Antiquities of Indian Tibet, Part 1

INTRODUCTION.

Towards the end of April 1909, I received a telegram from the Indian Government asking me to enter their archaeological service for a period of eighteen months, from the 1st June of that year. I arrived in Simla on the 30th May and from the 1st to the l4th June, Dr. J. H. Marshall, c.i.e., Director-General of Archaeology, sacrificed a great deal of bis time in drawing up a plan for my journey and discussing with me various matters connected therewith. Thanks to his energy, all preparations were finished on the 12th June, and on Monday the 14th June, our caravan started for the frontier districts.

As regards our plans, it was determined to cover as much ground as possible and to spend a considerable portion of the summer months within the limits of the Jammu and Kashmir State. Por within its territory are known to exist several interesting relics of Tibetan antiquity which have not yet been properly examined. Putting aside the ordinary routes,the Kashmir State can be entered from two parts of Indian Tibet, from Lahul and from Spiti. As Lahul had already been investigated by Dr. Vogel,^ the course to be taken by me was to enter the Kashmir State from the Spiti side. Spiti was one of the countries of Indian Tibet which I had not yet seen. As the road to Spiti took me high up in the Satluj valley, I proposed to pay a short visit to Tholing and Tsaparang beyond the frontier. These places interested me particularly on account of their connection with Ati^a and d’Andrada. This proposal was, however, not sanctioned by the Supreme Government, and I was advised to remain within the Indian Prontier.

Our party was to consist of a Government Photographer, Babn Pindi Lai of the Archseological Survey, who also knew how to take impressions of inscriptions, and a Khalasi who had to be engaged in the interior. In addition to these there were two men whom I engaged privately, a bearer and cook in one person, and a Tibetan who assisted me in the reading and copying of inscriptions and documents. Dr. Marshall was very fortunate in his choice of the photographer ; for in the case of an expedition like ours, an ordinary proficiency in photography would not have sufficed ; what was wanted was a man ready to endure hardship, and one who was prepared to carry on his work under adverse circumstances. Pindi Lai has amply justified Dr. Marshall in his choice.

^ Of. his Trilohnathj J, A. 8* 3,^ Toh LXX (1902), Part I, pp. 35 fp.

CHAPTER 1.

The Satluj Valley.

We left Simla oe file 14th June and reached Kotgnr (map Kotgarh) on the ICth at noon. At Kofeur I enjoyed the hospitality of the C. M. S. miss.oiiaiy, the Ect . -li.

Beutel, who is an authority on the language, customs and geography o us^ uis iic On the rooks near Kotgnr are found carvings in the shape of a Yonl. Tins is Lr. Beuters explanation at least, and it agrees exactly with the interpretation I have given of many «irnila.r carvings found all over Kulu and Lahnl This symbol is found cvcii in Ladakh, but it is rarer there. I am convinced that this symbol is intended to remind the worshipper of deities of the Kali type, as ire find them all over the hills, under various names. These goddesses, together with gods of the Siva type, represent the creative principle which is the main feature in the religion of all the Yi cstern Iliuialayaii

During our short stay at Kotgur, Pindi Lai witnessed the Douiu lc.sli\al which is celebrated annually. The Doum is a tablet with silver and gold masks fixed to it. As Mr. Beutel told me, such masks are dedicated to the temple by the ruling cbicls ol Kotgur and neighbourhood, on the occasion of deaths in their lainilios. But whether these masks are supposed to be portraits of the deceased persons or not, I have not been able to ascertain. We find the same custom all over Kulu,’ and also at Trilukiuitli in Chamba-Lahul. The spirit (of the deceased?) is supposed to enter a man set apart for this cult, who performs a sword-dance and thrusts needles through his checks. When he is in a trance, he is asked questions and acts as an oracle. Pindi Lai placed hi.s apparatus carefully in front of the mask board and was on the point of snapping, when he was suddenly assailed by the priests, who said that they could not allow liini to photograph these objects of sanctity. Pindi Lai, snapping otf his apparatus, calmly .said ; " Well, if you will not allow me to take a photo, I can do without it,” and carried hi.s treasure home (Plate I, a).

That there is a possible connection between these masks and those used for the <l{,’vildances of Ladakh and Tibet, is made apparent by the follownng passiigc by Dr. 'og<jl,* .who speaks of two miniature Sikhara temples at Triloknath in which a uuniber of wooden masks are preserved. “ At the death of a momher of the Eana’s family, such a mask is prepared and placed in the temple, whence it is on no account to be rc;- moved. An exception is made for three masks which are used at the Char or fc>j)riiig festival, and are said to represent a man, a woman and a demon, called in the dialect garni, mezmi and kuUnza. The main substance of the Char festival is a performance symbolizing the advent of Spring and the defeat of Winter. The latter, personified as an evil demon, is represented by the hearer of the kulinza mask, who Is

' A. S. B. for 1807-8, pp. 270 ff., plates LXXIV and f.XXV. ^ Chmnha Gazetteer^ p. 41.

chased by the joint villagers and pelted with snow-halls till he retires from the village and drops his mask, after which he joins in a dance with the garni and mezmi mask-bearers.”

Most of the devil dances of Indian Tibet are held during the time of the winter solstice, and in my opinion originally symbolised the struggle between the benevolent gods of spring or summer, and the demons of winter. Lamaism later on converted these performances into a struggle between the elevating elements of Buddhism and its fierce enemies representative of the pre- Buddhist religion.^

The greatest enemy of Lamaism, Langdarma, had to take the part originally played by the winter, and it is his tragic end and his torments in hell which are now-adays celebrated in the mask dances. Side by side with the Lamaist mask dances the ancient ceremonies of chasing out the evil spirits of the winter were continued, and a manuscript describing the festival of the winter solstice at Khalatse and a photo of the interesting Bosmoche performance, at Leh, is among our collections. At the monastery of Nako, we even acquired a very ancient wooden mask which had once done service in the mask dances. This mask was found in a godown and sold to us for one ruj)ee. At Leh we had an opportunity to buy implements and a trumpet made of a human thighbone, used on the occasion of devil dances. (Plate XXIX, b) .

As I had the intention of spending Sunday the 20th at Kotgur, on my return from Xirmand, Mr. Beutel advised me to leave Kotgur on the same day and to cross the rope bridge to Nirmand early next morning. The caravan under Pindi Lai was to follow later on. I arrived on the Satluj late at night on the 16th and spent the night in Mr. Beutel’s garden house. Early on the 17th I marched with my Khansaman to Nirth and beyond this village to the rope bridge. In the vicinity of Nirth, we searched for the cave inscriptions discovered by Dr. Marshall in 1908, but could not find them. The rope bridge did not look at all inviting, but I thought that I ought to try it, in particular, because we should have to cross several more of them in the course of our journey. So we shouted for the people in the next village who work it. They brought a wooden saddle to which were attached several ropes and led us down the Jchud to the starting place, a rock not much over a yard square, 30 or 40 feet above the river. Before and behind, the rock was perpendicular. From this pedestal one was expected to seize the saddle which dangled above one, and to put his legs through two slings of rope which were attached thereto. While seizing the saddle I jumped up in the direction of the slings, but unfortunately knocked off my hat against the wall of rock behind me. It disappeared at once in the river and was not seen again. I knew that it would not be advisable to continue my journey under a tropical sun without a hat. Therefore, I renounced all further gymnastics on that day and went hack to Nirth to write to Mr. Beutel that I had not succeeded in reaching Nirmand on the fixed day and had to alter my programme. Early next morning a messenger from Mr. Beutel made his appearance with the latter’s sola topi and a letter urging me to try again. I must

Luther, in a similar manner, changed the song : BTun treiben wir den Winter ans ! into a song celebrating the tu rning out of the Pope ; Kun treiben wir den Pabst Mnaus

confess that I felt ashanaed that I a yoxing man, should not venture to do what old Mr. Beutel had done so often. The Khansaman and myself, therefore, made a fresh effort, got safely into the sling and across the river and reached Mrmand on the same evening, after a long and trying climb.

Pindi Lai marched with the caravan to Eampur, but kept himself in readiness to come to Mrmand with his apparatus, as soon as he should be wanted, Mrmand, the Ka^i of the mountains, as it is called, was perfectly inaccessible in the days of the brothers Gerard (1817) who wished to see it, but were not allowed to enter it. Later on, it was opened to visitors, and Oapt. Harcourt (1871) witnessed here the curious ceremony of the swinging rope. A young man is fed at the public expense for a year, during which time he has to plait a rope of considerable length. On the day of the Mela, this rope is stretched from the top of a precipice and he has to slide down on it. This custom which is also practised at Lhasa and at Srinagar of Garhwal is, as Dr. Vogel says, probably a survival of human sacrifice, the prevalence of which in former times in these districts is indicated by popular tradition.^ “ But in this peculiar case the victim, instead of being actually killed, had to undergo a risk which endangered his life. An offering was thus made to the deity who might decline or accept the sacrifice according to her divine pleasure. In 1856 the man was killed, and since then the practice has been prohibited.”

At Kotgur, the tree under which the human sacrifices took place is still shown. Until quite recently several iron links, the last remains of chains, could be seen there. Eegarding the abolition of human sacrifices, at Kotgur, Mr. Beutel told me the following tale : A young virgin had to be sacrificed every year. Once it w^as a poor widow’s turn to offer up her only daughter. The widow cried and asked the oracle below Hatti if there was not a way out of her difficulty. The oracle answered that on the day of the execution there would be a thunderstorm of unusual force, and the rain would carry off even men, and this would be the end of human sacrifices. When on the day of execution the heavy storm actually broke forth, the frightened Brahmans declared that the divinity was angry and did not wish to accept any more human sacrifices.

The story of the Eakshasa Bamburaha at Kotgur, also told by Mr. Beutel, is not very different. This Rakshasa devoured the breasts of women, and from time to time he demanded a woman to eat up altogether. He was blinded by the bird Karaita who thrust pollen of the cedar into his eyes. Then he was killed by armed men. This had also been announced by the Hatti oracle.

Although Nirmand is nowadays open to visitors, the inhabitants do their best to make a stay there as unpleasant to the stranger as possible. The town, bein^ a holy place, IS inhabited . chiefly by Brahmans, who dress in white. Besides them there are only two other castes represented, the Sonars or goldsmiths, and the Kolis or peasants (aboriginal population). Wherever one goes, one finds Brahmans on both sides who

’ J- S. JB, Vol. LXX, Part 1, No. 1, 1903, p. 36.

•suddenly stop one and demand a t\irn to the right or left, or even prohibit one’s further advance. In spite of all its sanctity, Nirmand is poor in inscriptions and other written records. People showed me the copper plate grant of the 7th century by king Samudra-sena which has been published by Dr. Pleet,^ and a very obliterated inscription on a rook in front of the Dharma^ala. We took an impression, but were not quite successful. The script seems to be a late type of ^arada. As the names of Samudrasena’s father, grandfather and great-grandfather, which occur on the copper plate, have not yet been discovered in the Bansaulis of Kulu or Bashahr, I hoped to find them among the ancestors of the present piakur of Mrmand. This man, however, did not possess a family record of any kind.

Proof of the great age of I^irmand is the fact that all the principal temples are of the hill type. They are built of layer’s of rubble masonry, alternating with beams of cedar wood. The roofs are slojring and slightly concave on either side of the central beam and laid with slates or wooden shingles. None of these buildings seem to be of a very great age. But, as they were always repaired in the same style, the temples •of Nirmand of two or three thousand years ago probably did not look different from these extant.

This refers only to the chief temples. By the side of most of them, we find numerous stone temples of the HhJiara type. (Plate III). They are, however, never in prominent positions. This style of architecture has been fully described by Pergusson.® It was introduced into Nirmand probably between the 7th and 11th century and many specimens may go back to those times, although there are no written records. The many tablets with religious sculptures which are scattered all over the place in great numbers, may also date from those times. It appears that the original cult of Nirmand was ■entirely Sivaist. Most of the temples are dedicated to Siva or Kali, or to deities of a similar type. Perhaps about the same time when Vishnuism became powerful in Ohamba (tenth or eleventh century), this form of worship was also introduced in Nirmand, without, however, doing much harm to Sivaism.

Originally the town consisted, it is said, of five main streets with a great temple in each of them. Cholera and small-pox have decimated the population, and the town lias become very much reduced in size. Its situation is sublime, on a high practically level plateau with a magnificent view of apparently endless mountain ridges.

1 made the following notes on the principal buildings. The Ambika temple (Plate II, a) is below the village, and a flight of 184 steps leads up towards it, and continues from the back of the temple towards the village. This temple is said to be the oldest in the place, and Ambika (probably a form of KaJi) is the chief deity of Nirmand. According to Pindi Lai, the Devi image is in a standing posture and about two feet high. Her face is black, and her clothes covered with gold. "Whoever approaches her (only Brahmans are allowed to do so) has to take off his trousers. In this temple is kept the copper-plate grant of King Samudra-sena of the 7th century mentioned above

^ G%^ta Inscrijptions, p. 286.

^ Kisior^ of Indian and Eastern ArcMtectnre^ Vol. I, p. 322.

In front of Ambika’s temple there is an ancient stone figure buried in the ground up to the shoulders.

The Eothi is a large building of the hiU type, with stags’ and antelopes’ horns fixed orer the door. Old sculptures are inserted in the walls, for instance, a head on a stand adored by two kneeling figures (Plate I, b). This may hare been suggested by the wellknown Buddhist sculptures of relics with two worshippers. The head is probably that of ^ira, as we find it on so many temples at Nirmand, carved above the entrance. On the right corner of the house, there is a very rude figure of Hanuman riding on a rather diminutive horse. Inside, there are stone figures of Kali, and a bronze figure of Paralurama. The latter is exhibited only every twelfth year when two naked men have to carry it out of its prison. When the image is brought back to the temple, a glass, filled with water, is placed in front of it. This is not removed until twelve years have elapsed, and the water is found as fresh as it was originally. In front of the Kothi is a large round stone seat with sculptures on its circumference, for instance, makaras swallowing men (?). An apparently modern cave is in the vicinity.

The Dharmasdla we were not allowed to enter. It is a court formed by houses of the ordinary hill type situated in the middle of the village. On a rock in front there is an inscription in a late type of Sarada characters much obliterated.

The temple of Ghandi Devi is close to the wells from which the people fetch their drinking water. There are several small water tanks of dressed stones below it, and a great number of sculptured slabs are inserted in the masonry of the tank (Plate II, b). Stone figures of Nandi are also conspicuous. One of the sculptures, a head with three faces, is said to look like Para^urama in the K5thi.

The temple of Siva situated above the village, is said to contain a Ungam. Over the door is a sculptured head and a figure of Ganesa. In front of it, there are water tanks with stone reliefs and a figure of Nandi.

The temple of Siva and the Pandavas is situated in the middle of the village. It was shown only to Pindi Lai who says that it contains many images in little niches.

The Thakur’s temple found in the middle of the village is small and neat, but in bad preservation. The interior was shown to Pindi Lai only, in whose opinion the image was the finest sculpture in the place. Unfortunately he could not photograph it. It represents a man and a woman seated, and another woman lying on the ground. There is an elaborate halo round the three figures.

The doors of all the houses of the goldsmiths are distinguished by well-carved door-posts of stone with the figure of Gane^a in the centre.

In conclusion I may say that we did not find any traces of Buddhism at Nirmand.

Prom Nirmand we marched to Bampur, the capital of the Bashahr State, beautifully situated on the left bank of the Satluj. The descent was steep, but the road well shaded by luxuriant vegetation. The Hindu temples of the city with their very primitive, though not ancient, sculptures did not appear of any interest. B,ampur is the first place on the road up the SatluJ valley where Lamaist buildings may be seen. The ■

Plate III.

