Jowo (statue)

[2] The Jowo Shakyamuni Rinpoche was brought to Tibet later by the Tang China princess Wencheng, and is a large 7th century statue of Gautama Buddha for which the Ramoche was built.

According to Tibetan legend, the Buddha Shakyamuni requested the divine craftsman create a proxy of him destined eventually for Tibet.

One of the emperor's clansman's daughters, Wenchen Kongjo,[4] took it to Lhasa via Lhagang as part of her dowry when she become a foreign consort of the 33rd Tibetan king Songtsen Gampo.

They have now been joined and the statue is housed in the Ramoche Temple, which was partially restored in 1986,[7] and still showed severe damage in 1993.

The restoration of the Jowo Mikyö Dorje was possible after Ribur Rinpoche (1923–2006), a lama who was jailed by the Chinese Army in 1959 for 20 years in Lhasa, was released in 1979 under the liberalization politics of Deng Xiaoping and granted a position at the Office of Religious Affairs of Tibet.