Jokhang Temple

An old Tibetan saying goes: "First, Jokhang was built. Then, Lhasa came to be." The pulsing "heart of Lhasa" still powers the city's spiritual circulatory system.

It exerts a gravitational pull that tugs pilgrims into its orbit, as they ceremoniously circumambulate its sacred nucleus. They circle around the compound along a 1,300-year-old, 1-kilometer walkway that teems with pilgrims whirling prayer wheels and bowing to the ground.

Legend has it that King Songtsen Gampo flung his ring, vowing to build a temple wherever it landed. It plopped into a lake, from which a white stupa rose like a lotus. The lake was filled in, and Jokhang was built on its bed.

Inside rests the venerated sleeping Buddha statue — portraying a 12-year-old Sakyamuni — that Tang Princess Wencheng brought to the city when she married Tubo King Songtsen Gampo. Jokhang still hosts the ceremony for drawing lots from a golden urn to confirm living Buddhas, immortalizing this tradition and the temple's eminence.