Sprouting up from a craggy ridge that overlooks the fields of the Yarlung Tsangpo Valley, Yumbu Lhakhang Palace is renowned as the first building in Tibet.

1: Legend says that it was constructed for Nyatri Tsenpo after he descended from heaven on a rope of light, and became the god-king of the local Tibetan people of the valley during the 2nd century BC.

2: It is also said that in the 5th century, during the reign of the 28th king, Lha Thothori Nyantsen, a relic, a jewel, and an unreadable sutra fell from the sky onto the roof of the palace, along with hundreds of obscure and strange texts.

3: In the early 7th century, Songtsen Gampo moved the empire’s capital to Lhasa, then known as Rasa, and the Yumbu Lhakhang became the summer palace of the Imperial King.

4: The palace remained a summer residence of the kings, as well as being a shrine that contained scriptures and relics from the earliest kings of Tibet.

5: Everything but the first floor was destroyed by the Chinese during the Invasion of Tibet and was rebuilt in the early 1980s.