Loseling is the largest of Drepung’s colleges, and studies here were devoted to logic. If you have time, pop into the small debating courtyard west of the college. Monks sometimes practise their music in the garden here, blowing huge horns and crashing cymbals. Most visitors call it quits after this college.
The main hall houses a throne used by the Dalai Lamas, an extensive library, and a long altar decorated with statues of the fifth, seventh and eighth Dalai Lamas, Tsongkhapa and former Drepung abbots. There are three chapels to the rear of the hall. The one to the left houses 16 arhats (literally ‘worthy ones’). The central chapel has a large statue of Jampa and a self-arisen stone painting of the Nechung oracle on the opposite wall; the chapel to the right has a small but beautiful statue of Sakyamuni. The two chörtens of Loseling’s earlier abbots are covered with offerings.
On the 2nd floor you’ll enter a small chapel full of angry deities; you'll then pass under the body of a stuffed goat draped with one-máo notes before entering the spooky gönkhang (protector chapel). There are more protective deities here, including the main Dorje Jigje (Yamantaka), plus Nagpo Chenpo (six-armed Mahakala), Dorje Drakden and Dorje Lekpa.
