Qualla: Larung Gar

Larung Gar: Introduction

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Made by Fanghong, CC BY-SA 3.0. From the air, it looked like someone had spilled a box of rust-red dice across a valley floor. Thousands of identical wooden dwellings, each no larger than a single room, climbed the hillsides in every direction from a central cluster of golden-roofed teaching halls. This was Larung Gar at its peak -- a community of nearly 10,000 monks, nuns, and lay students in a valley so remote that most maps barely registered its existence. By 2016, bulldozers had arrived to take half of it apart.

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Image: Made by Fanghong | CC BY-SA 3.0

Larung Gar: From Hermitage to Holy City

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit BODHICITTA from cheng du shi, china, CC BY 2.0. The Larung Valley sits in Sertar County of the Garze Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in the region of Sichuan that Tibetans call Amdo. A mountain hermitage was established nearby in 1880 by Dudjom Dorje, and the area had long been considered sacred. In the summer of 1980, the Nyin...

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Image: BODHICITTA from cheng du shi, china | CC BY 2.0

Larung Gar: The Machinery of Erasure

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 3.0. Chinese authorities began harassing Larung Gar in earnest around the turn of the millennium. Searches in 1999 and 2001 were followed by a "patriotic re-education" campaign in April 2000. In 2001, Sichuan authorities demanded that residents sign documents denouncing the Dalai Lama...

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Image: Chensiyuan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Larung Gar: Re-Education and Resistance

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 3.0. The evictions did not end at the valley's edge. Reports from 2016 described monks and nuns being bused to political re-education centers, where they were forced to participate in "patriotic education" exercises. A video surfaced showing twelve Tibetan nuns in religious robes danc...

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Image: Chensiyuan | CC BY-SA 3.0

Larung Gar: What the Valley Holds

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Valerian Guillot, CC BY 2.0. The Chinese government framed the demolitions as safety measures -- the dense settlement of self-built wooden houses was, in fairness, a fire hazard. But a 2017 investigation found that the real objective was converting the sacred site into a tourist attraction, with displaced Ti...

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Image: Valerian Guillot | CC BY 2.0