Gyegu Monastery in Yushu
iegu Monasteryor Gyegu Monastery (Names: Jyekundo Gompa/Gyegu Gompa/玉树结古寺 in Chinese) is located in Jiedu Town of Yushu City, Qinghai Province.
Gyêgu Subdistrict, formerly a part of the Gyêgu town is a township-level division in Yushu, Yushu TAP, Qinghai, China. The name Gyêgu is still a common name for the Yushu city proper, which include Gyêgu subdistrict and three other subdistricts evolved from the former Gyêgu town. The four subdistricts altogether forms a modern town which developed from the old Tibetan trade mart called Jyekundo or Gyêgumdo in Tibetan and most Western sources. The town is also referred to as Yushu, synonymous with the prefecture of Yushu and the city of Yushu.
Gyêgu, like most parts of Yushu prefecture, is rich in Buddhist monasteries. Being a constituent of the local warlord or chieftain (Drawupon), one of the Twenty five chieftain under late Nangchen kingdom. the area was, for most of the time, not under domination by the Dalai Lama’s Gelugpa order in Lhasa. The different balance of power in this part of Kham enabled the older Tibetan Buddhist orders to prevail in Yushu, and thus Gyêgu.
The main lamasery in town is the Sakyapa monastery Doendrub Ling, commonly just called Yushu Gompa. Like at the beginning of the 20th century.
Other nearby monastic sites include the important Karma-Kagyupa lamaseries Domkar Gompa and Thrangu Gompa, the famous Mahavairocana Temple (often called Wencheng Temple and the popular religious site of Gyanamani with its billions of mani stones.
The 9th Panchen Lama died here. “It was only after the 13th Dalai Lama’s death that IXth Panchen Lama was to return to Tibet. He died en route in Jyekundo on December 1, 1937.”
Prior to collectivization in 1958, the entire monastic population of present-day Yushu TAP amounted to more than 25,000 Buddhist monks and nuns, with approximately 300 incarnate lamas among them. On the average about three to five per cent of the population were monastic, with a strikingly higher share in Nangqên county, where monks and nuns made up between 12 and 20% of the community.
