Yerpa
monastery in Dromdoi, Dagzê District, Lhasa, Tibet, China
Yerpa (also known as Brag Yer-pa, Drak Yerpa, Druk Yerpa, Dagyeba, Dayerpa and Trayerpa) is a monastery and a number of ancient meditation caves that used to house about 300 monks, located a short drive to the east of Lhasa, Tibet.
Description
Dra Yerpa is located on a hillside in Dagzê County. The entrance to the Yerpa Valley is about 16 kilometres (9.9 mi) northeast of Lhasa on the northern bank of the Kyichu. From there, it is another 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) to the famous ancient meditation caves in the spectacular limestone cliffs of the Yerpa Valley (Tibetan: བྲག་ཡེར་པ་, Wylie: Brag Yer-pa). There is an ancient sky burial site opposite the main caves.
The famous legendary hero Gesar of Ling is said to have visited the valley. The holes his arrows left in the cliffs are believed to be evidence of his presence.
History
Early years
There are a number of small temples shrines and hermitages and the cliffs contain some of the earliest known meditation sites in Tibet, some dating back to pre-Buddhist times. Among the more famous are those traditionally connected with Songtsen Gampo (604–650 CE), (traditionally the 33rd king of the Yarlung dynasty and first emperor of a united Tibet). His Tibetan queen, Monza Triucham, founded the Dra Yerpa temple here.
“Yerpa” enters the record as monastery in Dromdoi, Dagzê District, Lhasa, Tibet, China. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Yerpa, monastery and Dromdoi can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Yerpa” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Yerpa, monastery and Dromdoi provides the most credible route into that argument.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1254536. Authority coordinates are 29.746, 91.278. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “Yerpa” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.