Lama Temple (Yonghe Temple)

The story

In 1694 the Kangxi emperor gave this ground to his fourth son, Yinzhen, Prince Yong, for a mansion. When the prince became the Yongzheng emperor in 1722, the house of a man who had become emperor could no longer be an ordinary home; it was raised to a palace, Yonghe Gong, the Palace of Harmony. His son, the Qianlong emperor, grew up here.

In 1744 Qianlong turned the palace into a monastery of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, staffed with monks from Mongolia and Tibet. It became the court's centre for managing Tibetan Buddhism: in 1792 the golden urn used to choose the reincarnations of great lamas was placed here. That is why the roofs are yellow, the colour of the emperor, over a temple full of Tibetan images.

What is here

One ticket covers all the halls and both exhibition buildings, the Panchen Hall and the Ordination Hall, which show treasures sent from Tibet.

If you have one minute

Before the Wanfu Pavilion

The three-storey pavilion at the back of the temple, about 25 metres high, was built around one statue. Inside stands Maitreya, the Buddha of the future, 18 metres above the floor and 8 more below it, carved from the trunk of a single white sandalwood tree that the seventh Dalai Lama sent to Qianlong from Nepal. The pavilion was raised around him after he was in place.

Look at the two smaller pavilions on either side, joined to the middle one by flying bridges at the upper floor, a rare design in Beijing.

Things people often get wrong

"It is a museum." It is a working monastery, with resident monks and daily rituals; people come to pray as well as to look.

"Lama means any monk." In Tibetan, a lama is a teacher; the Chinese name "lama temple" simply means a Tibetan Buddhist temple.

People who stood here

We searched Chinese sources first for this list, then English and Tibetan-studies sources.

• The Yongzheng emperor (1678–1735)As Prince Yong he lived here for nearly thirty years before he took the throne; the "fourth prince" of many Chinese television dramas.
• The Qianlong emperor (1711–1799)He grew up here, turned it into a monastery in 1744, and wrote the inscription in four languages that explains why.

Go deeper: five courtyards from the gate to the great Buddha6 stops · about 1 min to read

The temple runs north for nearly 500 metres through five courtyards. Walk straight up the axis and look into the side halls on the way.

1. The gateways and the avenue

Three painted pailou gateways stand at the south end; beyond them a long avenue of ginkgo and pine leads to the gate. At the ticket gate you are given free incense: three sticks are enough.

2. The Hall of the Heavenly Kings and the bronze stand

Maitreya in his Chinese form, the laughing fat Buddha, greets you, with the four kings of the directions. In the courtyard stands a huge bronze incense burner and a stele in four scripts: Chinese, Manchu, Mongolian and Tibetan, the languages of Qianlong's empire.

3. The Hall of Harmony

The main hall of the old mansion, now holding the Buddhas of the past, present and future. Its name gave the whole temple its name.

4. The Hall of the Wheel of Dharma

The largest hall, with small Tibetan-style pavilions on its roof, is where the monks chant. At its centre sits a bronze Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelug school, about 6 metres high; behind him is a mountain of five hundred arhats carved in red sandalwood, with the little figures in gold, silver and copper.

5. The Wanfu Pavilion and the Buddha

Step inside and look up. The Buddha's face is far above the second floor. With the arhat mountain and a Buddha niche carved from golden nanmu wood, the Buddha is one of the temple's "three wonders of wood carving".

The temple and the same years elsewhere

The palace became a monastery in 1744. In the same years in Germany, Johann Sebastian Bach was finishing "The Art of Fugue".