The Jokhang is the spiritual centre of Tibet, its most holy place, the destination, over time, of millions of Tibetan pilgrims.

The oldest part of the Jokhang dates from the seventh century AD. It was one of two temples built by King Songtsen Gampo to house the statues of Buddha that his two foreign wives brought to Tibet from China and Nepal. Legend says that Songtsen Gampo threw his ring into the air, promising to build a temple wherever it landed. The ring fell into a lake and struck a rock where a white stupa miraculously appeared- an auspicious sign. Workmen filled in the lake with stones, and the Jokhang was built over it by craftsmen from Tibet, China, Nepal and Kashmir. Even today, a pool exists under the Jokhang's main courtyard.

Following removal of part of the Barkhor in 1985 to make way for a plaza, three monuments that stand in front of the Jokhang were enclosed in walls. The pillar on the left is a treaty stones recording an alliance between the king of Tibet and the emperor of China in AD 823. On the right, the more visible of the two tablets was erected by the Chinese in 1794 to announce procedures in case of a smallpox epidemic. The table was partly eaten away by people who thought the stone itself had curative powers.

The outer courtyard and porch of the temple are usually filled with pilgrims making full-length prostration's towards the holy sanctum.

Layout
The Jokhang was enlarged eight times between the seventh century and 1660, when the Fifth Dally Lama added its last embellishments. It consists of an elaborate porch leading to a frescoed cloister around an open courtyard. Outside runs a long gallery of prayer wheels. A passage leads into a main hall with numerous small chapels around it. The sacred shrine holding the ancient Buddha statue is centered at the rear of this main hall. Above, another floor has historically valuable murals. At the top, a three-level roof is a world unto itself. Although monks have been attached to the Jokhang for centuries, its eminence rests on the sacred statuary and shrines of the temple, not on the fame of the monastery.

Unlike the lofty Potala, the Jokhang has intimate, human proportions. Pilgrims inch their way clockwise towards the Holy of Holies, crowding through low chapel doorways in semi-darkness with gifts of yak butter to fuel the myriad flickering votive lamps, or with white scarves to honor the deities. The murmuring of mantras sounds like a distant swarm of bees.

In recent years sad events have taken place in the Jokhang. Many early wall paintings, some over a thousand years old, have been removed for the sake of ' restoration'. With the exception of one 11th-century mural in the Sheray Lhakhang and some much later mandalas in the Songtsen Gampo Chapel on the west side, all of the wall paintings of the Jokhang's first floor have been removed and replaced with modern murals. The loss of so many world-class works of religious art is a great cultural disaster. To some extent, that is why those fortunately survived seem to be rare and precious.

Main Hall
The Main Hall is entered through a corridor graced by guardian statues- fierce on the left, benign on the right,. Here a delightful set of murals, thankfully still intact, depicts Wen Cheng's procession arriving in Tibet with the statue enthroned in a horsedrawn carriage and then the building of the Jokhang. In the middle of the hall sit huge images of Padmasambhava ( left) and Sakyamuni (right). Between them, a delicate, 11-headed Chenrezi expresses infinite compassion. Above, beams carved with human-faced lions show influence form Persia via Kashmir. Numerous small chapels enshrining a variety of Tibetan deities progress to the back wall.

The Holy of Holies During mornings, later afternoons and holy days pilgrims can circumambulate the shrine. The statue, gilded many times, crowned, encrusted with jewels and placed in an elaborate setting, originally represented Sakyamuni aged 12. On both sides of the shrine are altars with images of Songtsen Gampo and his two wives.

The roof is a conglomerate of pavilions, craftsmen's workshops, monks' living rooms and gold roofs adorned with bells, figures, birds, beasts and dragons. At the front, two golden deer holding the Buddhist ' Wheel of Dharma' recall the Buddha's first sermon in a deer park. There is a splendid view over the Barkhor to the Potala. Photography is permitted.