Tibet - Views of the Potala

The Ancients

Tibet
Views of the Potala
Lhasa, Tibet
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Courtesy of Wellesley College
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Courtesy of Heinrich Harrer - National Geographic The Potala, fortress of Tibet's god-king, broods over the flooded Kyi Valley. Nearing Tibet's capital, Mr. Harrer passed these groves of poplars and willows, transplanted like all other trees in the deforested Kyi Valley. Above him loomed the Dalai Lama's 300-year-old palace that Tibetans believe was created by spirits. Fearfully the author approached an archway in the center tomb. He felt sure guards would seize him or turn him back; instead he found only beggars standing vigil at the sacred portal. ...

Courtesy of kaliteliresimler.com/
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Courtesy of wallpapers.free-review.net
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Courtesy of National Geographic - Photograph by Gordon Wiltsie Prayer flags stretch toward the Potala Palace, which is perched on Red Mountain in Tibet's Lhasa Valley. The former winter home of the Dalai Lama has symbolized Tibetan Buddhism since the 7th century. ...

Courtesy of Mads Mathiasen
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Courtesy of Gonggar, the Photo Gallery
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Courtesy of Gonggar, the Photo Gallery
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Courtesy of onwardtibet.org
The White Palace of Potala in Tibet
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Dalai Lama's Reception Chamber
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The Potala palace in Lhasa, Tibet, as seen and depicted by the Austrian Jesuit Johann Grueber,
who had been there in 1651. Cut from the book China Illustrata of Athanasius Kircher (1667).

Related Links:

My Life in Forbidden Lhasa - By Heinrich Harrer - Escaping from internment in India to the sacred capital of Tibet, an Austrian became the Dalai Lama's trusted tutor (Originally published in the July 1955 National Geographic) - Republished Published: May 2008
Tibet - Prof. William A. Joseph - Department of Political Science - Wellesley College
The Center for Research on Tibet - Case Western University
The Tibetan and Himalayan Digital Library Tibetan Review - Independent Monthly Magazine
Tibet Changing and Unchanged - New York Times 1998
Dreams of Tibet - PBS Frontline
The Dalai Lama - One of Time Magazine's Most Influential Asians of the 20th Century
The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet - Website for documentary
Reassessing Tibet Policy - Foreign Politcy in Focus (April 2000)
An Indian Perception of the Tibetan Situation - Phunchok Stobdan Asia Pacific Bulletin, No. 3,: East-West Center in Washington, 2009

Tibetan Exile Sources

Papers

The Tibet-China Conflict: History and Polemics - Elliot Sperling, East-West Center Policy Study 7, 2004 - PDF
Beijing's Tibet Policy: Securing Sovereignty and Legitimacy - Allen Carlson, East-West Center Policy Studies, No. 4, 2004 - PDF

The Potala circ 1960

Its not built onto the hill, though the earth surrounds it, but on a 272ft thick base, carved into the hollow of the hill. Its the biggest stone foundations in the world (the 384ft palace size is only calculated from where the massive windows start). Basically without the technology of steel frames you would have to build foundations almost as tall as the building sitting on top of it for that kind of weight.

Counting only the building areas built on the base (as opposed to those sitting on the hilltop, to the left of the red palace), the shortest measurements are still 567ft, the tallest 656ft.

Bear in mind the scale of the photo below, and the large size of the windows - from the base of the hill, where the people are standing to the roof of the palace is 1000ft.

SOURCE: Posted by muppet 08-14-2009 SkyscraperPage Forum

The Potala Today

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