"Labrang Monastery, located in the northeast corner of the Tibetan plateau at the strategic intersection of four major Asian civilizations - Tibetan, Mongolian, Chinese, and Muslim - was one of the largest Buddhist monastic universities in Tibet. In the early twentieth century, the time frame of this book, it housed several thousand monks who studied and practiced the full range of Buddhist doctrines and rituals."--BOOK JACKET. "Author Paul Nietupski draws on the photographs and memoirs of Marion and Blanche Griebenow, Christian missionaries resident in the area for nearly twenty-seven years, as well as the memoirs of Apa Alo, a local leader whose family included some of the highest dignitaries of Labrang Monastery, to detail Labrang's unique and colorful Tibetan border culture."--BOOK JACKET.