Sikhara shrine near the temple of Chandi Devi, Nirmand. b. Sikhara shrine near watertank, Nirmand.

lamaist temple is a receat structure and is said to be only tu'elye or thirteen years old. Its style is not different from that of the ordinary dwelling-houses of Eampra ; this temple, therefore, differs from the common Tibetan temples, especially on account of its sloping roof. It contains modern frescoes and a huge prayer wheel.

In one of the Eaja’s garden-houses, we found more Lamaist frescoes. One of them interested me in particular, for it eyidently represents a historical scene. (Plate IV, a). When we met His Highness Shamsher Singh, a few days later, he told us that the picture was a copy of a picture in the palace of Lhasa. The fresco evidently represents the treaty between Tibet and Bashahr concluded about 1650 A.D., when Bashahr was supported by the Mu gh al emperor. The figure in the middle of the picture is apparently the Mughal emperor, surrounded by his soldiers. The elephant procession which approaches from the left is either the retinue of the Mu^al, or of the Bashahr king, Kebari Singh.’- A party of Bashahr people, distinguished by their black round hats, are placed in front of the Mugdial, while the embassy from Tibet is shown on the right side of the painting. This treaty, which is mentioned in the chronicles of Bashahr, was of great importance to the State. The Tibetans who had been beaten by the Mu ghal army at Basgo, near Leh, had to cede a portion of Guge, mz., the Satluj valley down to the Wangtu bridge, to the Bashahr State. We had the good fortune, in the course of our expedition, to discover two versions of this treaty, concluded in 1650, in original documents.

At Eampur we inspected ako the royal palaces, gardens and guest-houses, but nothing appeared to be of particular interest. Unfortunately the Raja and his party were not present. Here we engaged a Khalasi called Sadhu, to accompany us on our further travels. Although this man had hardly seen any place beyond Rampur, he proved useful and was always ready to work even under difficulties.

The road up the Satluj valley, from Rampur to Ohini, is on the whole very pleasant. The mountains are wooded in many parts, and the rocks and hills which rise abruptly from the narrow valley form charming pictures. The road continually ascends and descends, and for this reason the traveller passes through ever-varying temperatures. Often we started from a bungalow five or six thousand feet above the Satluj in a cool morning breeze. Then the road took us down almost to the valley with its blazing heat, and it was rather hard to begin the ascent again under the scorching rays (ff a tropical midday sun.

We arrived at Gaura, a little village above Rampur, on the 22nd June. The people were holding their “ Pestival of prayers for a good harvest, ” and for that reason we could not sleep much. They sang without a break through the whole of the night. It would have been very pleasant to listen to them in the day-time, but before the sun was up they had all disappeared. They had always two choirs, one for the line with the lower notes, the other for the line with the higher notes. I took down one of their tunes which is based on the Chinese scale. Others of their tunes were based on different scales. Each

^ For genealogical list of Bashabr Rsjas see beneath Appendix D.

party held out the last note of their melody for a time, whilst the other party started

theirs.^ ^

On the following day we reached Sarahan. It is the ancient capital of the Bashahr

state, and the palace here is by far superior to that at Rampur. Here we found the Raja residing. Shamsher Singh, a man of seventy years of age, is the last of a long line of a hundred and twenty Rajas, enumerated in the Bajowari of Bashahr, which was first brought to light through Mr. H. A. Rose’s exertions. The dynasty claims to have come from Raiichanapuri {i.e., Conjeevaram) in the Deccan, and to be of Brahman caste Once the throne of Bashahr being vacant, it was prophesied that the Brahman who should enter the palace-gate first, was the destined king. The younger one of two Brahman brothers, Pradyumna, who came from Kafichanapuri, entered the palace-gate first, and was accordingly made king. The descendants of the elder brother became family priests and are said to be still in office. It is very difficult to believe that the pedigree with its 120 members can be genuine in its more ancient parts. All the Rajas are called by the dynastical name Singh (Sanskrit Simha), but there is no instance of any ancient Indian family which makes use of that name earlier than the 16th century. The family of the Bashahr Rajas, as Mr. Howell, Assistant Commissioner of Kuju, tells me, is recognised all over northern India as very ancient and the other rajas are desirous of receiving their caste-mark from the Bashahr Raja, even if the latter condescends only to put it on their foreheads with his toe.

Shamsher Singh is very favourably inclined to Europeans and wishes to make friends with all of them. Shortly after our arrival, therefore, he announced his intention to have tea with me. He was carried in a litter by several of his subjects, and a small crowd was gathered together near the bungalow to receive him with shouts, “ Ho ! Maharaj. ” His state is of considerable extent, but thinly populated, and has a future before it. The Raja asked us first to take a photo of himself, and then to go to the other side of his palace and take a general view of it from there. (Plates IV, b and V, a). The palace presented itself at its best from the mountain side, where it showed aU its symmetrical beauty. It is one of the finest specimens of hill architecture I have ever seen. Although there are no written records about it, it is evidently of considerable age. The Rajas ought to be urged to keep it in good repair, but not to make any structural alterations. Like all buildings of the hill-type it is built of layers of rubble masonry and beams of cedar wood. The roofs are slanting and slightly concave like those of the Chinese. In the walls of the court, several carved stone images of very rude execution have been inserted. I was told that they represent Kali and Bhairava.

There is also an ancient Kali temple connected with the palace which is not accessible to Europeans. It is said to contain a deep pit. There are rumours that human sacrifices were offered here every tenth year, and that they are still continued secretly.® The victim is thrown into the pit. If a human sacrifice be not forthcoming at the

^ k deseription of this style of music is found in my article, “ Mudhalische Slttdien in, West Tibet, Z. T).M G Vul. IX, pp 91 E ■

• Cf. Gerard, Account of Koonawao", p. 86.

Platk I

b. Raja Shamsher Singh of Bashahr.

appointed time, a terrible voice is heard calling from the depth of the j)it. We received a full written statement about these practices from a native of the place.

We travelled from Sarahan to Taranda on the 24th June. In the pass above the village and bungalow, there is an ancient deserted Devata temple of the ordinary hill type with slanting but straight roof, in ruins It contained two beautifully carved columns and other wood sculptures. In front of it, there are several stone slabs with rude carvings of human figures. They look exactly like the slabs put up in commemoration of the dead in Manchad (Lahul) or like very ancient 5'/?ie-stoues in JSulu. I was informed that here also, they were erected in commemoration of the dead.

We proceeded to Paunda on the 2oth June. Below the village, on the road to Taranda, we saw the first Tibetan mani wall. i.e. a stone wall covered with inscribed slabs of stone, bearing the inscrij)tion Om mani padnie Sinn. The characters employed here were mostly Lafithsa. Near the wall Avas a gate with modern Lamaist frescoes on. the ceiling and a prayer flag on the top. These signs of Lamaism do not, however, indicate that the population of this district are believers in Lamaism. In fact, in spite of many inquiries, I could not ascertain that there were any Buddhists round about. I believe that these Buddhist structures were erected by Tibetan travellers on their way to the Bampur market.

On the 26th June, we marched from Paunda to Lrni. Between Paunda and Nachar is the village of Sungra, a little below the road. It is famous for its ancient wooden Mahe^ura (Mahe^vara) temple (Plate VI, a). It is a fine specimen of hill architecture, and reminds one of the famous temple of Hidimba at Manali in Kulu which was built by Eing Bahadur Singh in the 16th century.^ While the temples of Mrmand have the shape of an ordinary rectangular house with a single gable roof, the temple at Sungra has a square ground-plan and three slanting roofs, one aboA'e the other, the lower one being the largest, and the top one the smallest of the three. While the two lower ones are square, the top one is round, of the shape of a funnel. The four corner beams of the lowest roof end in wooden figures of walking lions, almost life-size (Plate VI, b). The temple contains a Ungam. There are no inscriptions round about. In the temple yard we saw two very rude specimens of sikhara stone temples.

On the road from Sungra to Nachar we noticed the first Lamaist mchod-rten {stupa). It was only about 6 feet high, and contained some dried apricots and a leaf or two of a modern Tibetan printed book Avith a text half Tibetan, half Sanskrit.

The temple of Nachar has also a certain fame on account of its wood carvings. We did not, however, visit it.

Prom Nachar the road took us down to the Satluj by a long descent, and at Wangtu we crossed the river by a beautiful modern bridge. There was already a wooden bridge in this place when Gerard travelled here in 1817.® This bridge is an important

1 Cf, A. S, 1905-96, p. 26. There are three temples of this kind in Kulu ; that of Hidimba. (or Hirma; DSvi at Dhuugil Hanall, near that of Tripura-sundari Devi at Nagar, the ancient capital, and that of Tiiyng XSrayana at Dhar opposite

Bajaura.

• It was destroyed by the Gurkhas in 1819 and replaced by a rope bridge.

c

feature in the Bashahr State ; for it marks the ancient boundary between Bashalir and

Tibet. In fact, the West Tibetan Empire reached as far as Wangtu up to 1650 A. D., when the Satluj valley from Wangtu to ISTamgya was made over to Bashahr. Although Tibetan is not yet spoken for several marches up the Satluj, the former Tibetan influence makes itself felt in the frequency of personal Tibetan names. We could not escape making this observation, because we had to jot down on our vouchers the names of all the coolies in our employ.

We are now outside the area of the Pahari dialects of the Satluj valley and have entered that of the Kanawari language. This language was noticed as early as 1817 by Gerard, who published a vocabulary of it.^ Mr. Biack made a beginning in the study of its grammar ; but the true nature of this language was not recognised, until the Kev. J . Bruske, of the Moravian Mission, began to study the language thoroughly and made a translation of the gospel of St. Mark into it. It was then recognised, as pointed out by Dr. Sten Konow,^ that the grammar of this language shows close affinities to Mundari (spoken in Ohota Nagpur), and that in very early times in these mountain valleys an amalgamation must have taken place between Munda aboriginal tribes and Tibetans. Within the fifty miles of road between Cliini and Poo, one meets with several more languages of probably a similar type which have not yet been properly studied, although notes on them can be found in various books of travel. The study of the folklore literature of the Kanawari language has been taken up by Mr. H, A. Eose, who is also compiling a dictionary of this language. Mr. Eose’s collection contains historical as well as lyrical pieces. With regard to the former it is strange to note that they all refer to very modern times only. In the course of our journey we heard a song about the Kyahar castle, but it also contained the name of a very modern personage, that of the Tika Sahib of Bashahr, who died a few years ago. One of the most interesting of Mr. Bruske’s collection is the song on Mr. Minniken, forest officer of Bashahr. This officer is praised in this song as the ideal master of the woods who gives the petitioner as much wood as he wants to get. As regards metre and parallelism, these songs are of the same character as the Tibetan songs.

The result of the blending of the Munda and Tibetan population wdth a superficial sprinkling of Indian Aryans is not at aU bad, and many of our coolie women were of very attractive appearance. I must add a few words wdth regard to the latter. Among the population of these mountain vaEeys the cooly caste is not very numerous, and for this reason the villagers, also those of good caste, have to take up cooly wmrk. This kind of forced labour is felt as humiliating by most of the people, and for this reason the male population will not participate in it. They press it on the women of their families, and do not see that they disgrace themselves even more by this arrangement. Our transport therefore was for the greater part of our journey to Poo the work of women carriers This basils great advantages, as has been observed also by other travellers, for these women are pleasant to deal with, they never grumble, and do their utm ost to please the

I J. A. 8. B., Vol. XI, part 1, 1842, pp. 479, fE. Linguistic Survey, Vol. Ill, part I.

• Impsrtal Gozette&f af India, New Edition. Oxford 1907. Vol. I, pp, 306 ff.

b. Lamaist gateway, Rarang.

mm

sahib. It is also true that many among them ai’e quite athletic and carry heavy loads over great distances. What I disliked, however, was the injustice done to the female population of a little village when a large caravan like ours demanded the service of practically all the women between twelve and fifty years of age. Then the claims of their babies were left quite out oJ' consideration, and the poor mothers had to see what arrangements they could make with regard to their offspring for a full day or so. Our box which contained the photographic plates Avas the heaviest of all, and it was always the last taken u]p. The first comers took hold of the lighter loads and darted off as soon as possible. When we Avere at Chogan on our way to Urni, this box with the plates did not arrive, and Pindi Lai volunteered to stay behind and wait for it. He caught me up at IJrni when it was quite dark. The heavy box had fallen to the lot of a child of fourteen, years of age who was absolutely unequal to the task. This girl, therefore, asked three of her friends to assist her in the hard work she had to perform, and so Pindi Lai received the box out of the hands of four girls ‘ all very young and very beautiful ’ as he said. They were, of course, all of high caste, and the way they took leave of the Babu and wished him a good jotuTiey was quite charming. The system of the Tibetans is quite different from that of the Bashahr State. In Tibet the men come first, and they are ready to do the hardest work themselves. The women who offer to do cooly work are such as can be spared from their homes.

I hope that the chivalrous chief of the Bashahr State will undertake to teach his male subjects a little more chivalry.

The bridge of W angtu is evidently in a place where there has been a bridge from time immemorial, as is made probable by ancient carvings on the rocks. One of them shows a man with a sAvord in his left hand, and a club in his right. In the rocks there are many caves used by travellers, and on the rocks about them I saw many Tibetan inscriptions in charcoal and red chalk, one of them reading : Sa-Tcya-pa-mhhyen-no, “ Take notice of this (or ‘ of me ’) 0 Sakya-man ! ” In one of the caves, there were many tablets of burnt clay, just like those which are made of clay and the ashes of the dead. They have generally the figure of a Buddhist saint printed on them and are deposited in mchod-rten or caves. Here, however, they were quite jplain. A dead lama was probably cremated here in ancient times, and a mould not being at hand, the clay-tablets were formed AAuthout it.

Sunday, the 27th June, was spent at Urni. In the afternoon I AA^ent to see the mandw's or temples. The ‘ old temple ’ is of the square tower type, like so many of Kulii, and has a wooden verandah running round below the slanting gable roof. It was almost without any carvings, and people said that the devata had left the place. The ‘ new temple,’ not far from the old one, was thoroughly renovated, as people say, about twenty years ago. There are many wood-carvings dating from that time, for instance huntingscenes : a man shooting a leopard ynth a rifle. They were all very primitive. There was also a carving of a cock, and what I took for a hen with chickens, eating a snake. But people said it was a peacock. (Garuda devouring Nagas ?). The villagers showed

■us also sovoral obscono roprosontations of a man and a woman, and said that it was alw'avs a grand moment, when these pictures were shown to the girls on the occasion of a Mela. This will serve to show what a religion which worships the creative powers leads to. The slanting gable beams of the temple had again representations of Avalking lions, like those at Sungra.

As regards the houses of the ordinary peasants, here at Urni, and in other places since we passed the "Wangfu bridge, the Tibetan flat roof is becoming prominent. Here at Urni village most of the roofs exhibit the Tibetan style. But the mandirs stiU show the old slanting roof of the Indian hill tribes. The first temple with a flat roof I saw at Eogi on the 28 th. It is of the square tower type and has wood carvings on the beams.

We spent the night of the 28 th and the 29 th June at Chini, in the Moravian Mission house. The view from Chini towards the snow mountains on the other side of the river is one of the grandest imaginable. The local name of these glaciers is Eailasa and a certain iDinnacle is called §iva by the people.^

Looking down from the Mission house, there is a large mound to the left of the village (Plate VII, a). This is said to be the site of a castle of an ancient Thakur who came here from the ‘ Upper Country ’ (apparently Tibet) . Mr. Bruske, who used to reside here as a Moravian missionary, was told that there exists a song which treats of the exploits of this Thakur. But it has not yet been reduced to writing. On the site, many fragments of hand-made pottery can be found, but, people assured me, never any coins. The site is now occupied by small Lamaist buildings, a square tower and an enshrined mchod-rten. The fact that Lamaism has taken possession of the site, speaks in favour of the alleged Tibetan origin of the Thakur.

