Potala Palace
The
Potala Palace, standing at the top a cliff more than 3700 meters above
sea level, is a 13-story palace complex. It is the symbol of Lhasa and
one of the architectural wonders of the world.
It is
117 metres tall and 4O metres wide and has towering buildings with golden
roofs and a group of huge castie palaces, which are divided into white
and red ones for the color of their walls.The white place used to be a
place where the living Buddha, Dalai. Tibet's religious leader, handled
government affairs and lived. The red one is consists of the Hall of the
Buddha, the Scripture Hall and the Memorial Hall. Each with a dozen or
scores of rooms. The Hall of the Buddha houses gold traced portraits of
Sakyamuni and deceased Dalai Lamas: the Scripture Hall keeps in it a large
number of early copies of Buddhist sutras and the Memorial Hall contains
status of the 13 late Dalai Lamas. Potala Palace is also a world of murals,
which are 
painted
in hundreds of halls and corridors. It is a huge treasure house for materials
and articles of Tibetan history, religion, culture and arts.
The palace was built in the seventh century by King Songtsan Gambo, unifier of Tibet, for his bride, the Han nationality Princess Wen Cheng, who was sent to him by the Tang dynasty emperor. In December,1994 The Potala Palace of Lhasa was listed in the Chronology of Recognition of World Heritages in China.