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Ganden Tibet China





Ganden Monastery is one of the great three Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet, located at the top of Wangbur Mountainm 36 kilometers from Lhasa. Founded in 1409, it was the original monastery of the Geluk order. Being the furthest from Lhasa of the three university monasteries, Ganden traditionally had a smaller population with some 6,000 monks in the early 20th century and only 2,000 in 1959. Tenzin Gyatso, the present Dalai Lama, took his final degree examination in Ganden in 1958 before going into exile in India in 1959. The monastery was completely destroyed during the rebellion of 1959. In 1966 it was severely shelled by Red Guard artillery and monks then had to dismantle the remains. The Ganden Monastery was re-established in Karnataka, India in the Tibetan settlement of Mundgod. Re-building of the original monastery, run by an elected abbott, has continued since the 1980s.

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