Gami Temple

Gami Temple

Gami Temple is a cultural tourism attraction.

Gami Temple is one of the early and renowned Yungdrung Bön monasteries on the Songpan Grassland in Amdo, as well as one of the earliest Bön temples in the Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture.

The full Tibetan name of Gami Temple is "Gengya Dechen Gami Ling," meaning "the Gami Temple where Buddhist teachings converge." "Gami" in Chinese means a place of peace and joy, and "Ling" refers to a temple. It is situated at the foot of the Sacred Mount Xiaoxitian, also within Zhangla Shuijing Township, approximately 30 kilometers north of Songpan County’s urban area. The Sacred Mount Xiaoxitian dominates the source of the Minjiang River in the Gonggangling Mountain Range, standing at an elevation of 4,050 meters. It boasts unique scenery and is widely renowned.

Under the dedicated management of successive Gami Tulkus, the temple has grown to include five dratsangs—Deba Dratsang, Langyi Dratsang, Jiang Dratsang, Renpu Dratsang, and Jiading Dratsang—as well as one nunnery, housing hundreds of monks and nuns. It features two main prayer halls, over a hundred monk dormitories, and several stupas.

With its long history, grand architecture, and comprehensive colleges, Gami Temple is revered by Bön followers as the eastern stronghold of Yungdrung Bön in the Tibetan region and holds a significant position in the overall development of the Bön tradition. This summer, I visited Gami Temple and had the opportunity to engage in an in-depth discussion with the director of the temple’s administrative committee. Through this conversation, along with detailed investigations and reference to relevant materials, I researched the temple’s founding history, organizational system, educational framework, college profiles, and cultural relics. However, due to the limited availability of historical records in both Tibetan and Chinese regarding Gami Temple, some inaccuracies may be present, which will require further investigation and verification in the future. Based on the current available information, the following is a brief account of Gami Temple, open to corrections from scholars and experts.

Founding History:

Before the introduction of Bön to the Aba region of Amdo, the local Tibetan people practiced indigenous shamanism. The history of Bön’s introduction and flourishing in Aba is long and complex. Around the 2nd century, Bön spread into the Kham and Jiarong regions along the Yarlung Tsangpo River, and from Qinghai and Gansu into the Amdo region, where it quickly took root and spread. Over several centuries, it gradually became the major stronghold and revival base of Bön in the eastern Tibetan region.

Gami Temple was originally built in 1355 AD by the wandering high lama Renqin Jianzan from Qiowa in U-Tsang, who is regarded as the progenitor of the later Gami Tulku reincarnation lineage. The mother monastery of Gami Temple is the renowned Tibetan Bön monastery Yungdrung Ling.

According to the Tibetan Bön text “Xiadou Gacha” (The Chronicle of Sacred Mount Xiaodou): "In 1355 AD, Lama Renqing Jianzan passed through this area and observed a vast, open terrain. To the west lay the Minjiang River, to the south a gentle slope covered with lush pastures, and to the north the Zhangla Mountain. Moreover, throughout the dense forests surrounding the sacred mountain were many astonishing peculiar rocks, caves, and sacred sites—such as meditation caves once inhabited by famous Bön masters of the past, holy springs, cliffs, and giant trees. Especially on the rocks of the Yungdrung Slope in front of the sacred mountain, there were naturally formed Bön symbols of varying sizes and styles—the swastika (Yungdrung) and the Tibetan letter 'A.' The lama was astonished and proclaimed, 'There is no other place like this heavenly realm; the great endeavors of the Three Jewels will flourish here.' Thus, he joyfully established the temple and named it Gami Temple."

The name "Gami" comes from Tibetan, where "Ga" means joy and "Mi" means a tranquil place. Additionally, since the area is also poetically referred to as “Little Xiaotian,” the full name became “Little Xiaotian Gami Temple.”

Legends say that during the temple’s construction, many extraordinary natural phenomena occurred, such as days seeming longer than nights, builders and worshippers feeling no fatigue, the constant presence of beautiful music drifting through the air, and on auspicious days, vivid rainbows appearing in the shape of the Yungdrung symbol over the construction site on the mountainside.

