faculties administered the monastery as a whole. There were officially 3,300, but actually 7,500 to 10,000 monks, of whom in 1958 only 400 were so-called "reading monks" (Tib .: dpe cha ba ) who actually studied. The rest were working, and about a seventh were dobdobs (Tib .: ldob ldob ), i. H. Members of the so-called monastery police, who monitored the monks who did not observe the rules of the order.

In the fall of 1944, seven to ten monks from Sera Che and one monk from Sera Ngagpa Dratshang went to Lhündrub north of Lhasa to collect interest. The farmers could not pay the interest and appealed to the government, which instructed the district administrator to mediate. The monks of Sera got into an argument with him and killed him with a dried sheep's leg. The monastery protected the murderers and did not hand them over. In the conflict between the regents Radreng Rinpoche (tib .: rwa sgreng rin po che ) and the Tagdrag Rinpoche (tib .: stag brag rin po che ) in 1939, the monks of Sera supported the regent Radreng, who first succeeded on December 4, 1944 his resignation came to Lhasa in the hope of regaining power. He also tried to incite the monks of Sera Che to rebellion. These conflicts led the Sera Che monks to boycott the Great Feast of Prayer from February 14-17, 1945 . The abbot of Sera Che fled to Chamdo in March that year, in an area not under the control of Lhasa. He was received by the Kuomintang administration and did not return to Lhasa until 1951. The regent Tagdrag Rinpoche appointed the Mongol Tendar (Tib .: bstan dar ) abbot of Sera Che, which led to the final break between the Tagdrag Rinpoche and the Radreng Rinpoche.

After Radreng Rinpoche's arrest, monks from Sera Che murdered Abbot Tendar on April 16, 1947, because he had not protested against Radreng Rinpoche's arrest. They started an armed uprising against the regent and tried to free Radreng Rinpoche from prison. From April 26-29, the Tibetan army fought the monastery and finally put down the uprising, using cannons against the monastery and killing 200 to 300 monks.

After the uprising in 1959 , the monastery was closed and the buildings used as barracks . Much of the buildings were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution . In 1980, the Chinese government spent half a million yuan renminbi to renovate the monastery and operations began again. In 1982, the monastery was the State Council under monument protection provided. A large part of the buildings was rebuilt or renovated. However, the two philosophical faculties were not restored, instead all monks follow the tradition of Sera Che. Around 750 monks currently live in the monastery. In 1992, the monastery officially had a revenue of around 860,000 yuan, half of which was donation.

architecture

Sera Monastery 1938/1939

The monastery now has an area of 114,946 square meters. Most of the area is taken up by the Khangtshen buildings. The three largest buildings are the great halls of the three faculties and the Tshogchen (Tib .: tshogs chen ), the great assembly hall of the entire monastery.

The large assembly hall was built in 1710, is four stories high and is located in the northeast of the area. The main hall is supported by 125 columns and occupies an area of 2,000 square meters. In the building is u. a. a statue of Shakya Yeshe and an edition of the Kanjur (Tib .: bka '' gyur ), a gift from the Ming Emperor Chengzhu. Behind the main hall are three smaller halls in which u. a. Another edition of the Kanjur is kept, a gift from the Ming Emperor Zhudi from 1410.

Debate court of the monastery

The oldest Dratsang building is that of the Sera Me Faculty from 1419. It has particularly well-preserved frescoes . In the building of the Sera Che faculty from 1435 there is a famous statue of Hayagriva . The Uma Lhakang (Tib .: dbu ma lha khang ; Madhyamaka temple ) is located in the debate courtyard of the Che Faculty . It is said to be in the place of the stone from the founding legend of Sera. The third and smallest Dratshang building is that of the Ngagpa Faculty; it dates from 1559.

Sera now has 33 Khangtshan buildings, each with a courtyard.

Behind the monastery lies the only place for heavenly burials in Lhasa today .

literature

blo bzang kun mkyen / Luòsāng Gòngqīn 洛桑贡钦: chos sde chen po se ra theg chen gling gi gnas bshad gser gyi sgron me / Sèlā Sì jiǎnjiè色拉寺简介 (Lhasa, bod ljongs mi dmangs dpe skrun khang / Xshín西藏mín ch ǎnshín ǎmín ch chn出版社 2003), ISBN 7-223-01560-8 .

Xióng Wénbīn 熊文彬 (Ed.): Sèlā Sì色拉寺 (Beijing, Wǔzhōu chuánbō chūbǎnshè 五洲传播出版社 1997), ISBN 7-80113-319-6 .

Champa Thupten Zongtse: History of the Sera Monastery of Tibet, 1418-1959

Web links

Commons : Sera - collection of images, videos and audio files

Sera Monastery, a famous monastery in Lhasa ( Radio China International , February 22, 2005)
The Sera Monastery
The Hermitages of Sera (thlib.org; PDF; 6.0 MB)

Individual evidence

^ John Powers: Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism . Snow Lion, Ithaca / Boulder 2007, passim.
↑ cf. Tashi Tsering, William R. Siebenschuh, Melvyn C. Goldstein: The Struggle for Modern Tibet. The Autobiography of Tashi Tsering (Armonk, ME Sharpe 1997), ISBN 1-56324-950-2 , p. 29.
^ Melvyn Goldstein: A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (University of California Press 1991), ISBN 0-520-07590-0 ;
Patricia Cronin Marcello: The Dalai Lama. A Biography (Westport, Greenwood 2003), ISBN 0-313-32207-4 , p. 52;
Jane Ardley: The Tibetan independence movement. Political, religious and Gandhian perspective , ISBN, p. 17;
Melvyn C. Goldstein, Matthew Kapstein: Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet. Religious Revival and Cultural Identity (Berkeley / Los Angeles, University of California Press 1998), ISBN 0-520-21130-8 , p. 19.

Sera (alternative names of the lemma)
se ra theg chen gling, Sera Thegchen Ling, Sera Thekchen Ling, Sera Tekchenling, Sela Tieqin Lin 色拉贴钦林, Sela si 色拉寺, se ra dgon pa

29.698055555556 91.133333333333Coordinates: 29 ° 41 ′ 53 ″ N , 91 ° 8 ′ 0 ″ E

[1] John Powers: Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism . Snow Lion, Ithaca / Boulder 2007, passim.

[2] . Tashi Tsering, William R. Siebenschuh, Melvyn C. Goldstein: The Struggle for Modern Tibet. The Autobiography of Tashi Tsering (Armonk, ME Sharpe 1997), ISBN 1-56324-950-2 , p. 29.

[3] Melvyn Goldstein: A History of Modern Tibet, 1913–1951: The Demise of the Lamaist State (University of California Press 1991), ISBN 0-520-07590-0 ;
Patricia Cronin Marcello: The Dalai Lama. A Biography (Westport, Greenwood 2003), ISBN 0-313-32207-4 , p. 52;
Jane Ardley: The Tibetan independence movement. Political, religious and Gandhian perspective , ISBN, p. 17;
Melvyn C. Goldstein, Matthew Kapstein: Buddhism in Contemporary Tibet. Religious Revival and Cultural Identity (Berkeley / Los Angeles, University of California Press 1998), ISBN 0-520-21130-8 , p. 19.