Mr. Bruske informs me that there is another mound below the village where many red bricks can be found. This is held to have been the principal (perhaps winter) residence of the same Thakur. At both sites excavations might prove successful. The most interesting feature in connection with this ancient chief is, as Mr. Bruske tells me, that traces of his aqueducts are met with from time to time by people when digging. They consist of earthenware pipes, and the water was conducted in them for miles.

Above the door over the staircase which leads up to the mound, there is a stone lion, which looks very old indeed. People told me, however, that it was made only a few years ago. Older are the carved slabs of stone on the mound, near the Lamaist temple. They show lines similar to those on a chessboard. On these ancient slabs, the Tibetan game of mig-mang was probably played.

Mr. Bruske tells me that stories of Thakurs are told also of other ruined sites on the way from Chini to Poo. These Thakurs, although independent in a way, probably acknowledged the supremacy of the Tibetan chiefs of Guge, before the country came under Bashahr.

The Kah temple of Chini is situated below the village. No stranger is allowed to enter it. It has been the scene of human sacr ifices, and there is a rumour that such

• The earliest picture of Chini and the Kadasa is found in ' JBetse ies Primien Waldemar von Preussen,’ 1845, Plate XVI.

sacrifices are still carried on secretly. The following has been observed by a European, whose name I am not allowed to mention. At the Mela at this KaH temple, the object of the sacrifice is carried down to the temple by a person who must not be met by anybody. In fact, the rumour is spread that every person who meets that man will die before a year is passed. The Em’opean quite unexpectedly made his aj)pearanee before the priest who cursed him. However, he is of opinion that what the priest carried wrapped up in his bundle looked very much like human limbs. The prohibition of the Brahmans, that nobody must meet the priest on his way to the Kali temple, has its origin in the wish to keep eye-witnesses away from this ghastly sacrifice.

On the road from Chini to Pangi, not far from Chini, below the road, there is a ruined house which is known as the house of the first European who settled in the country. He was married to a Kanawari woman by jungle rites. He has become the hero of a song in Kanawari, discovered by Mr- Braske at Ohini, in which the complexion of the European is praised as having been like butter. Like most of the Kanawari songs, this one has also a personal touch. These songs treat of prominent people who have become known to xhe Kanawaris. The fact that all the heroes of their songs are modern men, could be explained in this way. The songs were composed in early times in honour of kings or heroes whose names have been entirely forgotten. When a new king, or a new hero arises, the words of the old songs are left unchanged, whilst the personalities are exchanged for new ones. We have very similar cases in Tibetan folklore.^

On the 29th June, we passed thi’ough Pangi. In the vicinity of the village, there is one of those Lamaist gates built across the road, such as are frequently met with in these parts. (Plate T, b.) In Ladakh there are many similar ones. They all have a mckod-rten on the roof, and frescoes on the ceiling. Here in the Kanawari country these -are distinguished by their elegant wooden roofs which are built over the tnchod-rten, to protect it from rain. The roof is covered, and, therefore, has somewhat the appearance of a Chinese roof. Gerard believed all this kind of arobitectui*e to be influenced by the Chinese style of building, which he believed to exist immediately on tbe other side of the Tibeto-OMnese frontier. However, we should have to travel thousands of miles, before we should meet with the first representatives of Chinese architecture. These doors are here known by tbe name of kang-ga-ni, a name which is given in Ladakh only to the most ancient specimens.

Close to the door, there are two large erect stones, perhaps rude specimens of lingmis. They have carvings on them, which I copied. One of the carvings I take for a kind of sun-symbol. It was very distinct on one of tbe stones. On the other stone was carved a stupa and what appears to be a repetition of the sun-symbol.

At Pangi, I met Mr. Bruske and his wife, who were encamped there. I spent a fewpleasant hours with them, and received much valuable information from them.

We spent the night of tbe 29th and the 30th June at Barang. In the evening, w'e visited the Lamaist temple, which is built somewhat in the style of the wooden hill

1 See my Iiitroduction to Ladakhi Songs, In^. Ant, Yol. XXXI. 1902. pp. 87

architecturej at least in regard to its roof. It is said to be only about twenty-five yearsold. In the courtyard, we found cremation tablets with figures of AvaloMte^vara re|)resented with four arms and a lotus, and Hi-uhJiTugs-pti’ (Akshobya). Although they were also said to be of recent date, the mould from which they were cast must be decidedly old. It was possibly brought here from Kanam monastery, which claims to be old. The tablets were furnished with Tibetan inscriptions, but these were so indistinct that nothing could be read. It was just possible to see that the characters employed were Tibetan.

Above the village of Rarang, on the road, there is an old hut which is known as the most ancient mandir of Rarang. (Plate VII, b.) It is rectangular, and has a slanting roof. The door beams are furnished with wood carvings. On the lintel, the figure of an elephant carrying a human being can be distinguished. This is possibly a representation of Indra. Of particular interest is the gable-roof which ends in the carving of a ram’s head, and thus reminds us strongly of the devatd-hvits in the Manchad valley (Lahul). In its general appearance also, this mandir resembles the devatd-hxits of the Manchad valley and goes to prove that the religion of the Kanawaris was similar to that of the Manchad people, who are closely related to them by lingual and ethnic characteristics. As this hut is practically the last specimen of Indian hill architecture on the road (not taking into account a ‘ gate of blessing ’ at Poo, which is furnished wnth a roof in Kanawari style), it will be well to review all the observations w^'e have made with regard to this arohiteotm’e. Under hill architecture are comprised all the structures which arc composed of rubble masonry and beams of cedar wood. Of an entirely different character are the structures of the Tibetans, which consist of sun-dried bricks. The former have slanting, and the latter flat roofs. On the frontier between the Tibetan and Xanawari peoples there are also some intermediate forms. There are houses built of rubble masonry with flat roofs, for instance the temple at Rogi, and houses built of sun-burnt bricks with a slanting roof, for instance the temple at Rarang.

The most elementary form of hill architecture is represented by the ancient mandir of Rarang, which consists of a one-roomed house with a rectangular ground-plan a.ud a slanting roof. Later on, the roof assumed a concave appearance, and was often supported by a covered verandah. This type of house is much in evidence as the ordinary peasant’s dwelling on the Satluj up to the Wangiu bridge, and the Nirmand temples are of this type. It was then modified in the following way. The ground plan was made square and the walls were raised. This is the type of the Kulu castle towers which were introduced even into Lahul, and of the shrine of the old mandir at Urni, A beautiful combination of this rectangular house and square tower is found in the ancient palace of Sarahan. The Kanawari gates of blessing have another extraordinary feature in addition to the concave roof, in that they have also the front and back waUs widening oxrt towards the gable beam. Thus the walls are further apart at the top than they are at ground level.

On the square ground plan was developed also the pyramid type of roof with four slanting sides. This we find in its simplest form in the modem temple of Urni, and in.

. Site of Thakur’s castle, Chini. b' Shrine of Devi, Rarang.

one of tlie old temples of Sungra. Then there arose the custom of building with superimposed pyramidal roofs one on the top of another, the ujoper ones decreasing in size ; the whole structures reminding us of Burmese Pagodas. Such temples we have at Sungra, Manali in Kulu, and probably also at J^achar.'

The religious buildings of the Hill-type are distinguished by their wood carvings. Mention has been made of the almost life size figures of lions on the beams of the roof. The most prominent figure among the ornaments, is the full-blown lotus {padma) with leaves arranged radially. This ornament was believed by Captain Harcourt to be of Buddhist origin. As has been shown by Professor Griinwedel, however, the wheel and the lotus are by no means purely Buddhist emblems. The same must be said with regard to the snake and bird ornaments which are frequently met with. The continual warfare between Garudas and Nagas was a favourite topic among the liiU tribes long before the rise of Buddhism. Rejoresentations of the human figure are also of frequent occurrence among these wood carvings. But they are by far inferior to the representations of animals and look very much like the effigies of men on ancient rock carvings. The types are stiff and conventionalised, as if on the way to become pictographs. The wooden eaves-boards which are often seen on the edges of roofs, form a very pretty kind of ornament. Many of the roofs or gable beams end in dragon heads with oj)en mouths. Of the rams’ heads at the end of such beams mention has been made.

We passed through Jangi on the 30th June. Tibetan mani walls are now becoming frequent, but up to this place they contained nothing beyond endless repetitions of the Om mani padnie 1mm. Here I found for the first time on our expedition a mani wall with a votive tablet on one end. This shows that the knowledge of the Tibetan language is more general here than in the previous villages. The tablet was, however, so much worn that I could not read much beyond the wmrds Khungs-Usim-ga-ga-che, “ the great nobleman of excellent origin.” Neither this nor any of the preceding mani walls look as if they were of great antiquity. In the district between Ohini and Poo Lamaism has made progress in outward show during the last thirty years or so without, however, ousting Hinduism.

Opposite Jangi lies the village of Kinam with a fine castle on a rock above the river. It was built, it is said, by the Raja of Bashahr.

After Jangi, the country begins to show a Tibetan character. Vegetation becomes very scarce, and only a kind of Juniper, generally known by the name of Pencil Cedar (the holy tree of the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet) makes us realize that we are not travelling on the moon. The pencil cedar never forms forests, but at best dots a hillside with a tree to every 500 square yards or so. Also the road, which up to this had done great ■credit to the Public Works Department (to which I am indebted in particular for the hospitality of their bungalows), becomes more and more uncivilised, and reminds one of the days of hardships when Gerard travelled here almost a century ago. After this

^ As I said before^ I did not get to see the N’achar temple, bnt in Gordon Forbes* book Simla to Shiphi in Tihct^ the IJ^achar temple is compared to Burmese temples. Similar temples in the vicinity of Simla and Kotgur were not examined on our tour.

experience of desert travelling it is very pleasant in tJbie evening to branch off from the Satluj vaUey into a side valley which is irrigated by the glacial stream of Kanam: The green waving fields, the many willow, poplar, and apricot trees refresh the eye of the traveller and invite to a short rest in their midst,

"We spent the night between the 30th June and 1st July at Kanam. Although Tibetan is very well understood here, it is not yet spoken among the peasants themselves. They speak a language of the Kanawari type. But the village as well as the monasteiy presents a purely Tibetan appearance. This monastery (Plate VIII) was the first on the road which by the natives themselves was asserted to be of ancient origin. It is said to go back to the days of Lotsaba Bin-chen-bzang-po (Eatna-bhadra) 964— 1054^ A.D. No relic of these ancient days, however, remains. The monastery consists of three separate halls situated in different parts of the village.

The uppermost of them is called dOon-pa or monastery proper. It is a building of the ordinary Tibetan type, constructed of undried bricks with a flat roof. It contains the cells of the lamas who belong to the Ge-lug-pa sect, and an insignificant temple. In the latter is found an image of Buddha, gilt bronze with blue hair of the pin-head type. This image was brought from bKra-shis-Ihun-po {mlgo Trashi lunpo) about seventy years ago, so I was told. The wooden garlands which are behind this image of Buddha as well as behind some other images, may be older. The chief attraction of the Kanam monastery lies in the fact that the pioneer of Tibetan studies, the Hungarian Osoma de Kovos spent several years in it, studying the Tibetan language. According to Duka’s Life of Csoma de Kotos, he lived here from August 1827 to October 1830h In 1829, Osoma Avas visited at Kanam (spelt Kanum in his report) by Dr. Gerard, who gives a very interesting account of the Hungarian’s life and work in this out of the way place. Let me quote a few passages from his account —

“ I found him at the village of Kanum, in his small but romantic hamlet, surrounded by books, and in the best health The cold is very intense, and all last winter he sat

at his desk wrapped up in wooUens from head to foot, and from morning to night, without an interval of recreation or warmth, except that of his frugal meals which are one universal routine of greasy tea ; but the winters at Kanum dwindle to insignificance com- pared with the severity of those at the monastery of Tangla (in Zangskar) where Mr.

Osoma passed a whole year There he sat (at Yangla) enveloped in a sheep-skin cloak,

with his arms folded, and in this situation he read from morning till evening without fire, or light after dusk, the ground to sleep on, and the bare walls of the building for protection against the rigours of the climate.

“ The cold was so intense as to make it a task of severity to extricate the hands from

their fleecy resort to turn over the pages,. he is poor, humbly clad, and reserved,

unless stimulated to animation by some temporary interest.”

The chief attraction of the little village of Kanam, for Csoma, rested in the fact that the monastery contains complete copies of the IM-ngyur and bstan-ugywr, the great

^ See Duka, Idfe of Csoma^ pp. 82 ff .

Plate VIII.

b. Lotsabai Monastery, Kanam.

encyclopsedias of Lamaism. It ■was here that he was enabled to study these gigantic collections of Tibetan literature, and to write his still inyaluable ‘ Analysis of the Eanjur and Stanjur.’ The library is kept in a separate building called bM-tigyiir some distance below the monastery, Gerard who inspected this library on the occasion of his visit to Csoma in Kanam, has the following note on it : “ The edition of the Kahgym’ and Stan-

gyur at Kanum was sent from Teshi Ihunpo (bKra-shis-lhun-po) only about 9 years ago {i.e. in 1820) ; the printing bears a date of ninety years, yet the ink and type look as perfect and fresh as ever. No insects attack them, though the climate here is varying

in summer. The book cases being made of cedar are indestructible The works, being

distinct, are arranged in separate places. These resemble large chests or cisterns, standing on end, and partitioned into cells, each containing a volume, which is carefully wrapped within many folds, laced with cord, and bound tightly between boards of cypress

or cedar Some of the volumes were opened before me, and I gazed with a sort of

reverential feeling upon such gigantic compilations yet unfolded to the world, and thought of the humble individual in the hamlet who was occupied in illustrating their unexplored contents.”

There is yet a third Lamaist building in the place. It is called Lliahrang and is situated between the village and the fields. It is said to be of not much later date than the dGon-pa. No ancient relic has been preserved in it. It contains a modern stucco statue of Maitreya. Another small stucco statue represents the white Tara and is believed to be of some antiquity. It is a really good piece of workmanship, and the face shows expressive features, more spiritual than usual.

Above the d Qon-pa, there is a long row of white quadrangular bmldings which are said to be crematories. In most villages, a single such incinerator has to suffice for many people. Here one once used for a high lama, is apparently not used again. It is converted into a kind of quadrangular mchod-rten.

Although no ancient remains can be found at Kanam, it is quite possible that, as asserted, a Lamaist monastery was built here in the 11th century. The present buildings were probably erected on the sites of still more ancient ones. The monastery may have -been ransacked several times ; for the last time by the Gurkhas. When Gerard was on his expedition in the Satluj valley, he met with continual reports of the devastations by the Gurkhas from Kotgur to the Tibetan frontier.

On the 1st of July we marched from Kanam to the Shasu rope bridge. I arrived at the bridge at 11 a.m., but did not reach the opposite bank of the river, a tributary to the Satluj, before 6 p.m. When I arrived at the site of the bridge, nothing could be seen but a steel rope. We had sent intimation of our intention to cross the bridge to the next village, but there was no response. I found only a single old man on our bank of the river, who had a one-wheeled trolley without any ropes at hand. When all our coolies had come up and enjoyed a little rest, the ropes which they had used for carrying our bags and boxes, were tied together and fastened to the trolley, and after much experimenting it was found possible to work it, and our boxes one after another were slowly pulled across.

D

Ttea one of the ropes broke, just as one of the bags was right in the middle of the steel rope, and we spent a very exciting time in watching two daring youths who waded through the strong current, up to their chins, until they found the broken end of the rope. Having finally reached the other bank, it was night, and there being no time nor room to -pitch tents, we had our beds in the open air and slept very comfortably.

