It is located on top of a hill in Thiksey approximately 19 kilometres (12 mi) east of Leh, in the Ladakh region of northern India.

It is a twelve-storey complex and houses many items of Buddhist art such as stupas, statues, thangkas, wall paintings and swords.

[4][5] In the early 15th century, Je Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug School—often called "the Yellow Hats"—sent six of his disciples to remote regions of Tibet to spread the teachings of the new school.

After this meeting, the King directed his minister to help Sherab Zangpo to establish a monastery of the Gelug order in Ladakh.

As a result, in 1433, Zangpo founded a small village monastery called Lhakhang Serpo "Yellow Temple" in Stagmo, north of the Indus.

The monastery is believed to have been built on the site of an earlier Kadam establishment or as a daughter house of the small chapel of Stakmo about 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) to the north.

[10][11] Rinchen Zangpo is also known to have built a temple named Lakhang Nyerma at Thiksey dedicated to the protector Dorje Chenmo.

[14] The architecture strongly resembles that of the Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet, the former official seat of the Dalai Lamas.

[2] The motorable access road[16] from the valley passes the east side of the Thikse Monastery's main building.

One of the main points of interest is the Maitreya (future Buddha) Temple erected to commemorate visit of the 14th Dalai Lama to this monastery in 1970.

[4] Unusually, he is portrayed as seated in the lotus position rather than in his usual representations, standing or in a sitting posture on a high throne.

It was made by local artists under the master Shilp Guru Nawang Tsering of the Central Institute of Buddhist Studies (Leh) - in clay, gold paint and copper.

The purpose of this depiction is meant to remind that these earthly ties need to be overcome in order to get enlightenment in life and to prevent the cycle of death and rebirth.

[4] Also, small shrines devoted to several guardian divinities including Cham-spring - the protector deity of Thikse - can also be seen between the main courtyard and the staircase.

The top floor of the monastery houses the Lamokhang temple, which is a repository of numerous volumes of scriptures including Kangyur and Stangyur.

[24] In the 1990s, awareness was raised on the status of the nuns in Ladakh, and Thiksey received a degree of international attention and support.

This was important in raising the status of the nuns in Ladakh, to ensure a shift in their functional role of "servitude and to one of true spiritual practice".

The monastery donated the land for a new nunnery at Nyerma, near Thiksey, at the same place where the very first monastic seat was established by Rinchen Zangpo, the Tibetan translator, in the tenth century.

[24] The nuns themselves had taken steps to assert their position in the society by changing their traditional name of ‘ani’ (literal meaning "aunt" – a derogatory connotation of a servant) to "cho-mos", the "female religious practitioners".