Sera Monastery

Sera was founded in 1419 as one of the three great Gelug monasteries of the Lhasa region, a college city of assembly halls, colleges and monks' quarters climbing a hillside. Its best-known feature is the debating courtyard, where each weekday afternoon monks pair off under the trees to test each other on points of doctrine in a formalised exchange: the questioner stands, claps hands sharply and stamps a foot to punctuate each challenge while the seated respondent answers, the noise of dozens of pairs filling the yard. Visitors watch from the edge. The halls hold statues, murals and printing rooms.

History

Sera was founded in 1419 by Jamchen Chojey Sakya Yeshe, a disciple of Tsongkhapa, who had earlier set up hermitages higher on the hill; the name is said to come from the wild roses, sera, that covered the slope while it was built. Its Great Assembly Hall stands with three colleges, Sera Je and Sera Me for a twenty-year course of philosophy ending in the geshe degree and the older Ngakpa college for tantric ritual, and at its height some 6,000 monks lived here; it was long one of the best places in Tibet to watch monastic debate (Wikipedia, Sera Monastery).

Highlights

• The debating courtyard - monks testing doctrine with claps and stamps.
• The assembly halls - the main temples with statues and murals.
• The colleges - the monastic buildings climbing the hillside.
• The hill kora - the circuit path behind the monastery.

When to go

April to October for mild weather; debates run on weekday afternoons, usually from mid-afternoon, and are suspended on some holidays and festival days. Mornings are quieter in the halls.

Before you go

Foreign visitors need a permit and guide arranged in advance. The debate is a genuine practice, not a performance, and crowds of photographers at the fence can be intrusive. Altitude is 3,700 metres.

Nearby

The Jokhang lies south; Ganden is east of the city.

Key facts