W e arrived at Poo on the 2nd of July, after a tiring march over a hoirible road of very rugged and unstable foundation mostly along the face of the precipice. There were hardly any more Pencil cedar trees {Jmiperm excelsa) on the road. The scenery was now quite Tibetan in character. Bad as the road was, the Missionary at Poo told me that it was excellent compared to what it had been only five years ago. Honour to the brave Mission ladies who have travelled on it in its old state ! 1 he rocks are dangerous, even to the natives.

About an hour before reaching Poo, the valley widens a little, and it is a relief to be able to walk here without continuahy looking out for a safe foothold. Poo is situated on a plain on the right bank of the Satluj and looks very pretty with its green fields, apricot and apple tree gardens. Its elevation is about 9,500 feat, and it is the first village on our road, the language of which is entirely Tibetan. It looks as if it was entirely closed in by steep bare mountains.

When approaching the village, we passed by a great number of mani walls, and as I noticed votive tablets on several of them, I began to study them. None of them seemed to be very ancient. The inscriptions consisted generally of four parts. The first part may be called devotional, the second part consisted of a eulogy of the country of which the village of Poo (spelled sP« in the inscriptions) was the centre, the third part j)raised the Raja of Bashahr who was reigning at the time, and the fourth part contained the account of the building of the wall, and stated for whose religious benefit it was meant. As regards the names of Bashahr Rajas on the tablets, only the following four have been traced through Mr. Schnabel’s and our own combined efforts : Rudar (in Tibetan Lurdur) Singh ; Ugar (in Tibetan TJrhu) Singh ; Mahindar (in Tibetan Metar) Siiigh • Shamsher (in Tibetan ‘ golden thought ’) Siiigh. These names cover about

tue last century. But there are some more mayii waUs with votive tablets which instead 0 giving the proper name of a chief simply speak of ‘ the great king ’ at Sarahan (S'o-rarmff in Tibetan). This shows that the personal names of the rulers of Bashahr previous

geographical part (the

vld the btderT these inscriptions, it contained many references to pkces be-

One of them is 'FJio i^^^ar interest are the clan names occurring in these inscriptions, of part of tko Poo ^pvoatio” ^

~ “

I Tras told that there rras an inscribed stone in the village of dKor, below Poo, and went to examine it. Although the stone was generally known, nobody, not even the lamas, had tried to read it. The village of dKor is situated on the right bank of the little brook of Poo. The stone was found in a field belonging to a lama called hKa-rgyud It is about six feet high. The upper half of the sculpture shows a well executed representation of a stupa, the lower half that of a human being. This part of the stone is in very bad preservation and most of it underground. The human figure wears a threepointed hat. On the reverse of the stone is a Tibetan inscription of eleven lines. Only the first two lines are in fair preservation ; of all the other lines only the beginning and end have been preserved, whilst the middle part of those lines has been obliterated. While we were examining the stone, a Christian Tibetan who was with us, began to read

the first lines ; cl^al-lha-htsaii-po‘Llia-bla-ma-Ye-shes When he had got so far, I

suddenly remembered that I had heard of a person whose name began Llia-hla-nm- Ye-slies. But what was the syllable following after Te-shes? It suddenly flashed on me, that it was ’ofZ, and that hlia-bla-ma-Te-sJies-od was the name of the royal priest, the early king of Guge, who had tried in vain to draw the famous Buddhist monk Atiia to his kingdom. Did the inseriiition really contain his name — a name which has not yet been traced anywhere ? We all went close to the stone, and looked at it from all sides, even from below. And lo, it was so. The stone contained the full name of this famous personage of Tibetan liistory (c. 1025 A.D.) and the words following the name were sku-rmg-la, meaning ‘in his life time.’ I was so overjoyed at the discovery of this important record that I could not help jumping about in the field, and then embraced the lama, who was just ou the point of becoming displeased with my treatment of his crop.

The story of King Te-shes-’od is found in the second part of the Tibetan historical work dTag-hsam-ljon-bzang, and a translation has been published by Sarat Chandra Das.^ Up to the present, nobody had known whether the story contained in those works was really true and whether the persons mentioned in it had actually lived or not. This inscription of King Te-shes-’od is the first record which can be brought forward to confirm the statements of the Tibetan historians. Fragmentary though it is, it contains some interesting information. We learn from it that in the days of the priest-king Te-shes-’od the villages of sYu (Poo) and dKor both existed, that Poo even possessed a palace {phobrang). dKor is called dKor-khang, house of dKor. There were ten princes according to the inscription, and all of them were sent to Poo. What was their object in this place, cannot be said with perfect certainty, but from the frequent occurrence of the words lhachos (religion of the lha), and sugar -chos (former religion) it appears that they were sent here for the propagation of Buddhism. In the end we read that they erected something. This was probably the first Buddhist temple at Poo of which local tradition asserts that it was erected in the place where now-a.-days the inscribed stone is found. This site is lower than most of the houses of Poo, and as an object of sanctity could not he suffered to stand on a lower elevation than ordinary houses, a new temple was built higher up, in the centre of Poo, and embell ished with the furnishings of the old one.

^ Indian Tandits in the Land of ^now^ pp. 61 .

D %

This temple, the oldest of the existing temples of Poo, is called Lo-tsa-hd-Lha-hhang ■and is asserted to hare been built by Lo-tsa-ba Rin-ehen-bzang-po (Eatna-bhadra), the spiritual adviser of King Ye-shes-’od. It contains a stucco statue of a seated Buddha, and two standing images of his disciples Sariputra and Maudgalyayana, locally known as Shar-gyi-Bu (son of the East) and Mi-yong-gal. In front of these large images are three small ones, representing Padma-sambhava, Vajra-pani, and Buddha. (Plate IX, a). Besides these images, the temple contains books, musical instruments, and masks. Neither the books nor any of the images are very ancient ; there is nothing that can claim to date from the time of Te-shes-’od. As this temple was the successor to the ancient temple of dKor, all the traditions connected with the latter were probably transferred to the former.

About a mile below the village of dKor, on a hill above the river, there exist the extensive ruins of an ancient fort called Kalagtrung or Kalag Kot. It is supposed, once to have been the seat of a Thakur. The Lambardar of Poo tells me that iron arrowheads have often been found in the vicinity. Such articles are ultimately converted into nails or knives by the people, and therefore I could not obtain any of them. It is interesting that the site of the present summer house of the mission, high above the castle on the hillside, is also called Kalagtrung. It seems to have been part of the same settlement as the castle, in earlier days. We visited the site of the castle on the 14th -July. Of ancient remains we found only sherds of hand-shaped pottery, sometimes with linear ornaments impressed on them. Only very little could be seen of ancient •walls. The site was covered all over with large undressed stones, such as people still -use for building purposes. In a few cases, the site of a former room could be seen, in stiU rarer cases that of a door. Part of an ancient staircase was in rather good ■preservation.

Opposite the castle, on the other side of the trade road, were the ruined terraces of -deserted fields, abandoned long ago. My impression is that the site does not only contain the ruins of a chief’s castle, but that of a whole village. This part of the country was formerly under Guge and Ladakh, and, as in Ladakh, people were here also compelled to live in fortified places on hilltops round their chief’s stronghold.

The deserted fields are locally known by the name Khola-ring. The word ring -seems to be the same as Bunan ‘field.’ The name would then mean ‘fields of -the Khola.’ Khola is very likely the same as Koli, the name of a low caste all over the Panjab hiUs and possibly the tribal name of the aboriginal population of these districts.

High up on the hill-side, above Kalagtrung, there is a locality called “ the old place ■of the Shar-rgan festival.” It is a comparatively large plateau which was left vacant in ancient times, as it was used for dancing. At present there have been built on it sev- -eral enclosures for sheep and cattle, two marii walls, and some small stone huts. One of the mam vails contained an inscribed slab in Sanskrit and llibetan, instead of the ordin- ■ary votive tablet. I made an eye copy of it. The inscription contains a passage apparently taken from the Prajiiaparamitd, addressed to the Tum-chen-po, the ‘ great mother ’ This great mother is Tara, the wife of ^iva, and at the same time the godded of learnin^^. It is not remarkable that we should find here a prayer addressed to the wife of ^iva, for

the festiral of Shar-rgan which was distinguished bv a human sacrifice, was apparently celebrated in her honour.^ A little above the old dancing place, the remains of a 2)it into which the victims were thrown, are shown to the traveller. The pit is said to have been ■of considerable depth, but now-a-days it is only a yard or so deej). Every year a child of eight years of age was thus sacrificed. Xow-a-days a goat is offered instead. This hapj^eiis at the new Shar-rgan place. Old peojfie in the village say that their own grandmothers were witnesses of human sacrifices in their young days. Behind the pit, there are several terraces, on which peojDle used to sit on the occasion of such sacrifices. The Shar-rgan festival, Mr. Schnabel tells me, as celebrated now-a-days, is a kind of thank-offering by those j)arents who have been blessed with a son during the past

year.

1/

On the occasion of the festival, ‘ songs of the Shar-rgan festival,’ are sung. I discovered a manuscrijDt containing these songs in the village, and had it cojpied. Although their meaning is not yet intelligible to me in every part, I can see that they are of great importance, with regard to the study of the pre-Buddhist religion of Kanawar as well as of Tibet in general. The first songs of the collection remind me strongly of songs of the pre-Buddhist religion, as we find them in Ladakh, the Lmg-glu and the ‘ Marriage ritual,’ some of which have been published by me. It is of great importance that the relig- ion they represent is spoken of as Lha-ohos and Bon-clios in the Poo songs. ^ I have all along been of opinion that in the gLing-chos we have remnants of the earhest type of the Bon-chos, called Jo-la-Bon in the Oruh-mtha-shehgyi-me-long. This has been ridiculed by men like Dr. B. Laufer who know the Bon religion only from its latest productions, when it took sides with various forms of Hinduism, in antagonism to Buddhism. Literary productions like the “ Songs of the Shar-rgan festival ” go far to prove that the gLing-chos as brought to light by my efforts, is precisely the Jo-la-Bon religion of Tibet. But the songs of the Shar-rgan festival do not only speak of deities of the Bon religion, Gung-sngon- ■snyan-lha, the god of heaven, sPang-dmar-lha, the god of the red meadow, tho earth, Byargod, the sun. King Ke-sar, etc., but make also mention of new deities, pho-lha and the mo-lha, the deities of the ‘ male and female creative principle.’® These are unmistakably the Tibetan names of ^iva and Kali, the gods of the pre-Tibetan population of the Satluj valley. And it is very probable that the human sacrifices which used to form part of the Shar-rgan festival, belong to the rehgion of this aboriginal population, and not to the

^ The following proverb, discovered by Rev. R. Schnabel, refers to the former custom of human sacrifices at Poo :

Dangpo-nga-rgya*g(ivnas-yo7ig-tsa7ia,

glang^pJirug-lo^gsum'hyis-jpa-lo-h'gyad.

Translation:— When I (Taiu) came here from India,

[ I used to receive ] a calf, thiee years old, and a child of eight years of age.

^ A class of deity which is of great fame at Poo and surrounding districts are the dd-ra-lJia who are also mentioned in the Shar-rgan songs. As Mr. Schnabel tells me, there are nine dGra41ia of different names said to exist in nine villages vi Upper Kanawar. They are the following : Khro-mo-min, at Poo ; Chags-drid at Kanam ; lPahlim-lzang-7m at Dabling ; <Clios4ha Izang-rig-fa, at Pobbaling ; Tsa-hJiang at Lid or Sarkhung ; Kin "ahrug hJcra-&liis, at Shasu ; Judi-dung^mo, atKhab; gSergen-chen-po, atNamgja; dMag-gi-dpon-^po^ Six of them are of the male, and three of them,

-those at Poo, Dabling, and Khab, are of the female sex.

Tibetans. The Tibetans practised human sacrifices, but for different motives from what we have obseryed in the Satluj valley. Oaths at important treaties were emphasised by human as well as animal sacrifices. New houses were inaugurated by immuring human beings and a person was killed when a house was first inhabited.^ Thus, at the village of Poo, a lama had only recently beheaded his own father while asleep, to make the new house he had built, properly habitable.

The Shar-rgan sacrifices as well as the human sacrifices in the Satluj valley and in Lahul are of a very different character. To understand them, it is necessary to investigate the character of the deities in whose honour they are celebrated. Siva and Kali, as we find them in the Himalayas, are personifications of the creative powers ; they do not only j)roduce the harvest of the fields, but also bless the women with children, especially sons. In this respect, the principal deities of the pre- Buddhist religion of the Tibetans, in particular Ke-sar and ’aBru-gu-ma, resemble Siva and Kali. For as I have shown previously,^ Ke-sar and ’aBru-gu-ma were both invoked by the people to grant children. This explains the union which was formed between the Tibetan pre-BudJhist and the aboriginal Siva-Kali religion, as we find it represented in the Shar-rgan hymnal. (The word shar-rgan means “ young and old ”.) But Ke-sar and ’aBru-gu-ma M^ere not of the fierce character of §iva and Kali. The latter were only ready to grant a blessing, when a portion of what they had given, was returned to them. Hence not only a portion of the harvest of the fields, or some of the Iambs of the flock had to be returned to them in sacrifice, but they also claimed some of the children with whom they had blessed the village. Almost invariably the traditions speak of children who were sacrificed. Here at Poo, the sacrifice had to be made on the occasion of a festival which is still now-a-days recognised as a festival or thanksgiving for the blessing of offspring. In Lahul, the prayer on the occasion of such sacrifices was apparently intended more as a thanksgiving for a good harvest in the fields.

The old Shar-rgan place is exactly above the site of the ancient castle of Kalagtrung and probably belonged to it. The new Shar-rgan place is situated a little above the road from Poo to Eizhing. At the latter place, there are a few old pencil-cedars, and a number of rough altars, furnished with horns of goats and wild antelopes, and pencil-cedar twigs. They look exactly like the lha-tho of Ladakh. A third place which is connected with the same festival is found in the middle of the village of Poo, and is called Dralang {sGralang (?) ‘ raising the voice ’) . It is used for dancin g and has a pole in the middle. On two sides of the place, there are lha-tho like those on the new Shar-rgan place, and two perpendicular stones, one showing traces of an inscription seemingly Om-a-hwk. The other plain one is probably a rude kind of lihgam, like those in Manchad. Not far from it, there are holes or pits where again children used to be sacrificed. (Plate IX. b).

The people of Poo although they are Buddhists, do not always cremate their dead, but bury them in certai n cases. There are two burial places outside the village, one for

• The Dard Bridge, see my Eistory of Western Tibet. = Z. B, M, G., Vol. LXI, pp. 683 ff.

more respectable peoj)le, as Mr. Scliiiabel informed me, the other one for poor peo 2 >lo and such, as die of infectious diseases. The graves consist of rocks and stones above the ground. Some corpses are even thrown into the river, especially those of peojde who die of dropsy. Do the people of Poo believe that the accumulation of water in the body of a sick person is a sign that the Nagas {Klu) claim the body ?

Before leaving Poo, I consider it necessary to write a short note about the line of kings ■who reigned herein former days. As has already been stated, King Ye-shes-’od, whose inscription we discovered at Poo, reigned at mTho-lding, the old caj)ital of Griige, in the days of the great teacher Atl^a. Now a king of the same name is mentioned among the descendants of the first king of Zangskar, and closer research reveals the fact that the Zangskar kings actually reigned at mTho-lding in G-uge. How is this to be accounted for ? My explanation is this : King Nyi-ma-mgon of Western Tibet divided his empire among his three sons. The eldest received Ladakh, the second received Guge and Purang with mTho-lding as his caj)ital, the third one’s portion was Zangskar. The histori- •cal accounts of the Tibetans relate of descendants of the first and third sons, but they do not give any names of descendants of the second son. There were apparently none. The king of Guge and Puraug died ■without issue. Then his country was seized by the king of Zangskar, whose sway thereby extended over Zangskar, Guge and Purang, and whose glory almost echpsed that of the kings of Leh. Ye-shes-’od is a member of the important line of kings who reigned over the three countries mentioned above and whose capital was at mTho-lding.

