Ganden means "joyful" and is the Tibetan name for Tuṣita, the heaven where the bodhisattva Maitreya is said to reside.

[citation needed] Ganden Monastery was founded by Je Tsongkhapa Lozang-dragpa (1357–1419) in 1409,[4][a] and it is said to have attracted many lay and monastic devotees.

[8] Before dying Tsongkhapa gave his robe and staff to the first Ganden Tripa, Gyeltsabjey (1364-1432), who was succeeded by Kaydrubjey.

[9] The monasteries of Ganden, Sera and Drepung was so great that they could in effect veto government decisions with which they disagreed.

He is also credited with ordaining Karl Tõnisson also known as Brother Vahindra, at Burkuchinsk Monastery near Lake Baikal in 1893.

[12] The red-painted lhakang in the centre is the reconstruction of Ganden's sanctum sanctorum containing Tsongkapa's reliquary chorten, called the Tongwa Donden, "Meaningful to Behold.

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama (born 1935), took his final degree examination in Ganden in 1958 and he claims to feel a particularly close connection with Tsongkhapa.

A maroon and ochre chapel beside the main assembly hall has a statue of Sakyamuni Buddha, and has a section used for hand-printing scriptural texts using wood blocks.

[citation needed] Early in 1996, after a ban had been imposed on pictures of the Dalai Lama, 400 monks at Ganden rioted.

They were fired upon by PLA troops, apparently causing two deaths and several injuries, followed by the arrest of one hundred monks.

During the 2008 Tibetan uprising anniversary, Ganden Monastery monks participated in the mass demonstrations and protests which began on 10 March and spread throughout Tibet.

This settlement of Tibetan refugees is the largest of its kind in India and was first established in 1966, from land donated by the Indian government.

[citation needed] In 2008, over 500 monks, who refused to adhere to the ban against the protective deity Dorje Shugden, enforced by the Dalai Lama's government in exile, were expelled from the Ganden Monastery in Mundgod, Karnataka, and founded in its immediate neighborhood the Shar Gaden Monastery, officially opened in October 2009.

As a result, the Dokhang Khangtsen, the biggest division of Gaden Shartse Monastery, where most of the departing monks came from, ceased to exist.