Locals call the Sacred Mount Xiaoxitian “Yungdrung Benji Niri Qinbo Xiong Xiaodou.” "Xiong" is a directional term meaning north, indicating the mountain lies to the north of the ancient city of Songpan. "Xiaodou" refers to a bird graveyard. Xiong Xiaodou thus means the northern graveyard of birds. Since the time of the Yuan Dynasty, when Bön master Jiangpa Qinbo awakened the spiritual energy of the sacred mountain, birds from all directions would fly here to spend their final days, even traveling from great distances. It is also said that every 12 years, when the cosmic axis of the world aligns with the Year of the Rooster, all the deities of the snowy lands, the 60 Bön deities spanning 300 years, the king of all birds in the world, and all bodhisattvas and spirits from across the human realm gather here. Pilgrimage to the sacred mountain in this year is believed to generate 12 times the merit, cleansing all karmic sins accumulated through worldly cycles.

Over the centuries, Gami Temple has witnessed the rise and fall of Bön through the trials of history. By the late 8th century, the influence of Buddhism began to affect Bön when Master Benzo Nana came to preach in the Aba region. In the mid-13th century, the Sakya school was introduced to Aba, followed by the Jonang school in the late 14th century. The successive introduction of various Tibetan Buddhist schools greatly impacted Bön, especially with the arrival of the Gelug school in the 15th century. Coupled with a series of Bön-suppressing measures issued by Emperor Qianlong, Bön in the Aba region suffered unprecedented setbacks, and Gami Temple was once destroyed.

Although Bön has repeatedly suffered severe blows in many aspects, it still retains considerable followers and temples in numerous areas of Aba. Particularly within Songpan, 13 Bön temples have been restored and reopened since the reform and opening-up period.

In the 1940s, based on the wishes of local believers in Zhangla, five smaller temples—Linpo Temple, Shanba Temple, Langyi Temple, Deba Temple, and Yuanba Temple—were consolidated at the foot of the sacred mountain to establish a shared main temple, which is today’s Gami Temple. All important annual religious activities are jointly conducted at Gami Temple by the five temples.

After discussions among representatives of the temples and tribal leaders, Gami Temple—originally located between the Yungdrung Cliff and the main peak of the sacred mountain—was relocated to its current site, known as the “Deba Dratsang.” The central square below now hosts the shared Little Xiaotian Gami Temple of the five temples, while the other temples each form distinct colleges with their own characteristics: Langyi Dratsang (Duhe Temple), Jiang Dratsang (Shanba Temple), Renpu Dratsang (Linpo Temple), and Jiading Dratsang (Yuanba Temple). It was also decided that the leadership of annual religious ceremonies would rotate annually among them, starting with Renpu Dratsang for a one-year term.

In the 1950s, Little Xiaotian Gami Temple housed over a thousand monks, including four tulku incarnates. As the largest, most influential, and most populous temple in the Songpan region at the time, it was listed as one of the five temples permitted by the county government to continue conducting Buddhist activities. During the 1960s, the temple was tragically destroyed, with its prayer halls razed overnight and precious golden statues, sacred texts, and cultural relics scattered or lost. By the late 1970s, Gami Temple was reopened by decree of the Songpan County Government, allowing religious ceremonies to resume. After reopening, a new prayer hall was constructed, and monks and laypeople from the Zhangla area gathered there. Later, with donations from monks across regions, the other dratsangs were successively reopened and their prayer halls renovated.

Although Gami Temple is an early and prominent Bön temple in the Amdo Tibetan region with a long history and high status, its building complex spans over 60,000 square meters, consisting of a front and rear prayer hall, meditation rooms, a kora corridor, and more than 100 monk dormitories. The two main prayer halls cover a construction area of 889 square meters and are centrally located within the temple complex, about 30 meters apart. The front hall, commonly called the “Main Hall,” serves as the venue for the highest religious ceremonies jointly conducted by the five smaller temples in the Zhangla area. This hall is a three-story structure with gilded vases and banners on the top floor, and a spire on the second floor flanked by two golden deer—distinct from the reclining golden deer seen in other temples. The deities enshrined in the Main Hall include the founder of Bön, Tonpa Shenrab, along with four painted Bön deities: Tonpa Chirlo, Saya Yeshe Osum, Hlera Oga, and Sangbu Pengchi. The rear hall, commonly known as the “Rear Shrine,” is slightly smaller and usually serves as the venue for ceremonies held by the Deba Dratsang.

Both the large and small prayer halls feature glazed golden roofs that shine brilliantly in the morning light. The entire temple complex exudes extraordinary grandeur and solemnity. According to statistics, Gami Temple has a total of 92 buildings, 13 golden roofs, over 1,200 clay sculptures of deities, 37 copper deities, 20 wooden carvings of deities, 75 thangkas, 5 stupas, 30 butter lamps, over 1,530 hand-turned scripture cylinders, and houses more than 2,650 volumes of scriptures. Countless religious artifacts are also preserved.