We left Poo on the 6th July on our way to Shij)ke, At first our road took us •down to the rocky banks of the Satluj where we had to cross a rope bridge. The place of this bridge is called mTho-rang, or ‘ Height itself.’ Prom inscriptions on both banks of the river, it becomes evident that there has been a bridge in this jplace from ancient times. The oldest insorij)tion is in Gupta characters, and too much effaced to allow of reading more than sya, the termination of the genitive case, at the end cf the line. Several of the Tibetan inscriptions seem to be ! almost a thousand years of age, judging by the form of their characters. It is interesting to note that two of them, one on each bank of the river, give the following advice to the j)erson who intends crossing : Ma-ni-grongs-sUg ! “ Do not forget the mani (the Oih vmyii padme Mm) [when crossing]”! This was very appropriate advice, for unpleasant as this bridge is now-a-days, it was far more unpleasant in the old days when the traveller had to entrust his life to three rotten ropes plaited of willow twigs at an altitude of about 100 feet above a broad and violent stream. No wonder, people called the bridge ‘ Height itself. ’ At the present day, - the bridge consists of a strong steel cable provided by the Public Works Department; and the usual trolley being broken, a wooden saddle with two rope slings attached to it, has to do service instead. As Mr. Schnabd informs me, hardly a year passes by without accidents on this bridge, and even a battered traveller like Sven Hedin -who had to cross it ten months before us, clothed his feelings in the words : “ This bridge is a proper place for people desirous of committing suicide ! ”

We arrived at the village of Namgya (spelt sNam-rgya in an historical document) on the 6th July, after a hot march over very uneven groundJ Soon after our arrival, the village chief, called Hira, made his appearance and entered into conversation with me. He said, he was a descendant of a Tibetan family of hlon-po, ministers, who had formerly been in charge of this district, and indeed, he had quite the bearing of a gentleman. In the course of our conversation he exhibited an extraordinary knowledge of things historical, in particular with regard to the battle of Basgo in 1646-47 A.D When I ex- pressed my astonishment at such wisdom, he said that he was in possession of a document of ancient times. After much persuasion he produced it, and it turned out to be a copy of the treaty between Raja Kehari Singh {Kyeris Sing in Tibetan) of Bashahr and the Lhasa Government, headed by Galdan Thsang (Thse-dbang). This Galdan Thsang is the very general of the Tibeto- Mongolian army who had conducted the siege of Basgo. Of this most important document, I ordered a copy to he made at once and offered Rl for it I said that I expected to get the copy on our way hack from Shipke in a few days, to which the old gentleman consented. On our way back, I had to find out, however, that Hira was no longer a gentleman, as he would not hand over the copy, until he had extorted E2-8 from me. As our conversation on my return visit to Namgya wms more heated than logical, it did not become quite plain from his talk, whether he had copied his paper from an old document in his possession, or from a copper-j)late of the Raja of Bashahr. If the latter be true, this would be the first copper-plate inscription in Tibetan,, and the Raja of Bashahr ought to be urged to open his archives to students of history. The manuscript gives a short account of the war between Ladakh and Lhasa in 1646-47 and contains a few, but important local names. The difficulty is to assign them their’ proper places on a map. That the document is not forged, is quite plain from its internal evidence.

The road between Namgya and Shipke is bad beyond description. I have had some experience of awkward roads during my thirteen years’ residence in Indian Tibet, but I must say, the Namgya-Shipke road beats them all. Here we had not only to march by very unstable pathways along the face of the precipice, but had also from time to time’ to climb up and down pinnacles with almost no road under our feet. It reminded me of chimney climbing, sometimes inside sometimes outside a chimney. The continual ups and downs alone would have been quite sufficient to exhaust the strength of any traveller on an ordinary road.

The frontier of Tibet proper is marked by a little brook, where a meal is generally taken by travellers. Having passed the brook, the people of Namgya and Bashahr dismiss caste and, Mr. Schnabel tells me, are ready to eat and drink even with a European. On the Tibetan side of the frontier, people find a blue kind of zeolith embedded in the granite rock, which they call rDo-khyu, or rDo^khyug. This stone, according to their belief, possesses medical powers. They tie it over the eyes of sheep

’ The eailiest p.clure of Namgya (Namdja) is found in Bsise des JPrinzen ® See my History qf Western Tibet, p. 108.

Wddenuir vmi Freussen, 1845, Plate, XIX,

Plate X.

b. Lamaist gateway near rNamgya.

and goats, wlien ttey are hurt, and even rub their own skins with it, when they are sore. Several weeks later, we found more of this stone between Xako and Chang and PindiLal bought a large quantity of it for two paisa. There we were told that in a qjulverised state this stone could be used internally and externally, and would cure all diseases both real and imaginary.

Pindi Lai’s treasure stood us in good stead in the course of our tour, for people continually approached us with the desire to be cured of all kinds of diseases. Government had granted us five rupees worth of Quinine and Castor Oil which had to serve as a cure for everything. The fame of my medical skill which was, however, without any foundation, spread far and wide. Once when travelling through the desert between Bashahr and Spiti, and far away from any human habitation, I met with a youth and an old woman, his mother, who said that they had travelled three days to meet me and get medicine to cure the old woman’s eyes. As I was a Christian lama, it was my duty to render help, they said. All who have travelled in this country know how unpleasant it is to unload boxes in the middle of a stage, open them, and have them loaded again. In a case like the present there was, however, no escape, and I had to get at one of my boxes to find some ointment which would be, as I hoped, a little more efficacious than Castor Oil. Ordinarily Pindi Lai attended to the sick who were continually hovering about our camp and made them happy by handing over to them one or other of our blue stones with much genial advice.

The aspect of the village of Shipke is not different from that of the villages on the other side of the border, but the appearance of the inhabitants undoubtedly is. Not only does their dress show the genuine Tibetan cut, but also the pigtail is much in evidence here. I am sure that the people of Poo also were in the habit of wearing pigtails at an earlier date than 1650 A.D. But after they had become subjects of the Bashahr Baja, they assumed the fashions of that State. The people of Shipke try their best to extract as much money as possible from the few European travellers, they see. But as Mr. Schnabel said, there is some excuse, for tax-collecting is carried on in the most cruel way all over Tibet, and they have to part with all their few rupees, when the tax-collector comes. Only recently news was brought to Poo that an unfortunate wretch whose taxes had not been paid for the last three years was whipped to death at Shipke. No wonder, that most of the Tibetans would prefer to become British subjects.

There are three ruined castles at Shipke.^ The oldest of them is situated rather high up above the village on the West. It is known by the name of mKhar-gog (broken castle), and is built in cyclopean style (Plate XI, a). Only portions of two walls are still in their original position. There are no traditions whatever current about this castle. We bought an ancient stone axe of the type of the Ladakhi Kalam which was asserted to have been found on the site of this stronghold. It is interesting that this kind of stone implement was in use here also.

^ The earliest picture of Shipke with the Purgyul mountain is found in Seise des Srinzen TFaldemar von JPreussen 1845, Plate XXI.

E

Tlie second of the ruined castles is called Scng-gB-mKhaT (Plate XI, b). Its ruins are found below the mKhar-gog castle, on the left bank of the Satluj. Its lower part is built of large well fitted stones, and higher up the waUs are of clay or sun-dried bricks, as is the case in the later Ladakhi buildings. I suppose that the castle was built by Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal of Ladakh, and called after him. Some of the walls are still standing. The building must have been of huge size. An inscription which I found on a mani wall just above the village of Shipke speaks of a king and his son who once resided ‘ at the castle.’ No names are given. The kings of Western Tibet, or their vassal kings of Guge, may have resided here occasionally. A legend referring to this castle, was told by the Lambardar of Shipke, and taken down by Lobzang of Poo who accompanied me on this tour. According to it, the castle received its crooked ground plan through a race round its base executed in opposite directions by a poisonous snake and a scorpion.

The third castle of Shipke is situated on the road to the village of Khyug on the brook. It is called sKyahs-mhhar ‘ castle of refuge.’ No walls are standing ; only heaps of loose stones remain. No information of any kind regarding it was forthcoming, and I have no idea of what age it may be.

There are long rows of may,i waUs on the road from Shipke to Khyug. The Lambardar, Lobzang, and myself went there to examine them. The votive tablets on them were quite of the usual style, but in the place where the Ladakhi tablets give the name of the king, these contained the title of the Dalai Lama, and no personal name. Por this reason it is impossible to assign a date to them or to the mani waUs. Only this much can be said : they all date apparently from a time, not earlier than the second half of the seventeenth century. If earlier, they would have contained names of the kings of Ladakh, or of Guge. The tablets, however, generally contain versions of the eulogy of the country of Guge, a kind of national anthem, and for this reason I copied one of them, which I found in the village of Shipke. I am rather of opinion that after 1650 A.D., when Guge was made over to Lhasa, all those ancient tablets which contained the names of Ladakhi or Guge kings, were destroyed. It was in the interest of the Lhasa Government to make people forget their former masters.

This is one of their national anthems, as we find them in these inscriptions. It is taken from the only inscription which refers to a king.

Jambudvipa of the south is a famous country among the ten directions of the world.

There is the mountain Tise (Kailasa) with its neck of ice, the dwelling place of those who have conquered all enemies {arhats).

There is the turquoise lake Ma-spang (Manasarovar) the abode of the Na^a Ma-gros. “

On the right bank of the murmuring river which proceeded from an elephant’s mouth (Satluj),

There is the great castle sKu-mkhar, the abode of the king.

In it there dwell the rulers of men, father and son. May you be always victorious !

Plate XI.

a. Ruined castle, mKhar-gog, Shipke.

Under the rule of this religious king, all the ten virtues were prominent, here in the capital of Hrib-skyes (Shipke).

This inscription contains, as we see, the name of the village of Shipke in its original Tibetan spelling. It reads St'ib-skyes, and means, ‘ arisen in a moment,’ probably without the agency of man ; it was built by fairies, like so many places in 'I’ibet. The Is aga Ma-gros is one of the most famous Ifaga kings, and figures in all the lists of Is'agas. His dwelling place is the Holy Lake of Tibet. The Kailasa mentioned in this song, is the beautiful mountain group in the vicinity of the Holy Lake. As Hira of Namgya told me, the rKyang-drag monastery is situated in front of these mountains, and a glass window is provided just in front of the eyes of the image, so that it may always be enabled to enjoy the view.^ As regards the Holy Lake, four different sects have their monasteries there, in five principal establishments. The oldest is the Byiu-dgon-pa (Sven Hedin’s TscJiiu) which belongs now-a-days to the Gelugpa sect ; the same sect also owns the Dri-ri-dgon-pa (perhaps Sven Hedin’s Dirij)u). The Glang-po-sna-dgon-pa, (Sven Hedin’s Langbonan ?) belongs to the ’aBrugpa, and the bKa-rdzong-dgon-pa to the rNyingmapa sect. Besides these professedly Buddhist monasteries there is also a Bon monastery on the shores of the Lake. As stated by Graham Sandberg, the Manasarovar Lake was already known to Pliny and Ctesias who say that the natives collected pitch in a certain corner of it. As Dr. Longstaff informs me, there are certainly hot springs on the isthmus between the two lakes.

“When I heard all this about the attractions of the forbidden land of Guge, and when the natives themselves invited me most cordially to proceed, it was certainly hard to turn back. But the promise given to the Indian Government, I had to keep. The Tibetans of Shipke did not understand my position, for they said : “ If men like Sven Hedin, Sherring, Calvert, etc., are allowed to travel about in Tibet, why should not you ?” All these travellers had won the hearts of the Tibetans by theh hberal payment for services rendered to them. The Tibetans were more than ready to serve me in the same way under similar conditions.

Opposite Shipke may be seen the Puri monastery. This, as well as the Ba-nyid monastery, a little north-east of Shipke, is asserted to have been founded by Batnabhadra in the 11th century.

As I was not allowed to proceed to mTholding and Tsaparang myself, I asked Lohzang, a former pupil of the Poo mission school, to go there and copy any inscriptions he could find. Accordingly he went on alone from Shipke, and after twelve days he returned safely to Poo. He had, however, found no inscriptions of any antiquity at either of the two places. It is quite possible that none remain. Just as there are many inscriptions of the Dalai Lama’s time at Shipke, but only one previous to 1650, the old inscrip- tions of mTholding and surroundings may have disappeared as well. Lobzang, however, did not return quite empty-handed. He brought me short descriptions in Tibetan of both places he had visited, and a copy of a written document which he had found in the

^ As I see in Sven Hedin's Transhimalaya, Yol. II, p. 146, there is a similar window in the Gossnl (‘Gossul-gompa*) monastery. An account of the monasteries on the holy lake and mountain is also found in Sandberg’s Tibet and the Tibetans,

E 2

hands of the rdzong-dpon (castleward) of Tsaparang. This document turned out to be another version of the treaty between Bashahr and Tibet in 1650, and is of the greatest value for the study of this important treaty. By a comparison of the two documents (Namgya and Tsaparang), we may obtain a fairly reliable text of the treaty. His description of m'l'holding is a valuable supplement to Captain Bawling’s description of the same place which, up to the present, is still the best account of it we have. According to Captain Rawling, mTholding consists of two settlements, one of which is situated on a practically inaccessible rock, and the other in the plain below. The town on the rock is the old capital, for the customs of Guge were not different from those of Ladakh. The king’s castle being built on the top of the rock, the subjects had to build their houses below or around the castle on the same rock. One of Cajjtain Eawling’s sepoys climbed up to the old town with the assistance of some Tibetans and saw several of the gigantic old images in the midst of extensive ruins. Captain Bawling himself went to the famous temple of mTholding on the plain below and examined its contents. He is of opinion that it was built when the old town was deserted and that several of the valuable articles of furniture of the castle or temples w’ere removed to this new sanctuary, for instance the wood-carved throne of the ancient kings of Guge. I am, however, of opinion that it is very likely that the famous temple of mTholding was built on the plain by Batna-bhadra, and not on the rock. My reason is that a long study of temples of this period (1000 — 1050 A.D.) has shown me that these temples are invariably found on plains, and not on rocky heights. Of great importance is Lobzang’s note that this temple is locally known by the name of rNam-snaug, which is the abbreviated form of rA’’«m-^ar-swfm^-md 2 a(i(Vairochana)j and I am in a position to state that for the most part the temples erected by Batna-bhadra are called by that name. Either the temple as a whole is called rNam-par-smng-mdzad, or one of the halls is so called. Schlagintweit has a note on this temple, to the effect that it was once burnt down and re-erected. If that be true, it would be diflBcult, indeed, to find here ancient records, and it is a very fortunate circumstance that other temples of the same age in ‘Western Tibet have escaped destruction. d’Andrada, when speaking of Tsaparang in 1623-24 says that there are many symbols of Christianity in this place. I have not yet been able to make out what he means by this, whether he mistook Buddhist symbols (for instance svasHkas) for Christian symbols, or whether there were actually crosses of a Christian type among the rock carvings of this place, like the Maltese crosses of Lrangtse at the Pangkong lake. I had hoped that Lobzang would find it possible to clear up tliis ques tion, but I was disappointed. Lobzang said that he had seen many rock sculptures (without inscriptions) at Tsaparang, but nothing to suggest the former presence of Christians in this place.

