The Potala Palace [Photo/CRI Online]

At each glimmering break, sanctity radiates from the magnificent Potala Palace, the mysterious castle-like building which drives countless people lost in admiration and curiosity. Why does it remain standing for thousands of years？Why are so many rubbishes left there? Does the legendary underground palace really exist? Is there any accurate number of rooms in Potala Palace?

The major building of the Potala Palace, with 13 floors of stones up to 170 meters in height, stands still as a rock after thousands of years, which sparks people to explore the reason why it stands so firmly at such a height with such a huge size after such a long time.

Firstly, the numerous thick sleeper walls out of square-shaped stones ensure the palace’s safety by laying a solid foundation. The wall with amazingly exquisite design further supports the whole palace. The bench-table piled into rocks underground has reached over 5 meters. The thickness of the palace wall shrinks gradually to 1 meter at the top wall as its height increases, which is really breathtaking, said Ding Changzheng, secretary of party committee of Administrative Office of Potala Palace who has worked there for more than 30 years.

To reinforce the whole palace, the molten iron was poured into parts of the wall, according to the historical document. Therefore, the staff of administrative office often check out if there is any iron in the wall and by far they have found nothing.

"The Padma Grass, the main constructing material, lightens up the wall as well," Ding said, "it is elastic, adiabatic, ventilated and mothproof, hence, it is usually dyed red to paint the wall."

Why are so many rubbishes left there?

In the eyes of Buddhism believers, the Potala Palace is a sacred place, which however has stored up so many rubbishes. In the 1980s, the time of the palace’s first maintenance, the staff gave the place a thorough cleaning in order to make an inventory. It is said that it took a dozen times for a five-ton truck to clear way the rubbishes there at that time.

The Potala Palace [Photo/China Tibet Online]

There are indeed a lot of age-old rubbishes mainly in the well-shaped tunnels or storerooms, some of which have been stored there for over hundreds and thousands of years, Ding added.

During the construction, since parts of well-shaped tunnels were of no practical value, some discarded materials were left there and not cleared away. There were also some rubbishes resulted from the weathered wall, including the clay for consolidation and decayed rafters for connection.

The Tibetan people do not clean up the rubbish inside the storerooms, because they believe firmly that everything in the storerooms of the Potala Palace is endowed with divinity therefore dumping would bring bad luck. In that case, small animals such as rats are always invited, playing and leaving their faeces there.

There are numerous treasures stored as well. As time passes by, no one can detail what’s exactly inside the storerooms therefore they do not dare to dump the rubbish for fear of deserting any invaluable piece of treasure.

People’s concerns are not groundless. When cleaning up the storeroom during the first maintenance of the Potala Palace, staff members came across many treasures, such as corallines, turquoises, silver coins and other precious items, according to Ding Changzheng.

Is there any underground palace?

Ding Changzheng said that the rumored labyrinth-like underground palaces are in fact well-shaped tunnel, which do not house various treasures or rare ancient books.

The Potala itself is a treasure house however, since it contains the golden handwritten Buddhist scriptures, valuable gifts from Chinese emperors, and a lot of priceless antiques. There are many colorful sculptures and paintings chronicling Buddhist folklore and ancient Tibetan life.

How many houses inside the Potala Palace?

It is not true that someone says there are 1,000 houses inside the Potala Palace, 999 houses plus one practice room for Srongtsen Gampo（617-650）, king of Tubo Kingdom.

That saying goes well with the historical documents however it doesn’t refer to the current Potala Palace, according to Ding Changzheng.

The original Potala Palace was first built in the 7th century A. D. and it was mostly destroyed in the wars and struck by thunders. It was rebuilt in the early Qing Dynasty(1644-1911) during the reign of the 5th Dalai Lama. But the exact number of houses then was not recorded.

After the 5th Dalai Lama passed away, reconstructions and expansions of the Potala Palace were presided by the successive Dalai Lamas. The well-known Red Palace for example, was built by the regent of the 5th Dalai Lama and the temple hall of the current Potala Palace was originally bedrooms of the 8th and 9th Dalai Lama.

Similar reconstructions made the Potala Palace complicatedly structured as it is today. The room styles are diversifying, such as suites, compartments and the combinations of the two.

That also added to the difficulty of counting. 20 years ago, Ding Changzheng tried but failed to figure out the exact number of the rooms by using the traditional way of counting in the first session of the maintenance of the Potala Palace.

Still by far, no one has come up with an exact figure of the room number, neither thru traditional counting ways nor modern ones.