Namdroling Monastery Golden Temple

Namdroling Monastery was founded in 1963 by Pema Norbu Rinpoche after the Indian government allotted land at Bylakuppe to Tibetan refugees following the 1959 exodus, and the settlement grew into the largest Tibetan exile community outside Tibet itself. The monastery’s main shrine hall, popularly called the “Golden Temple,” houses three enormous gilded statues — of Buddha Shakyamuni, Guru Padmasambhava, and Amitayus — each roughly 60 feet tall, richly painted with Tibetan Buddhist iconography.

As the principal seat of the Nyingmapa (Ancient Translation) school of Tibetan Buddhism in exile, Namdroling functions as both an active monastic university, home to thousands of monks and nuns, and a major center for the preservation of Tibetan religious art, liturgy, and language transplanted onto Karnataka soil.

Getting there: Bylakuppe lies between Kushalnagar and Periyapatna, reachable from Madikeri or Mysuru; the Bylakuppe Post Office is close to the monastery’s main gate.