Tibet is a land of ancient traditions – many seemingly mysterious and forbidding. At its center is Lhasa, long revered as the mysterious, closed “city on the roof of the world” and whilst no longer forbidden the city retains ancient traditions and tiny secret temples amid modern buildings and designer shops.

While visually Lhasa is dominated by the Potala Palace which rises above the city, seeming to grow out of the rocky hill on which it stands, the emotional heart of Lhasa and of Tibet is the Jokhang – holiest of holy of Tibetan temples. Beneath its glittering golden roofs pilgrims amass before the closed doors chanting sutras as they abase themselves, the stone floor polished shinny smooth by centuries of reverence.

There is fascination in the number of peoples from throughout Tibet, Qinghai and Sichuan who have made the pilgrimage here, often on foot. Many have prostrated themselves over thousands of miles of barren plateau and mountain taking years to reach this sacred place. The temple and surrounding circumambulation circuit provides an amazing diversity of faces, each paying homage to a deity and the power of a tradition of worship. All are heavily robes in long thick sheepskin coats or wool lined tubas of brilliant silk above knee-high yak hide boots. Grassland herders shade their eyes with wide brimmed cowboy hats. Khampa men with their red or black coils of extra hair piled high, affixed with polished yak bone clasps, ornately hilted daggers and glittering gold teeth are the fashion conscious amongst the nomads. Women and children, the Golok tailing one hundred and eight long back braids, the Khampa sporting massive turquoise hair decorations, shuffle with the men.

The main gates of the Jokhang being open does not diminish the number of procumbent pilgrims in the entrance who must we waded through before reaching the central courtyard. Hundreds more traipse their way through the half light of the inner temple making a kora (ritual circumambulation) of the many chapels. With low openings hung with heavy chain-metal grills pulled aside, these are packed solid as each pilgrim (armed with a lit butter-lamp) pays obeisance to the deities, protectors and heroes of Tibetan Buddhism. Most arrive bearing jars and thermos’ of yak butter and oil which they dole out by the spoonful into each of the thousands of tiny lamps.

The atmosphere is weighted with a palpable sense of awe and reverence tinged with a mechanism and degree of mindless incomprehension. Many hurry through a ritual to be observed and completed rather than savored whilst others stop to gaze in wonder at a richness and sanctity beyond their experience.

Barely discernable in the semi-light, both inside and in the surrounding corridor of prayer wheels, wall murals depict the development of Tibetan Buddhism, the building of the Jokhang and the lives of history’s important figures. The outer passage, open to the sky through a slit between the buildings is crowded with pilgrims constantly circling and chanting the mantra “om mani padme hom” as they spin each prayer-filled cylinder.

From the second floor the tangible silence hangs heavier – the murky dimness disturbed only by streaks of brilliant sunlight filtering through high slits in the roof, illuminating in sections long, elaborate silk draperies and the central statues. One hundred and eight age-old thangkas hang below two tiers of individually carved snow lions, the mystical beast of the Tibetan Plateau, forging a protective cordon around the inner sanctum. You can wander just staring upwards through the clouds of silk hangings, along intricately carved and painted pillars, which meet the roof in complex joinery, to the decorated ceiling squares.

Equal numbers of pilgrims hustle in for the evening ceremony, held in even deeper gloom. Deep and rhythmical, every syllable of every sutra is carefully enunciated and heart-felt by each of the monks. The air is filled with the strength and power of belief and makes clearer the seemingly blind devotion of the pilgrims. You and they, perceive and feel the force emanating from the monks and cannot fail to revere and be awed by it even though, or perhaps because, it is something of which you have little comprehension.

The upper roof of the Jokhang offers a panoramic view over Lhasa. Immediately in front the square is filled with people, life and activity – stalls cluster along the sides selling prayer flags, prayer wheels, printed sutras, kataks, butter lamps, wicks and butter. Beautiful rosy-cheeked women, their yak butter smeared braid adorned with turquoise, silver and coral immediately shatter their exotic appear with cries of “very beautiful, how much!”. Burned prayers float skywards on the smoke of two large incense burners stuffed with smoldering juniper and flutter down all over the square. In the distance the Potala dominated the skyline, fiery red at sunset.

Surrounding the temple the streets forming the Barkor are a myriad of color, commerce and faith as are the alleys leading off it. Here, from the sagging eaves and wooden balustrades above, vegetables and meat dangle from all corners either drying in the sun or remaining almost frozen in the shade. Groups of monks sit playing musical instruments and offering prayers in return for donations to their monastery or journey. Everything if on sale here – jewelry, silk, boots, hats, carpets, butter, washing powder, ropes, sacking, medicines, whole sides of yak – anything you could need is here amid a swarm of warm, friendly people. The tide of humanity generally moves in a clockwise direction as all – pilgrims, moneychangers, shoppers and traders perform a kora as they conduct their business.

The Jokhang is the sacred heart of Lhasa, but there are innumerable tiny temples rarely visited by foreign tourists, their entrances obscured by shops or newer buildings. Meru Nyingma is a favorite haunt of pilgrims who gather to drink butter tea and chat in its sunny courtyard amid the ever present aroma of rice wine offered to the powerful protective deities; the