Labrang Monastery

Labrang Monastery
Tibetan transcription(s) Tibetan: བླ་བྲང་བཀྲ་ཤིས་འཁྱིལ་ Wylie transliteration: bla brang bkra shis 'khyil Official transcription (China): 拉卜楞寺 THL: Labrang Trashi Khyil
Overview of the Labrang Monastery
Religion
Affiliation	Tibetan Buddhism
Sect	Gelug
Festivals	January 4–17 June 26 – July 15
Location
Location	Gansu Province
Country	China
Location within China
Geographic coordinates	35°11′44″N 102°30′29″E / 35.19556°N 102.50806°E / 35.19556; 102.50806
Architecture
Founder	Ngawang Tsondru
Date established	1709

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Labrang Monastery (Tibetan: བླ་བྲང་བཀྲ་ཤིས་འཁྱིལ་, Wylie: bla-brang bkra-shis-'khyil; Chinese: Lābǔléng Sì, 拉卜楞寺) is one of the six great monasteries of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Its formal name is Genden Shédrup Dargyé Trashi Gyésu khyilwé Ling (Tibetan: དགེ་ལྡན་བཤད་སྒྲུབ་དར་རྒྱས་བཀྲ་ཤིས་གྱས་སུ་འཁྱིལ་བའི་གླིང༌།, Wylie: dge ldan bshad sgrub dar rgyas bkra shis gyas su 'khyil ba'i gling).^[1]

Labrang is located in Xiahe County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu, in the traditional Tibetan area of Amdo. Labrang Monastery is home to the largest number of monks outside the Tibet Autonomous Region. Xiahe is about four hours by car from the provincial capital Lanzhou.

In the early part of the 20th century, Labrang was by far the largest and most influential monastery in Amdo. It is located on the Daxia River, a tributary of the Yellow River.^[2]