Jowo Shakyamuni or Jowo Rinpoche is, with Jowo Mikyö Dorje, the most sacred statue in Tibet. Jowo Rinpoche is housed in the Jokhang temple and Jowo Mikyö Dorje in the Ramoche temple in Lhasa The Jowo Rinpoche statue has a long history and is said to have been personally blessed by the Buddha. It came to be owned by the king of Magadha, who gave it to a Tang emperor of China. One of the emperor's clansman's daughter, Wenchen Kongjo took it to Lhasa via Lhagang in a wooden cart when she married Ki

Offering Zeyser and Namzha to Jowo Rinpoche, the most sacred statue of Buddha in the world. | ExPlore with Phub TsheRing.

JOWO BUDDHA There are hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of images of the Buddha Shakyamuni that exist in the world today. Some are big, some are small, some are made of precious materials like gold, while others are carved of stone, cast from bronze, molded from plastic, painted on silk, or printed on paper. What makes one image of the Buddha Shakyamuni more sacred than an other? Is it its material composition, its age, its owner? Is it all of the above, or is it something else? Who was Budd