After we had almost completed our two days’ march from Shipke back to Poo, we had once more to cross the rope bridge mTho-rang, ‘ Height itself. ’ To avoid unneeeskry delay, I had told the Lambardar, on leaving Poo, to have everything in readiness for Saturday, for on that day I intended to reach Poo again. In spite of this precaution, however, nothing was in readiness when we arrived at the bridge on Saturday at noon. The

people of Poo seem to be fond of practical joking and try to get as much fun out of tbeir bridge as possible. They cannot think of anything more exhilarating than a person 'u^ho n-ants to cross and cannot. I -was told that they have kept old Tvomen Avaiting on the other bank for three days. TThat a grand idea to keep a EurojDeaii Sahib Avaiting and not move a finger to aid him ! The banks of the Satluj are a trying place indeed for S 2 Dending a long afternoon in midsummer. Por miles around the bridge neither tree nor shrub is to be seen and noAvhei*e is there a holloAv in the rock to afford shelter from the merciless rays of the sun. Hoav glad I Avas Avhen I found a corner in the rocks to shade my face doAvn to the nose as I lay stretched out on the ground. W e did not at once understand that it Avas the obstinacy of the Poo j)eople Avhich ke 2 )t us on the oi)j)osite bank, and thus Ave sent a man Avith a voice like a foghorn on to the tojp of a rock in the vicinity, to shout toAvards Poo, Avhere jpeople Avere seen Avorking in the fields, and j^robably chuckling Avith delight. After this man had roared himself hoarse Avith shouting, aa'B sent ujp another to continue the process. Whilst this man Avas thus engaged for the general benefit, Ave saAv a man of Poo climbing about on the rocks of the Poo bank of the river. We asked him to go up to Poo for bakhshish and fetch the Avooden saddle. “That is the last thing I Avould think of doing,” Avas all he said, and AA'ithhim our last ray of hope disaj) 2 )eared. Perhaps Ave should still be sitting on the other side of ‘ Height itself, ’ if Pindi Lai’s craving for food had not been so impemtive. He had had no food since a A'ery early and hurri- ed morning meal, and realized that he could not survive many more days in that barren spjot. He therefore persuaded an athletic youth among our coolies to use one of his leather chaplis (sandals) in jAlace of the AVOoden saddle, and ride across, making ouAvard progress Avith his arms. So j)Oor are these peojfie that the youth Avas ready to undertake the daring experiment for tAVO annas. It 'nns a sight Avorthy of any chcus to see the boy, sus]_oended on a chapli 100 feet above the roaring torrent, draAV himself sloAvly onAvard, often joausing to take a rest. At length he reached the ojpposite bank safely, and an hour later, he came back Avith the Avnoden saddle and roj)es. The sun was just setting, Avhen I crossed with my legs in the slings below the saddle. I had just reached the middle of the lofty passage, when I felt a knock on my back and was suddenly stopped. The rope behind me which had to be jpaid out whilst I was proceeding, had got knotted, and impeded further progress. The man who j)ulled me from the front did not understand the cause of my sudden halt, and believing that my weight had suddenly increased in a miraculous way, took the pulling rope over his shoulder, and marched off with full determination to drag me on by main force. As the knot, however, would not yield^ I was pulled from the front as well as the back and all this at an unusual height above a roaring river. I managed, at last, to exjplain matters to the man who then took the rope off his shoulder, ^■ni\ I Pad to spend some trying minutes in sublime solitude, before the knot coxdd be loosened, and I could proceed to the Poo bank of the river. I was not in my best humour when I met the Lambardar of Poo. He, however, pretended to have acted according to my instructions in posting a man on the bridge to report our arrival. It was this man’s sense of humour Avhich had kept him away. We punished him by making

hinci pay the two annas bakhshish which, had. been more than earned by the brave chapli rider.^

On the way between Shipke and Poo, high above the Satluj, a monastery called bKra-shis-sgang may be seen. This is not the f8,mous monastery of that name, erected by Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal of Ladakh. The latter is situated in Western Guge, and is generally called Byang-bKra-shis-sgang (Northern bEra-shis-sgang), to distinguish it from the monastery near Namgya.

CHAPTER 11.

From the Satluj to the Indus.

We left Poo on the 21st July to travel through Spiti and Eubshu to Leh. This is a joiu’ney of about four weeks through the most uninhabitable country. Our outfit, as regards provisions and warm clothing, might certainly have been better. But the summers being short in these regions, we could not put in three more weeks of waiting at Poo, to let the required goods and means come up. The missionary at Poo kindly advanced me some money as well as tinned provisions, and we left with the determination to move on and be satisfied with the simplest fare.

On the first day we had to cross the steep Hang Pass, 16,000 feet high. It is a place which arouses painful memories in the minds of Mr. and Mrs. Schnabel ; for when they had to cross it the last time with a child of only two years of age, the rarified air on the top of the pass proved to be too much for their baby which showed signs of suffocation. Only by taking up the child and hurrying down with it at a pace not at all in harmony with the awful condition of the road, was it possible to save its hfe. The eastern side of the pass is very bare and uninteresting, but on the western side alpine flowers of great beauty and scent greet the traveller, among them the wild purple aster and Aconitum mosohatum. Before the village of Tsuling is reached on the western side, the road passes by the ruins of the old Gadgari monastery. Heaps of loose stones and some terraced ground is all that remains.

I could not discover anything of special interest in the little village of Tsuling, A small hut under a huge pencil-cedar tree is called Lha-khang, “ house of the gods,” or " temple.” It was quite empty with the exception of some drums which are kept in it. Some stones with the inscription Om maiii padme hum were placed below the sacred pencil -cedar.

On the 22nd July we arrived at the village of Li which looks very beautiful with its many green fields and apricot trees in the midst of a chaos of bare rocky mountains. Li is very probably a place with a grander past than present. The Tibetan dictionaries and chronicles speak of two ancient places called Li, one in the north, the other in the south. The northern one has been correctly identified with Turkestan or a part of Turkestan. Of the Li of the South it is said that it is situated “ near Nepal.” I beheve that the " Li of the South is the Tibetan part of the present Bashahr State, the principal town of which was very possibly the present village of Li. On a steep rock on the bank nf the river

• Ti® earliest picture of this bndge is found in Beise des PHneen Waldemar von Freussen, Plate XVIl F. (Naaitvi Bridge.)

'61

are the ruins of an ancient castle, mkhar. People told me that they had formerly to live on that rock (probably before 1650, ^rhen they came under Bashahr). They left the rock on account of many accidents in consequence of their getting drunk. I visited the site, but saw nothing beyond heaps of loose stones with fragments of rude pottery Some of the rooms can still be traced. The Tibetans of Li as well as of Kanawar in general are distinguished from those of Sj>iti, Ladakh and Shipke by the fashion in which they wear their hair. The men of Kanawar wear their hair like the people of Bashahr, Ko long pigtails are seen here. The same is the case in Lahul where also the long pigtail has disappeared. The Hindu rulers of Bashahr and Kulu were apparently against it.

The bKra-shis-lhun-grub monastery of Li is asserted to be of ancient origin. This may be true, for it belongs to the rNyingmapa sect, the most ancient order of monks in Tibet. This sect has not founded new settlements for a long time. The abbot told me that the Li monastery was founded by Padma-sambhava, which is quite probable, if it be not even older. As Sarat Chandra Das has shown, the rNyingmapa order has much of its literature in common with the Bonpos, the followers of the pre-Buddhist religion of Tibet.^ Around Lhasa, the monks of the rNyingmapa order cannot be distinguished from other orders of the “ red persuasion, ” as regards dress, but here in the west they can.

Here the rNying-ma-pa monks grow long hair which is never combed, and gives them a savage appearance. The best specimens of this uncivilized order of saints can, however, be seen at Pyin in Spiti. Although I am convinced of the correctness of the assertion that the monastery is of remote origin, this statement cannot be confirmed by documentary evidence. The present building does not appear to be of many yeans’ standing, nor the few idols contained in it. At the monastery, however, they have an ancient and beautiful wood carving of teak wood, representing Buddha surrounded by Bodhisattvas. All the Bodhisattvas are of the primitive and simple type.

(Kg. 1).

Not far from the bKra-shis-lhun-grub monastery, a little above the line of cultivation, are the ruins of an old nunnery, called Jo-moi dgon-pa. It consists of three separate ruined houses, a mani wall covered with white pebbles and two mchod-rten. The nunnery was abandoned only a hundred years ago, so people told me,

» See J. A. S.JB.,Yol. L,p 202.

The irrigation canals of Li are of some interest. In one case the water is conducted through a rock or mountain by a tunnel of considerable length. People here' firmly believe that this tunnel was made by fairies {mkha-’agro) or gods (lha). In the- West people would be proud of their clever ancestors.

In one of the mcTiod-rten at Li, on the road to Nako, I found a clay tablet representing Avalokite^vara with eleven heads and eight arms, an interesting stage in this divinity’s development into a figure with a thousand arms.

On Friday the 23rd July, we marched to Nako. We had hardly left the village of Li, when our caravan had to cross the swollen Spiti river by a rope bridge, (Plate- XII, a). I sincerely sympathised with Pindi Lai when he said “ I am tired of these bridges.” But we had a right to be tired of them, for it was, after all, the last one we had to cross in the course of our journey. Aiter we had spent about three hours in transporting our luggage and ourselves across the foaming waves, we had to climb up a very steep and high mountain side with no shade and a scorching sun above us. When it seemed as if I had reached the ends of the earth with nothing beyond, the largeemerald plateau of the village of Nako suddenly appeared before me. There were waving fields in which girls were working and singing merrily, and a picturesque town reflected in the mirror of a clear little lake.

We noticed at once the site of a great ’aBrugpa monastery, called Lo-tsa-bai Lha-khang (Plate XII, b). Four large temple halls are stiU standing and form a kind of court. South-east of them, there are many ruins of other buildings, probably the cells of monks. There are also plenty of more or less ruined moliod-rten. This great monastery is believed to have been founded by Lo-tsa-ba Rin-chen-bzang-po, in the days of king Ye-shes-’od of Guge, c. 1025 A.D., and I am convinced that this assertion is right. Here we are certainly on ancient ground. Let me now proceed to describe the different temples.

The western hall is called Llia^hhang-cJied-^o. The principal figure in this hall is that of rNam-par-snang-mdzad (Vairochana), the chief of the Dhyani-buddhas of the five regions (Plate XIII, a). On his right we find Don-yod-grub-pa (Amogha-sLddha) and Rin-chen-byung-ldau (Ratna-sambhava) ; on his left sNang-ba-mtha-yas (Amitabha) and rDo-rje-sems-dpa (Vajra-sattva). Rin-chen-byung-ldan is represented once more on the same wall with a dragon frame, similar to that of the principal figure.^ As regards the frescoes on the walls, they were arranged in circles, just as we find them at the Alohi monastery. However, their quantity beiug enormous and their state of preservation poor, I gave up the attempt either to copy or describe any of them. I must leave that to future students who can afford to spend at least a month in that interesting place. Elsewhere * I have given expression to my opinion that stucco images are

' la this dtagoii frame as well as ia that of the stucco sGrol-gser ia the noithevn temple -we noth e a carious development of a well-known decomtive motive of Indian art. It is very common in the architecture of Java, where archseologists are in the habit of describing it as the ornament. Some, however, prefer the designation

ornatnent. In the present instances the central figure at the top is undoubtedly a Garuda, but the two diwons at the sides still bear the.cLaraeier of makaras (Ed.).

’ Mistory of Western Tibet, p. SI.

Plate XII.

a. Crossing the Spiti River by a rope bridge.

b. Lotsabai Lha-khang Monastery, Nako.

Plate XIII

Figure of rNam-par-snang-mdzad or Vairochana in the Lotsabai b. Figure of sGrol-gser or the yelloAv Tara in the Lotsabai

Lha-khang Monastery, Nako. Lha-khang Monastery, Nako.

of later date than the times of B.in-chen-bzang-i)o. Since 1 wrote this statement, I hare had to change my opinion. Stucco images of vei’y artistic design were fashioned in the eleventh century. And as regards Xako, all the monks were unanimous in asserting that the images of this monastery were of the great Lotsaba’s time. In a godowm here we found an ancient wooden mask sach as are used by the lamas in their devil dances. I\’e bought it for one rupee. The present day masks are made of stucco, and differ widely from this ancient specimen. I found only a single inscription in this hah, written on the waU with black ink. It reads so-rcU, a word which I cannot explain.

The southern temple is called dKar-byung-lha-kliang, the ‘ White Temple.’ We were not allowed to enter it, as a lama was occupying it for meditation.

The northern temple is called Llm-khang-gong-raa, ' Upper Temple.’ It contains the stucco image of sGrol-gser, the yellow Tara, in an elaborately carved w'ooden frame {Plate XIII, b). This is one of the rarer forms of this popular deity, the Tibetans being more interested in the white and green Taras. Of the latter deity, there is a representation in stucco in the same hall. The yellow Tara is surrounded by frescoes representing the eight medicine Buddhas (sman-bla).

The eastern temple is also called Llia-khatig-gong-ma, ‘ Uj)per Temple ’. It contains only frescoes. Opposite the door, there is a seated Buddha surrounded by bis discij)les. To the left of this picture is found a blue rDo-rje-chang (Vajra-dhara). On the wall to the right of the door is the picture of Thse-dpag-med (Amitayus), probably in his capacity of medicine Buddha {sman-bla) surrounded by his eight followers. All these pictures were furnished with Tibetan inscriptions in white colour. Only the following three names were still legible : Sha-kya-tlmb-pa ; Myang-ngm-nied-mokog-dpal ; Rin-oken-zla-ba. Above the door, among other tutelary deities, there is a large fresco of King Kesar riding on a white r Kyang (tvild ass) . At Xako he is called gLing-sing-chen-rgyal-po, ‘ Great Lion King of gLing/ This may point to a connection between the j)re‘Buddhist religion of the Tibetans and the Buddhism of the eleventh century. I copied six Tibetan inscriptions in this hall, which are merely of iconographical interest. Most of the others were illegible. Besides the Tibetan inscriptions we found here a short inscription in ^arada •characters which we tried to photograph, but did not succeed, as it was written with brown ink on an orange ground. Much was not lost, however, as it is probably not of wery ancient date.

Another little temple to the south of the village of Nako is called sl/ob-dpon-zhabsrjes, ‘ Pootprint of the Teacher.’ It is built over a natural rock showing a footprint of more than human size. Above the rock is placed a stucco figure of Padma-sambhava. The temple is furnished with frescoes of as ancient a type as those in the Lha-khang •ched-po {cTied-po is the same as Tibetan cTien-mo, ' great ’). They also have the same glassy polish which is found on the before-mentioned pictures. This little temple was probably •erected in the eleventh century, together with the great monastery. Thus, we are led to surmise that already in the days of Ein-chen-bzang-po, this footprint on the rock

p

Tvas belieyed to be tliat of Padma-sambbava who lived t-wo and a half centuriesearlier.^

QppQgj ’(;0 the present townj on the other shore of the little lake of NakOj theie aie the extensive ruins of the ancient town, with the Jo’s (chief’s) fort above it. This ancient town is said to have been destroyed by the Ladakhis, probably on one of their punitive expeditions against their vassal kings of Guge. Where the present village stands, there used to be only stables in earlier days, as was also the case in Li. The chiefs of Nako are still in existence, and a votive tablet by one of their ladies was found and copied in the ten) pie of Lo-tsa"bai-lha*khang. All the muni walls round about Nakoare of recent date, like those of Li, the most ancient name mentioned on them being that of Metar (Mahindar) Singh of Bashahr.

North-west of Nako, there are a number of deserted villages which show that in former days the cultivated area about Nako was larger than it is at present. I gathered the following names as those of the now deserted settlements: Khartag, Jadong, Gulbug, Bemgrol and Therang thangka. Most of them were deserted a long time back, hut one of them only six years ago. Two or three people had lost their lives when the water course was mended, which was considered a sufficient reason for giving up the settlement altogether. Let me add that Nako was one of the places visited by Osoma de Koros.

We reached the village of Chang on the 24th July, after a march through a mountain desert without any special interest. The locally famous monastery of Tra-shi-tong- yang (bEra-shis-mthong-dbyangs) is situated on the opposite bank of the brook of Chang, on a rock, in the middle of a deserted village. We were not in a position to visit the temple, as its key had been taken to Tibet by the lama in charge. The monastery is asserted to have been founded by Padma-sambhava, and to contain his image. The lamas belong to the ’ aBrugpa order.

