Gonchen Monastery, Sakya Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Derge, Sichuan, China

Gonchen Monastery, also called Derge Monastery, is a large Sakya Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Derge, Sichuan, in the Kham region. Its main chapel is an extensive complex, which earned it the name "great monastery". The walls are striped in white, dark red and gray, colors particular to the Sakya sect. Below it stands the Derge Parkhang printing house, and the secondary Tangyel Lhakhang lies west of the main temple.

Gonchen Monastery was founded by Thang Tong Gyalpo (1385–1464), a Buddhist yogi, physician and treasure finder credited with building 108 iron suspension bridges across the Himalayas and with founding Ache Lhamo, Tibetan opera. Originally a Nyingma monastery, it was transferred to the Sakya school during the reign of the Kangxi Emperor (1662–1722) and served as a family temple of the Derge kings. It was completely destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and restored in the 1980s.

Gonchen was originally a Nyingma monastery and was transferred to the Sakya school during the Kangxi reign (1662–1722); it served as a family temple of the Derge kings. The three inner sanctums are dedicated to Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava), Sakyamuni Buddha and the future Buddha Jampa (Maitreya). Monks of the monastery still run the Derge Parkhang below it, printing scriptures from wooden blocks without electricity.

Gonchen Monastery stands in Derge town, with the Derge Parkhang printing house on the slope below it; a small alley off the downhill path on the left leads to the Tangton Gyelpo Chapel. The printing house is run by monks and uses no electricity, so expect handwork rather than machinery. The town lies in the high mountains of Kham, so allow time to acclimatise before walking between the monastery and the press.

The printing house below the monastery, the Derge Parkhang, was built in 1729 and still operates without electricity. Monks print the Kangyur and Tengyur from wooden blocks and dry the fresh sheets on the roof, producing about 2,500 pages a day. Its roughly 217,000 engraved blocks cover texts of all Tibetan Buddhist schools, including Bon.