Tagong Temple (Chinese: 塔公寺) is located in Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (དཀར་མཛེས་བོད་རིགས་རང་སྐྱོང་ཁུལ།) of western Sichuan (四川) in southwestern China. Tagong Monastery has a history of more than a thousand years and is one of the holy places for Tibetans in the Kangba area.
Tagong Temple is a temple of the Sakya Sect (Tibetan: ས་སྐྱ་པ་) of Tibetan Buddhism. It is sunny today, both the temple and the prayer flags are very colorful.
A Tibetan prayer flag is a colorful rectangular cloth, often found strung along trails and peaks high in the Himalayas. They are used to bless the surrounding countryside and for other purposes.
According to legend, in 641 AD, when Princess Wencheng (文成公主) was passing through this place, the Buddha statue she took became very heavy and could not be lifted, so the princess ordered the craftsmen to make a replica and enshrined here.
‘Tagong’ means ‘a place where the Bodhisattva likes’ in Tibetan, and its name is rightly derived from this immovable Buddha statue. It is said that it is because the Buddha likes this place.
In fact, Tagong Temple is not just a tourist attraction, but also a holy place and a resting place for local Tibetans.
On a stream near Tagong Temple, there are many stones painted with Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ. It is indeed a holy place, even the stones are stained with spiritual energy.
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ (Sanskrit: ॐ मणि पद्मे हूँ) is the six-syllabled Sanskrit mantra particularly associated with the four-armed Shadakshari form of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion.