Here again, in former days, all the peasants had to live on the rock around the monastery and castle, where there are many ruined houses. In the middle of the present village of Chang, there is a life-size stone statue of Aval6kite4vara half buried in a ma>}i wall. It is a very rude and ugly image. The small figure of Amitabha can be plainly seen in his headdress. The statue has only two arms and is painted white. The legend which is connected with this image, is of some interest, because it is a version of a tale connected with Langdarma’s persecution of Buddhism.^ The Chang legend runs as follows : — Many centuries ago, the image was carried down from some higher place by a flood. The Chang people found it, and tried to carry it up to the Tra-shi-tong-yang

• The ew^istlpicture of Naho Tillage and monastery is found on Plate XXJI of Seise des Prinzen TVctldemay von Preussen, 3845. _ Of paiUculai interest are the slanting roofs of several houses shown in that picture. Dr. Hoffimeister, pho was of the Pnnce s party, gives the following items with regard to the ancient images of the Nako temples. In one of the halls, t^_ travellp were shown the following images : Dordschi Simba (rDo-jy'e-sewii-eiiJS) ; Nanatheia {sNann-lurntn^ya^ ; Vinsem-junMe [Stn-cJien-hyun^ldan) ; Thevadna (P; ; Nabaniangge {rZfam-par-snang-mdzad), and a frame- woik mth a Ts^akium (Khynng, 6»ruda). l^is was e^dently the LJia-hiang-ched-po temple. In another temple, they aawaDulma{a(?j-oZ-«!a)withalschakium {Klymg, Garoda) above her. This was evidently the Lha-Maw aong-ma

temple.

' See Zadtags rQgal-rahs under Langdarma.

monastery, believing tliat tliis monastery would be tlie most suitable abode for the statue. However, a hundred men could not move it. Then a clever lama guessed that the image wished to be set u]) in its j)resent place. And lo, when they tried to take it there, a single man could easily carry it.

On the evening of the 2J:th, I went to have a look at the castle of Kyahar which is only three miles distant from Chang. This castle is more imposing and of greater dimensions than I have yet seen in these mountains. It is suj)i30sed to have been built by the king of Eampur (in about 1650 A.D.) who probably wished to fortify the frontiers of his new territory. People told me that the castle was famous for its beautiful frescoes, and I was sorry not to be able to go and examine them. I asked, however, Mr. Cargill, of the Public Works Department, whom I met a few days after in Spiti, to go and inspect the pictures, if his journey should take him that Avay. He told me afterwards that he had actually been to Kyahar and made inquiries about the frescoes. People told him that there had been pictures, but that they had all disappeared. On the way to Kyahar, I noticed a short inscription in Takari on one of the boulders on the roadside. It is unintelligible, but interesting, as testifying to the use of that script in these parts.

I was told that there is a small, but ancient monastery at Kyahar, which local tradition also connects with the famous Ein-chen-bzang-po. It is called Lha-brang and belongs to the Gelugpa order. Although I was assiued that it contained ancient pictures, I could not manage to visit it. iN'or did I see the ancient stone sculpture at Kyahar which is said to be similar to the Avalokite4vara of Chang, mentioned above.

On a rook below the joresent village of Kyahar are extensive ruins of a deserted village. I am told that the people of Kyahar were invited to settle round the present stately castle, and therefore exchanged sites.

On the 26th we started on om* march through a desert which separates Spiti from the Bashahr State. We had to spend three days in absolutely bare and uninhabited country, before the jBLrst village of the territory of Spiti was reached. The jBxst march took us to the Zangzam bridge, which spans a tributary of the Spiti river. Here the road leads through Tibetan territory for several miles, and the camp on the bridge as well as our next camp at Horling was on Tibetan ground. There are several sulphm’ springs in the vicinity of the bridge, which contain rather hot water. The natives have hewn out little basins in which they bathe. Crystallized sulphur and some white salt (probably borax) are found near the wells. I collected some water plants which I found growing in the hot sulphurous water.

The 26th July was spent in the same desert on our march to Horling, a desert camping-place on the Spiti river. I had expected to have an archaeological holiday in this uninhabitable region. But that was not so. Strange to say, we passed by mmi walls, from time to time, and several of the stones placed on, or by the side of, the walls, were of unusual interest. I found here four or five stones which must have been carved in the 15th century. . They contained the names. of the great reformer Tsong-kha-pa and three of his contemporaries, _ mKhas-grub-pa (1384-1437), Lha-dbang-blo-gros (1388-1462), and

p 2

dGe’adun-grab (1389’1473). What points in particular to their ancient origin is the fact, that in these inscriptions the e, o and Vi Towel signs are all directly joined to their consonant bases. These stones were, in all probability, put up on the roadside during the Ijaniaist refoi’mation, and later on placed on or near vfichui walls. They testify to the enthusiasm with which Tsongkhapa’s reformation was welcomed in these tracts.

A still more interesting inscription I found on a mani wall at the desert camping place of Horling. This map, wall was erected by a man of the Tibetan village of rGyumkhar, the SlmgaT of the map, during the reign of a king who resided at Tsaparang (spelt rTsabarang, on the stones). When I read this, I could not help thinking at once of the Jesuit priest, d’Andrada, who states that he had found a Tibetan king at Tsaparang favourably inclined towards Christianity. This statement of the Jesuit has been subjected to serious doubts by modern writers on Tibet. They could not believe that a ‘ king ’ should ever have resided at the now unimportant village of Tsaparang. But d’Andrada is vindicated as we know now that Tsaparang was the capital of a sovereign whose power was acknowledged even as far as Spiti. At the same time when the tablet was carved, Tsaparang was the capital of the kingdom of Guge, the largest vassal state of the W estern Tibetan empire. As far as my knowledge goes, the kingdom of Guge has had three capitals : the first was mTho-lding (Tholing), the second, Tsaparang, the third Garthog. The genealogical tree of the kings of Guge has been preserved in Tibetan historical works. The original line of these kings came from Zangskar, as stated above. Their dynastical name was Lde. The Lde dynasty came to an end in the principal line, and was superseded by a rMal dynasty. When the rMal dynasty became extinct, a member of a side branch of the original Lde dynasty was invited from Purang and became king of Guge. Then the historical information ceases. The name of the king who is mentioned on the votive tablet, is Khri-bkra-shis-grags-pa-lde. This name is not found in the genealogical tree, and therefore he must be one of the later members of the second Lde dynasty from Purang. He cannot well have reigned before 1600 A.D., for mani waEs were hardly ever constructed before that time ; nor can he have reigned much later than 1630 A.D., for about that time Indra Bodhirnam-rgyal, a younger brother of the king of Leh, was made vassal* king of Guge, and in 1650 A.D., Gr^e was annexed by Lhasa and received a Tibetan governor. It is, therefore, very probable that Khri-bkra-shis-grags-pa-lde is the very king whose acquaintance was made by d’Andrada in 1623 A.D.

This supposition is strengthened by the discovery of a similar votive tablet which I made three days after at Tabo in Spiti. This contained the name of the same king and gave Tsaparang as his residence. But what is still more surprising, is the occurrence of the following short passage on the same tablet : “ He who clears away all the apostacy and darkness at the great palace of Tsaiarang rise’’ The man who carved this inscription was evidently displeased with the Tsaparang king’s inclination towards Christianity. So was the king of Leh; for it was probably on this account that he placed his younger brother on the throne of Guge. I think, we shall have to accept d’ Anctrada’s account of his mission to Tsaparang without any severe criticism.

Plate XIV.

a Monastery of Tabo.

b. Row of one hundred and eight stupas^ Tabo.

Not far from our camp at Hoiiing, on tlie plain torrarcls Lliari, I found a large stone containing an inscription of Tsongkhapa’s time. It mentions, besides the names of the reformer and one or txvo of his contemporaries, those of an ancient lama-ldng of Guge, Byang-chub-’od, of the famous lama Kin-chen-bzang-j)o of the year 1000 A. D., and also that of the Tabo monastery. This shoe's that in the 15th century people belieyed in a connection between the Tabo monastery of Spiti, and the great priest-kings of Guge.

From Horling, the high and beautiful snow mountains near the Tillage of Chang, which belong to the group of the Purgyul peaks and are over 22,000 feet high, can be seen. W e had already admired them on our way to Shipke, when we were much closer to them (Plate X, a). At Namgya, I had heard the following ditty about them : —

Tise gangsTiyi rgyalpo yin Vurgyul rii rgyalpo yin Maspang mifisoyi rgyalpo yin.

“ Kailasa is the king of glaciers,

Purgyul is the king of mountains,

Manasarowar is the king of lakes.”

At Hoiiing the coolies from Chang, pointing towards the Purgyul group of mountains which is here called Gung-ri (perhaps the Ktingrang of the maps), said that on those mountains was the fabulous ’aBa-yul, the abode of spirits. Its inhabitants are believed to be numerous, but ordinary people can neither see nor hear them. It is only very good men or lamas who are capable of perceiving anything. When such a pious man approaches that region of eternal snow, he hears the voices of its invisible denizens or the barking of their ghostly dogs, but sees nothing. This tale reminds me strongly of a passage which I had repeatedly found in inscriptions with reference to the Kailasa mountains : — dgra hcom bzJiugs gnas Tise, ‘ Kailasa, the abode of those who have conquered all enemies’ {arhats). The ice mountains evidently are not only the abode of the gods, but also that of the dead who, according to the belief of the Tibetans, have acquired paradise.

We reached Lhari, the first village of Spiti, on the 28th July. Although this village is possibly connected with the history of gNya-khri-btsam-po, the first king of Tibet, it is nowadays a very poor place. It consists of only a few scattered houses. Above it, on the side next the brook, there are the extensive ruins of an ancient castle, called Serlang, the former abode of the Lhari people. Below the village there are very many ancient rock-carvings, among which we note, in particular, the ibex and the svastika. One of the carvings appears to represent the ‘ willow of the world ’ with its six branches and six roots, one of the symbols of the pre-Buddhist religion of the people. Another symbol appears to represent the sun and the moon. Dilapidated as Lhari is now-a-days, I cannot escape the impression that it is a very ancient settlement.

On the 29th July, we marched to the famous Gelugpa monastery of Tabo which is only three miles distant from Lhari (Plate XIV, a). When we were approaching it, I

said to Pindi Lai : “ You see, popular tradition connects this monastery witli Ein-clienbzang-po who lived 900 years ago, and an inscription at Holding showed us that such traditions were also current in the 16th century. But what is the use of all these traditions ? We must have literary proof that a monastery actually goes hack to those early days; if possible, we must have a document of those very times, on which it is plainly stated that the erection of the monastery actually took place at that time. I wonder if ever we shall be able to prove any such assumption!” As I said this, I little thought that a few hours after, I should have ample proof in hand.

In the vicinity of the Tabo monastery are many rows of 108 small mchocl-rten, but one of them numbered at least 216 (Plate XIV, b). They were the forerunners of the mani walls in Western Tibet. Besides these rows, there are many ruined mchod-rten round about, and countless rock carvings. The latter represent mostly the iljex and the smstiha and are possibly of pre-Buddhist origin. On the hill side, almost like cave dwellings, are the winter houses of the lamas.

The temple buildings are found on the plain above the river. They are surrounded by a high mud wall. I made a plan of the whole establishment and these are some ot‘ the measurements taken. Extreme length : 313 feet, 7 inches ; breadth 257 feet 3 inches. Within this enclosure exist seven temple-halls, and a great number of mchod-rten. The monks took me from one temple to another without showing me the principal hall. They said that only a Commissioner (the highest personage they have ever heard of) could l)e permitted to enter there. I tried in vain to convince them that, with regard to their treasures, I was in as high an office as a Commissioner, until I produced two rupees. Then the doors to their holy of holies were thrown open, and I presume that nothing of interest was purposely concealed from us.

The principal hall is called rNam-par-snang-mdzad. The length of this hall with additional apse is 63 feet, 14 inches and its breadth 34 feet, 10 inches. The principal image is a white stucco statuette of rNam-par-snang-mdzad (Vairochana) consisting of four complete figures seated back to back (Plate XV, a). Along the walls, 6 or 7 feet above the ground, there are thirty-two raised medallions with exceedingly well executed stucco figures of life size (Plates XV, b ; XVI and XVII, b). Nobody in the monastery at present knows whom they represent. But I am inclined to believe that they represent the thirty-three Hindu gods.^ The figure of Ganela, which would make up the full number, seems to have lost its original position above the door. It is now found on the altar, below rNam-par-snang-mdzad (Plate XVII, a). One of the figures by the side of the door was recently furnished with a new head like a modern Lamaist dancing mask, the old head having been.lost (Plate XVII, b).

In the apse, behind rNam-par-snang-mdzad, there are four standing stucco figures and a seated figure of Buddha on a lion throne. Above it there are exceedingly well ex:eouted figures of flying spirits (Gandharvas?).

three r to tli® Brahmanical conception at least. “ the thirty-

11 Neither is GanSga one of them. Their number is made up by 12 Aditvas 8 VasSs

liSnt id deiS 11. 6.216. The BtoSyapa (3, 20) substitut^ LlSs for the two

Plate XV.

ctt

C

rtf

-G

O

o

rt

■H

” <11 N -M

n3 w

s g

t)i5 O

c —

F ri

Plate XVL

a. Two female figures on wall of central hall of Monastery, Tabo

b. Two male figures on wall of central hall of Monastery, Tabo.

Plate XVII.

a. Ganesa and other images in front of main image in Monastery, Tabo

b Three figures on wall of central hall of Monastery, Tabo.

The walls are completely covered with paintings. Some of the pictures are distinctly Indian. They show ancient Indian costumes well : an Indian king with a three- pointed crown like that worn by Bodhisattvas, and Indian men with turbans or felt hats with brims. The hats as well as the turbans have ribbons tied below the chin. There are also pictures of Indian ladies and elephant processions. These frescoes are all of very excellent workmanship, and were probably executed loy Indian Buddhist monks who emigrated to Tibet in the 10th and 11th centuries, when Buddhism raj)idly declined in India. But there are also picturesof Tibetan origin. One of them had the inscription Gu-gei-sde, ‘ j)rovince of Guge.’ It seems to represent members of the Guge government. In the case of most of the pictures the meaning has been lost. Others have

explanatory inscriptions in ancient Tibetan characters and orthography, a few in modern Tibetan. They are probably later additions.

Below the image of rNam-par-.snang-mdzad, we found a stone sculpture of Mahju-gliOsha which we photographed. (Fig. 3). Tliero were also two very 1)eautiful ancient wood carvings of standing Buddhas with attendants. (Plate XVIII).

On both sidus of rNam-par-snang-mdzad, there is a pile of manuscripts about live feet high. Each pile consists of many hundreds of loose and disarranged leaves covered with beautiful writing. The leaves seem to belong to the twelve books of the JPrajM-pdf'amitd in Tibetan translation. This work by Nagar- • juna was translated by the famous lama, Einohen-bzang-po, who has been mentioned several times in the course of my account. It seems to have been copied many times in the days of Ein-chen-bzang-po, and copies wmre distributed among ah the monasteries founded by him. So far I have found copies of this work in the orthography of his own times in three different places, but nowhere have I seen so complete a copy as in Tabo. The value of such a manuscript for critical purposes is enormous. Works like the JPrajnd-pdj'miitd have up to the present been known only from modern manuscripts or wood-prints. Here, on the other hand, we obtain a text, as it was known in the translator’s own days.

