A combined Tibetan and Chinese army drove them back as far as the outskirts of Kathmandu,[3] when they were forced to agree to keep the peace in the future, pay tribute every five years, and return what they had looted from Tashi Lhunpo.

The "Tashi" or Panchen Lama had temporal power over three small districts, though not over the town of Shigatse itself, which was administered by a dzongpön (prefect) appointed from Lhasa.

Captain Samuel Turner, a British officer with the East India Company who visited the monastery in the late 18th century, described it in the following terms: If the magnificence of the place was to be increased by any external cause, none could more superbly have adorned its numerous gilded canopies and turrets than the sun rising in full splendour directly opposite.

It presented a view wonderfully beautiful and brilliant; the effect was little short of magic, and it made an impression which no time will ever efface from my mind.

[7][8] In 1966 the Red Guards led a crowd to break statues, burn scriptures, and open the stupas containing the relics of the 5th to 9th Panchen Lamas, and throw them in the river.

"[9] The monastery was founded in 1447 CE by Gedun Drub, the disciple of the famous Buddhist philosopher Je Tsongkhapa and later named the First Dalai Lama.