This Large Yellow Hat (Gelupa) Tibetan monastery has returned from the ashes and destruction that swept southeastern Tibet in the late 1950s and 1960s . Songsenlin was founded in the 17th century during the reign of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama , when the yellow Hat school came to full ascendancy in Tibet . it lies a few kilometers beyond the north end of town and welcomes visitors who behave respectfully.
The monastery once had as many as 1200 monks before , and now claims many hundreds , though most of these stay at home and work with their families , only coming together as a single body on area festival occasions . In 1980 the second delegation sent by the Dalai Lama to investigate conditions in Tibet stayed in Zhongdian , and since then there has been steady reconstruction at this sacred site .
