After the March 10th, 1959 Lhasa uprising to protect the 14th Dalai Lama from the Communist Chinese People's Liberation Army, the majority of Sakya Monastery's monks were forced to leave. As Dawa Norbu states in his book; "previously there were about five hundred monks in the Great Sakya Monastery, but by the end of 1959 only 36 aged monks remained." Most of the buildings of the monastery are in ruins, because they were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.