Rheumatologe: A Visit to Shalu Monastery

Shalu Monastery is quite close to Shigatse and I had the chance to visit it in 1998 and in 2018. It’s very old as the original building dates to 1040, but had been restructured after an earthquake in 1329. It belongs to the Sakya Sect as indicated by the wall color. The roof is different as compared to other Tibetan temples. It is a Chinese roof with glazed bricks in the pagoda style.

Buton Rinchen Drub (1290–1364), Tibet's most celebrated historian, catalogued all of the 4569 religious and philosophical works at Shalu. He attracted lots of intellectuals of his time both from Tibet and India to study at Shalu.

Later Shalu monastery became an important center of esoteric studies. Alexandra David-Neel described Tummo, which is a practice to waken an inner fire. She also described a lung-gom-pas runner: “He seemed to lift himself from the ground, proceeding by leaps. It looked as if he had been endowed with the elasticity of a ball and rebounded each tine his feet touched the ground. His steps had the regularity of a pendulum. He wore the usual monastic robe and toga, both rather ragged. His left hand gripped a fold of the toga and was half hidden under the cloth. The right held a phurba (magic dagger).” Alexandra David-Neel wanted to talk to him, but was warned not to break his meditation as this would kill him.

Nowadays the monastery looks much more mundane, but still there is this touch of living history. Next time in Tibet I hope to go there again.