Lhasa, August 26 — China is giving a dramatic facelift to the Potala Palace, former home of the exiled Dalai Lama, as part of Beijing’s efforts to protect the most lucrative and culturally sensitive symbols of the restive region.
Since preservation work began in June last year, scaffolding has encased parts of the towering, 350-year-old white and ochre stack of buildings hugging a craggy hillside — a crutch to its crumbling foundations. Plastic covers painted pillars inside its maze of halls and shrines, once radiant but now fading.
The work is part of broader renovations which also affect the Dalai Lama’s former summer palace, the Norbulingka, and the Sakya Monastery.
The central government is footing the bill, which will reach an estimated 333 million yuan ($40.2 million).
”The Potala Palace is like an old man,” Chamba Kelsang, director of the administration department of the holy Potala, said on Tuesday. ”Why are we protecting the Potala Palace? It’s not for the money.”
But the pricey renovations, trumpeted by local officials, cast a shadow on the dearth of funds devoted to other relics deeply religious Tibetans worship in their daily lives.
Liu Shizhong, a senior official in Tibet’s cultural relics department, said the region allocates a mere 3-4 million yuan a year for daily upkeep of thousands of temples and other sites, while Beijing only contributes in isolated cases.
”The central government’s investment in cultural relics has risen a lot compared with the past,” he said, adding: ”Of course, with the current economic and social development in China, there is a conflict between the central government’s investment in the protection of cultural relics and in infrastructure.”
Many Tibetans are suspicious of Beijing’s programme to help develop their destitute, largely agrarian region, including luring Han Chinese businessmen and investing in tourism, seeing a threat to their culture heritage.
The Potala, still a mecca for Tibetan Buddhist faithful, became more of a museum after the Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959 following a failed uprising against the Communist government — and a more symbolically charged site of potential conflict.
Unlike many relics in Tibet, the palace was not destroyed or even damaged during the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution because Premier Zhou Enlai ordered it protected.
Before the renovations, about 3,000 tourists a day tramped up and down the palace’s ancient stairways, past its jewel-covered statues and along the walls of its majestic roof.
Since May 1, only 1,200 tourists have been allowed to enter daily and the price of admission was raised from 70 to 100 yuan.
Limiting the number of tourists visiting the Potala does not affect the hordes of Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims who ride tractors, buses and trucks or walk often staggering distances to worship.
For now, though, they can only visit for two and a half hours daily, as opposed to the normal opening hours of 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.
Few dispute that the temporary measures are necessary. The human toll on the earth, wood and rock structure, pictured on the back of China’s new 50-yuan banknotes, is obvious.
Many of the Potala’s Buddhist frescoes are so covered in grime that it is nearly impossible to discern figures or colours. Worn floors are covered in plastic mats or cheap rugs. Flash photography has damaged the treasured wall-hangings.
Authorities have banned photography in the halls and shrines, dimly lit by a few electric bulbs and yak butter candles.
”Even the Dalai Lama’s elder brother, who had not been here in 50 years, was not allowed to take pictures,” Chamba Kelsang said of Gyalo Thundup’s landmark trip home in 2002.
(Reporting by John Ruwitch, writing by Jonathan Ansfield, editing by Roger Crabb; Reuters Messaging: john.ruwitch.reuters.com+reuters.net)
