Drepung Monastery Editorial Photo

Drepung Monastery (literally “Rice Heap” monastery) located at the foot of Mount Gephel, is one of the great three Gelukpa university monasteries of Tibet. The other two are Ganden and Sera. Drepung is the largest of all Tibetan monasteries and is located on the Gambo Utse mountain, five kilometers from the western suburb of Lhasa,Tibet. Freddie Spencer Chapman reported, after his 1936-37 trip to Tibet, that Drepung was at that time the largest monastery in the world, and housed 7,700 monks, but sometimes as many as 10,000 monks.The Dharmachakra is one of the Ashtamangala symbols of Buddhism.