Sakya Monastery

The principal monastery of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, founded in 1073 and containing a legendary library of over 84,000 manuscript scrolls alongside extraordinary medieval murals and statues.

Sakya Monastery sits on the banks of the Zhongqu River in Sakya County, about 130 km south-west of Shigatse. It is the main seat of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, one of the four main schools alongside Gelug, Kagyu, and Nyingma. The Sakya school achieved its height of political power in the 13th and 14th centuries when the Sakya Trizins (throneholders) governed Tibet as viceroys of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty — a relationship that made Sakya effectively the administrative centre of Tibet for nearly a century.

The monastery's most striking feature is its colour scheme: the walls are painted in distinctive horizontal bands of grey, white, and red — colours associated in Tibetan iconography with the bodhisattvas Manjushri, Avalokitesvara, and Vajrapani respectively. The main monastery is divided into two sections by the river: the older northern monastery (now largely in ruins) and the walled southern monastery, which contains the principal assembly hall, chapels, and the famous library.

The library of Sakya Monastery is considered one of the most important collections of Tibetan manuscripts in existence. A wall-length shelf system 60 m long and 10 m high contains an estimated 84,000 scroll bundles, described by some scholars as the 'Tibetan Dunhuang' for its potential historical significance. Preservation and cataloguing projects have been under way for several decades.

The assembly hall's towering columns — said to be gifts from Kublai Khan — and the 12 m seated Sakya Pandita statue are among the most impressive works of medieval Tibetan art accessible to visitors.