Puotuocheng Temple

The temple has been chosen by many travelers as the alternate of the Polata Palace in Tibet owing to the exact resemblance between the two. Even the name of the awkward four-syllable words is the sinicized version of its counterpart in Tibet. 

This temple was first built in the thirty-second year of Emperor Qianlong for the purpose of celebrating his 60th birthday and his mother's 80th birthday. It is the biggest temple of the Eight Temples and was nicknamed as the "Little Potala Palace".

The most conspicuous characteristics of this temple rely on its Tibetan style. Within the temple, about sixty flat-roof-house-like white platforms and Sanskrit white platforms lays freely beyond the axes to confront the mountainous terrain.

The main buildings big red square-shaped platform at the top of the mountain is very attractive in contrast with the surrounding white attics. This platform was used by the emperors to hold great religious rituals and meet the tribal chiefs from important ethnic groups as well as high officials.

The overall arrangement consists of three parts: the front part, the middle part and the back part.

The front part begins at the five-hole stone bridge in front of the temple, including the mountain gate, stele pavilion and five-tower gates. In the middle, there are colored glaze archway and tower-courts of the white platform.

The big red platform at the back is the main body of the building group. The mountain gate and the stele pavilion follow the way of Han style in building palaces during the Qing dynasty.

And there are inscriptions and carvings in characters used by Man people, Han people, Mongolians and Tibetans in the pavilion, like A Record of Putuozongcheng Temple, A Record of Tu’erhute Tribe Coming Over and Pledging Allegiance and A Recsssord of Showing solicitude for Tu'erhute Tribe. These inscriptions are of precious historical value.

On the flat-roof platform in north of the pavilion, five Lama Towers were successively set up in different colors: black, white, yellow, green and red.