Beautiful Drum Tower at the Beijing Lama Temple 雍和宫
I have been to the Forbidden City in Beijing and I have found it an incredible place to visit. The palace features a lot of halls majority of which look the same having been design with Qing architecture. The layout of the palaces in the Forbidden City were also similar, it seems that they are following a formula here. The Lama Temple in Beijing is one of the most important temples in this sprawling capital. In a lot of ways the lama temple in Beijing resembles an imperial palace. The architecture is the same and even the layout of the entire place is the same.
Bell at the Foot of the Drum Tower at the Beijing Lama Temple 雍和宫
One classic example is the presence of a drum tower here in the temple grounds. The tower was a small two storey building and following its name, with a drum on the second floor. This is normally done for ceremonies but I never imagined it would be for Buddhist ceremonies. I would tend to associate these buildings with imperial palaces, which bring me to my point why the lama temple has something like this. Perhaps it was a palace previously? It doesn’t make sense since the Forbidden City wasn’t very far at all.
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