| Samding Monastery | |
| Pushpin Map: | China Tibet |
| Coordinates: | 28.9728°N 90.4719°W |
| Location Country: | China |
| Location: | Tibet, China |
| Founded By: | Khetsün Zhönnu Drub |
| Founded: | 13th century |
| Sect: | Shangpa Kagyu |
| Lineage: | Dorje Pakmo |
Samding Monastery "The Temple of Soaring Meditation" [1] is a 13th century gompa built on a hill along a narrow peninsula that juts into Yamdrok Lake, southwest of Lhasa and about 10km (10miles) east of Nangkatse, in Tibet. It is associated with the Bodong, the Nyingma, and the Shangpa Kagyu schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Samding Monastery is the seat of Dorje Pakmo, the highest female incarnation in Tibet, and as Vajravarahi she is the consort of the wrathful deity Hayagriva, a Heruka.[2]
Dorje Pakmo is the third highest-ranking person in the hierarchy after the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.[3]
Closer to Lhasa, there is another branch of Samding Monastery on the small island of Yambu in Rombuza Tso or "corpse-worm bottle lake", which apparently, received this name because it was used as a burial place for monks.[4]
In 1716, the Khenmo (abbess) became famous when she turned herself and her nuns into sows to prevent a Mongolian raid on the nunnery (McGovern gives 1717 for this event). Monks as well as nuns both live in the monastery under Khenmo Dorje Pakmo, who also lives in Lhasa.
Samding was destroyed by China after 1959, but is in the process of being restored.[2] [5] It is located 112km (70miles) southwest of Lhasa, at an altitude of, on a barren hill about above the lake at the neck of a narrow peninsula jutting out into the water.