Rizong Monastery Stupa

It is a Buddhist commemorative stupa inside the sacred area of Rizong Monastery in Ladakh, India. The monastery belongs to the Gelug school and sits in an isolated rocky valley west of Alchi.

The monastery is associated with Lama Tsultim Nima, who established a meditation hermitage before the larger monastery developed. Rizong's foundation is generally placed in the nineteenth-century history of Ladakh, although summaries differ on the date of the early hermitage.

A stupa is a Buddhist commemorative shrine, so the structure serves a devotional and memorial role rather than functioning as a residence. At Rizong it is located in the monastery's sacred chamber alongside images and objects connected with the Gelug tradition.

Rizong is a Gelug, or Yellow Hat, monastery in Ladakh, and its stupa forms part of that religious complex. The name Rizong refers to the monastery site, not to a separate standalone stupa tradition outside Tibetan Buddhism.