Gompas,
Gönpas, or
Gumbas ( "remote place", Sanskrit
araṇya), also known as
ling , are
Buddhist ecclesiastical
fortifications of learning, lineage and
sādhanā that may be understood as a conflation of a fortification, a
vihara and a
university associated with
Tibetan Buddhism and thus common in historical
Tibetan regions including parts of
China,
India,
Nepal,
Ladakh and
Bhutan. Bhutanese
dzong architecture is a subset of traditional gompa design.