Obnova náboženského života v tibetskom kláštore Labrang

The Tibetan Buddhist Monastery Labrang Tashikhyil (Tib. /bla brang bkra shis 'khyil/), founded in 1709, is situated in the Amdo (Tib. /a mdo/) region (today part of the Gansu Province in the PRC) of Tibet. The religious life in this monastery followed the development of other Buddhist monasteries after the incorporation of Amdo into socialist China in 1949. After a period of a tolerant religious policy, in the second half of the 1950's in the course of economic reforms (collectivization, land reform and the establishment of people's communes), the situation deteriorated. After the suppresion of an anti-Chinese rebellion in summer 1958, most of the tulkus (Tib. /sprul sku/) and senior monks were imprisoned and some monks were forced to leave Labrang. Some of the buildings were destroyed during this so-called "democratic reform of the monasteries" (Chin. siyuan de minzhu gaige) and only a few hundreds of monks were allowed to stay in Labrang. During the brief period of normalization in China in the beginning of 1960's, the religious policy towards Tibetan Buddhism was also loosened and due to the initiative of geshe Sherab Gyamtsho (Tib. /dge bshes shes rab rgya mtsho/) the religious life in the Labrang monastery was revived in a limited scope (about 1200 monks had lived there). The final phase of discountinuation of the religious life in the monastery occured during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when the campaign against "four olds" (Chin. sijiu) resulted in the complete destruction of the monastery's building (with the exception of a few temples, e.g. Kye Dorje Lhakang (Tib. /kye rdo rje lha khang/ which was turned into a slaughterhouse) and the monastery was completely depopulated. ...