Sakya

Sakya County lies in a remote, high-altitude valley of the Tibet Autonomous Region roughly 130 km west of Shigatse, at an average elevation above 4,300 metres, and is administered under the prefecture-level city of Shigatse. Its economy is dominated by highland barley farming and sheep and yak herding at these extreme altitudes, supplemented in recent decades by pilgrimage and heritage tourism centered on its namesake monastery. Sakya Monastery, founded in 1073, is the historic seat of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, whose leaders once ruled Tibet under Mongol patronage in the 13th century, and its southern complex, distinguished by red, white and grey walls symbolizing Manjushri, Avalokiteshvara and Vajrapani, houses the Sakya Grand Sutra Library, one of the largest collections of Tibetan Buddhist scripture in the world, often called the 'Second Dunhuang.' There is no institute of higher education in Sakya itself; students travel to Shigatse or Lhasa for university study. For visitors and researchers, Sakya offers an unusually intact medieval Tibetan monastic complex in one of the most isolated and dramatic settings on the plateau.