Drepung Monastery (Tibetan: འབྲས་སྤུངས་དགོན་པ, Wylie: bras spungs dgon pa, THL: drépung gönpa, "Rice Heap Monastery"), located at the foot of Mount Gephel, is one of the "great three" Gelug monasteries of Tibet founded by Je Tsongkhapa. The other two are Ganden Monastery and Sera Monastery. Drepung is the largest of all Tibetan monasteries and is located on the Gambo Utse mountain, five kilometers from the western suburb of Lhasa.
Freddie Spencer Chapman reported, after his 1936–37 trip to Tibet, that Drepung was at that time the largest monastery in the world, and housed 7,700 monks, "but sometimes as many as 10,000 monks."
All three were re-established in exile in the 1950s in the state of Karnataka in south-west India. Drepung and Ganden are in Mundgod and Sera is in Bylakuppe.
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