The Jokhang

The Jokhang is one of the first temples of Tibet. King Songtsen Gampo started building the temple to house a Buddha image called Akshobhya that was brought to Tibet by his Nepalese wife Princess Bhrikuti. It is said that the other wife of King Songtsen Gampo, the Chinese princess Wencheng choose the place for the Jokhang. She wished the temple would be build in the lake Wothang. She had chosen this place to make it difficult to build.
First the lake was to be filled up. The most prominent story is that the lake was filled up by a sacred goat. The Tibetan name for goat is Ra. The original pronunciation of Lhasa is "Rasa" so the name of the capital of Tibet is called after a goat. You can find a statue of a goat inside the Jokhang in the chapel of Maitreya on the south wall.
Princess Wencheng brought her one Buddha statue, Jowo Sakyamuni, also to the Jokhang after Songtsen Gampo died and it was hidden inside. During the years that followed the Jokhang was used by a number of monks with different religions. The most important change in the forms of the Johang was during the ruling of the fifth Dalai Lama. Lhasa was the centre of all Tibetan affairs in those days and the Dalai Lama changed the size of the Jokhang so it would fit to the status. During the early days of the Cultural Revolution the interior of the temple was destroyed. There is a story that the Jokhang was used as a pigsty in those days. In 1980 the attitude towards the temple changed and everything was rebuild.
The inside of the Jokhang is filled up with chapels. For a western tourist it is almost impossible to know all the different statues by heart. Only if you are extremely interested you could have a go to learn how is how. During our investigation we have lost the count. It is also hard to get a book telling you what statue is who. The next overview of what chapels and statues there are in the Jokhang we extracted from the "Lonely planet" travel survival kit of "Tibet".