The Samye Monastery
Tibet's oldest monastery, located southeast
of Lhasa on the Tsangpo River.

These photographs center on the four chortens or stupas, one each in red, green, black, white, an integral part of the vast Samye complex, which was built as a mandala to replicate the Odantapuri temple in Bihar, India. The structures and their colors represent the four cardinal directions of a Tibetan mandala: black (northwest), white (southeast), red (southwest), green (northeast). These stupas were totally destroyed during the Cultural Revolution, and recently have been fully restored.

In the Nepali style, the painted eyes of the Buddha peer out from the ledge just below the dome on all four sides, as though the Buddha himself is seated in meditation with the temple as his body.