^ Of almost greater importance than the manuscripts, are the inscriptions which are written on the wall with black ink. We found two long inscriptions behind the image

Plate XVIII

Ancient wood

of rXam-par-snang-mdzad, immediately abore the ground. Their low position indicates that they were meant for people accustomed to sit on the floor cross-legged. The inscrijitions are of varied character. One of them is historical ; it speaks of the foundation of the Tabo monastery about nine hundred years ago, and of people who were con- nected with that event. The other inscription is admonitory ; I feel inclined to call it “ blessing and cursing,” but there is more of cui-sing in it than of blessing. It speaks of the many punishments to be inflicted on such lamas as do not live up to the standard of the law. There is no end of chopping off members of their bodies. I wonder if these regulations were ever carried out. To return to the historical inscription : It tells of a renovation of the Tabo monastery by Byang-chub-’od, priest-king of Guge, forty-sis years after the monastery had been founded by Lhayi-hu JByang-chub-sems-dpa {‘ByangcJiub-sems-dpa, the son of the gods’). The latter name is evidently that of the king of Ladakh, who is mentioned in the Ladakhi chronicles as one of the early rulers of that country. He is spoken of with much respect in this inscription. His advice was repeatedly asked by the king of Guge, and thus the inscription confirms the statement of history, that the kings of Ladakh were the recognised suzerains of the Guge princes. Besides these two royal names, the inscription contains also those of the two most important lamas of the j)eriod, viz., Bin-ohen-bzang-po, and Atisa, the latter being called Phul-byung, which is his Tibetan name, as aheady stated by Jaschke. The inscription says that Rin-chenbzang-po was made a ‘ light of wisdom ’ by the agency of Ati4a. This is apparently a re- ference to the controversy between the two lamas, which ended with Rin-chen-bzang-po’s acknowledgment of Ati^a’s superiority. Of this event we read in the historical book dPag-bsam-ljon-bzang. As this inscription was evidently written in the times of king Byang-chub-’od, c. 1050 A.D., it is of the utmost importance for Tibetan palseography. The type of its writing is different from that of earlier datable documents, as well as from later ones, say, of Tsong-kha-pa’s time. It, therefore, enables us to distinguish manuscripts or inscriptions of the 11th century. Of this important question, I will treat later on, when we shall have examined several more records of the same times. Besides these two important inscriptions, there are many more of the same period on the walls around, and as there are also numerous objects of art and paintings in this large hall, it would require at least a full month to do it justice from an arohseologioal point of view.

The gTsug-lag-khang is a smaller hall with frescoes, to the left of the principal hall. Most of the pictures refer to the story of Buddha’s life, beginning with the descent of the white elephant from heaven. On both sides of the door were painted the four Lokapalas, as we find them so often. On the right and left wall there was the medicine Buddha with his followers, Sakya thub-pa, B.in-ehen-zla-ba ; Myang-ngan-med-mchog-dpal ; Ohosgrags-rgya-mthsoi-dpal ; gSer-bzang-dri-med ; mNgon-mkhyen-rgyal-po and mThsan-legs. Most of the pictures in this hall were furnished with explanatory inscriptions in modern Tibetan. Like all the remaining halls, it had apparently been renovated in a sweeping way. All the ancient frescoes and inscriptions had been scratched off, and new pictures painted on the old walls.

G

When we were at- Tabo, we met a native painter, who was prepared to renovate everything. The monks of the monastery had been told that Government would undertake to pay for necessary repairs in their temples and had asked the Assistant Commis- sioner to let them have the services of an artist. Accordingly, Mr. Howell, I.C.S., had ordered a painter to go to Tabo and apply his art to its ancient walls, fortunately, he had not yet started work in the principal hall, but in all the other halls, there remained little which had not been destroyed either by him or by previous artists. I told the man that he was on no account to touch the walls of the central hall, and when I met Mr. Howell about a week later in Spiti, he promised to give strict orders that no further attempt should be made to “improve ” this precious relic of the past.

The gSer-gyi-lha-khang is another picture hall to the left of the preceding one AH the pictures in it are modern, and it has an inscription Oni mani padme hum in .LaMhsa characters running round the four walls,

The dKyii-khang is a picture hall behind the preceding. As the roof is not ■watertight, the pictures have suffered much through leakage. The principal picture shows rNam-par-snang-mdzad, but I could discover no inscriptions in it.

In Lha-khang-dkar-byung, a pictme hall behind the preceding, the central picture shows Buddha with two disciples ; to the left of this group wo see Tsong-kha-pa. The other pictures in this hall can no more be explained. There were no inscri])tions.

The picture hall Brom-ston was evidently named after tlic famous pupil of Atlsa, called by that name, the founder of the bKa-gdams-pa sect. It is situated on the right hand side of the Central Hall. It was probably erected in Brom-ston’s time, but nothing remains of ancient relics, besides the interesting door of thamj -shiny (Deodar wood) which is decorated with well executed carvings of Buddhist saints. The stylo of carving is very different from the present Tibetan style, and is a distiuguishi.ng characteristic of the half Indian Buddhism of the 11th century. This hall is without inscriptions and the principal picture in it represents Buddha with his two disciples.

The seventh hall called Byams-pa-chen-moi-lha-khang contains a huge stucco statue of Maitreya seated on a chair. The top of his head may be 18 to 20 feet above the ground. This hall contains pictures of Tibetan architecture, perhaps four to five centuries ago, such as the monastery of Tashilumpo (bKra-shis-lhun-po) and the Potala palace of Lhasa. But most of the other pictm’es in this hall are modern restorations or inventions. Here I noticed a Wartu inscription, probably an Ommani padme hum formula. This haU has also a door carved with Buddhist figures in Indian, not Tibetan style. The central figure on the lintel, however, is Gane^a.

Besides these seven principal halls, I must also mention the entrance haU to the principal temple, Lha-khang-chen-moi-sgo-khang. It is furnished with paintings, for instance Tsong-kha-pa with two disciples, one of whom was called mKhas-grub.

The thick darkness of most of the Tibetan temples is a great hindrance to archaeological research. My work had to be done in a different way from that done at Pompei or in the^ Turkestan deserts. At Pompei and in Turkestan every article which comes to light, is valuable and has to be taken up, labelled, and put aside. In an inhabited place

Plate XIX.

b. Rope bridge near Lithang.

like Tabo, I bad, bowerer, to select among bundreds of inscrijjtions and objects of art, tliose wbicb were of real value for tbe study of Tibetan bistory and art, tvbicb meant a close examination of many objects and records in a badly lighted 25 lace. When, finally, tbe most interesting bad been decided upon, tbe second part of our work, pbotograjjhy, and copying in writing as well as in colours, began. Considering tbe very great difficulties be bad to encounter, I must say that Piudi Lai achieved wonders with Ms camera. But tbe bttle light that entered this ball through a minute bole in tbe ceiling was not sufficient for tbe lamas, whom I set to work on tbe j)aintings and wall inscriptions. Then we thought of our small supjfiy of candles and by giving three of them to our helpmates, we made three Tibetan hearts happier than they bad ever been. I^one of them bad apparently ever possessed a candle, and now think of the grand sport they bad, working in a dark corner of the temple with a real European candle by their side, h’o Maharaja could have taken greater pride in the electric light newly introduced into his capital.

Within the walled enclosure about the temples, there are many mchod-rten, and several of them have frescoes inside. There is also a botanical ciuiosity in tMs court ; for here we find the only apricot trees existing in the barren and cold country of Spiti wbicb is separated by a girdle of deserts from all the neighbouring territories of Tibet, Ladakh, Lahnl, and Bashahr.

The next morning, when we had left Tabo, I found on our march to the village of Phog (map Pok), the beforementioned votive inscription of the times of the Tsaparang king on a mani wall outside the village. On the other bank of the Spiti river, we saw the large monastery of Nathang with many terraced fields round about it, some under cultivation, but most of them bare. The monastery is built in three stories, the one above always a little narrower than the one below it, like a pyramid of three steps, thus reminding me of the Alchi (and also of the mTho-lding) monastery. Natbang also is said to have been founded in the days, when the Tabo monastery was built. During summer, there is not a single lama residing in it.

In the village of Phog, I met with Mr. OargiU of the Pubbc Works Department, who was on tour through these outlying districts examining the bridges. He invited me to dinner, and I spent a very pleasant evening with Mm.

On the 31st July, we arrived at Drangkhar called Bravg-niMar or Grang-mkhar in inscriptions (Plate XIX, a). The monastery of this town, the capital of Spiti, is called Idha-od-pai-dgon-pa^ Lha-od seems to be tbe local pronunciation of Zla-od, the name of a famous lama who was born in 1121, according to the Eeu-mig. Zla-’od-pa would then mean “a follower of Zla-’od.” He is apparently the founder or renovator of the monastery which now belongs to the Gelugpa order. The monks assert that it was not only of earlier origin than the Tabo monastery, but also earlier than tbe times of Srong-btsan-sgam-po. They have, however, nothing to show of really ancient relics. They explain tMs fact by stating that the monastery was plundered many times, lastly during the Pogra war, which is in agreement with my History of Western Tibet. Traces of the ravages of that war may be plainly seen in aU the monasteries of Spiti wMch we

e 2

Tisited on our journey, with the exception of Tabo. Why did Tabo alone escape destruction ? I am inclined to believe that Tabo was under Bashahr in those times, and that the Dogras did not wish to interfere with the government of that state. We found three, probably modern, stucco statues in the central hall. They represent Byams-pa (Maitreya), seated crosslegged, with a kind of tea-pot in his hand ; Buddha ; and the lama Chos-drag, a contemporary of Srong-btsan-sgam-po. The statue of Chos-drag looks like the illustration of the same personage in Griinwedel’s Mythology.

There are frescoes on the walls of this temple, but now only very little of them can be made out. The following figures could be distinguished : ’Od-dpag-med (Amitabha) ; Padma-sambhava ; and dGe-bai-bshes-gnyeu (Kalyana-mitra).

Above one of the doors there is an inscription in modern characters and orthograj)hy which, I was told, contained the name of dGe-bai-bshes-gnyen. I found it impossible to read it in the dark.

Above the entrance to the monastery, there is suspended the stuffed skin of a goat. I was informed that this goat during her lifetime occasionally became possessed with a spirit which made her jump about in an extraordinary way. Therefore she was treated kindly and fed well by the monks, and after death she was stuffed, to serve as a lasting memorial of herself.

Drangkhar is one of the few towns of Western Tibet which still stand on their original site, i.e. on the top of a rocky spur, and thus it is in its entirety an interesting relic of the past. The most ancient picture of this fortress is a lithograph after a drawing by Trebeck who was here in 1820. From this we learn that since then the town has not altered much in general aspect. The uppermost place on the rock is occupied by the castle which is now in possession of the Nono (chief) of Spiti. It was built by the Ladakhis who used to have a garrison here. There are tales current about the last days of Ladakhi rule, when the place was captured by the Spiti people, and its inmates were thrown down from the rock.^ Judging from the ruins in the vicinity, the castle was much larger in Ladakhi times, than it is now. The present building, therefore, gives no idea of what it was like formerly.

We spent Sunday, the 1st August, in this interesting place, and on Monday, the 2nd August, we marched to Kaze (map Kaja). On the road, near Lithang, we saw a rope bridge of the old style, plaited of willow branches, as they still are in Lahul and Zangskar. (Plate XIX, b). When we were approaching Kaze, we saw the stately palace of Kyu-hng {Skyid-gling), the Non o’ s residence, on the opposite bank of the stream.

In a side valley of Kaze, high up on the rocks, there is the bTang-rgyud or Sa-skyagong-mig monastery which belongs to the Sa-skya-pa order of lamas. Although it has a certain fame on account of its antiquity, it is believed to be inferior to the Ki monastery. The Kaze monastery has always been favoured by the Nonos of Spiti, one of whose member takes orders as a Sa-skya-pa lama, just as the kings of Ladakh have bestowed special favour on the ’aBrug-pa order of Lamas. Gong-mig means ' the upper eye,’ and at the place, where this monastery can be seen peeping out of a world of rocks, a mehod-rten

^ See my publication Bie Mstorischen und mythologi$ehen Erinnerxmgen der Lahouley. Tale No. 17.

•was built. I should bare visited it, bad we uot been far too tired for sucb a climb in tbe evening after our arrival, as well as next morning.

On one of tbe maai walls of Kaze, I saw a fairly old votive tablet dating from tbe time of tbe Ladatbi regime in Spiti. It was written in bad orthography and was in a poor state of preservation. Tbe “ national anthem ” was similar to that of tbe Guge stones, but in tbe place where tbe Guge version has the Satluj {gLang'dien-Ttha-hah'), here we find tbe Indus {Seng-gd •Ma-bah). ITbat interested me particularly, was tbe spelling of tbe name Leb, tbe Ladakhi capital. TTe find it often spelled sLel in native documents, but the spelling sLe is aLo not infrequent. A.ccording to tbe ideas of the natives of Ladakh, tbe correct spelling of the name is sLes. Tbe word sLes (or sLas in Lower Ladakhi signifies a walled enclosure, sucb as is set up by nomads. Leb is supposed to have developed out of a Tibetan nomads’ camp. Tbe Kaze inscrij)tion confirms this derivation, for here we find the name of tbe capital spelt sLes. I may add, that this spelling is corroborated by tbe Tibetan geographical work ’aLzam-gling-ye-sbes where tbe same spelbng is found.^ Tbe name of tbe capital of Spiti is spelt here Lrag-mliharrtse (against Brang-mkhar on otbftr stones). A nobleman, Ga*ga Sod-nams, is mentioned as having held the office of Eesident at tbe castle, but tbe name of tbe king of Leb is missing.

“W e reached tbe Ki {dKyiV) monastery at noon on August tbe third. Here I met with a messenger from Mr. Howell, Assistant Commissioner of Kulu ; be banded me a letter from that gentleman, asking me to make tbe monks of tbe Ki monastery acquainted with tbe discovery of Buddha’s bones at Peshawar, and to suggest to them that they should make an application to tbe Indian Government to let them have tbe relics. I gladly agreed to Mr. Howell’s proposal, in particular, because it gave me an opportunity to point out to them tbe difference between Buddha and Christ, of whom no bones have ever been found. But also for another- reason I was anxious to visit tbe Ki monastery. In 1863 Mr. P. Egerton, of tbe Civil Service, made a tour tbror^h Spiti, together with our missionary, Mr. A. W. Heyde. A beautiful book illustrated with capital photographs, was the outcome of this journey. In this book we find tbe statement that tbe Ki monastery of Spiti was probablv founded by Brom-ston, tbe pupil of tbe famous teacher Atisa, in tbe lltb century. . Tbe travellers apparently beard a rumour of a connection between this monastery and Brom-ston, and if they bad simply stated this, they would not have been wrong. But they went further. They found a note in Koros’ Tibetan Grammar, to tbe effect that Brom-ston bad founded a monastery called Eareng {Bva-sgrengs) ; and as a village in tbe vicinity of Ki is called Eangrig, Mr, Egerton jumped to the conclusion that the Ki monastery of Spiti was identical -with the famous Eareng monastery of tbe lltb century. But we know from tbe geographical work ’aDzam-gbng-ye-sbes, that tbe Eareng monastery is situated in tbe Eong district near Lhasa. It is not to be wondered at, bo"uever, that no clear traditions about tbe origin of tbe Spiti monastery exist. We read in Moorcroft and Trebeck’s travels, 1820, that the Ki monastery was thoroughly ransacked

^ Sena-ae from Sanskrit “alien. ” , i , • i ,77-

See S. Ch. Das’ translation in J. A.-S. B., 1887. sLes would correspond to olassjoal IMas.

in the petty Trars between Kulu and ladakh which preceded the Dogra war. And during the pogra war itself it suffered eyen more severely. It is evident that Brom-ston must have some connection with Spiti and this monastery, from the fact that his name is found in certain localities in the vicinity. Thus, as we have seen, one of the temples of the Tabo monastery is called after him. Moreover, on our way from Kazcto Ki, we had to ford a brook called Brom-ston-chu ; then, a little farther on, we passed by a rock called Bt'cM-ston-ffyi-Sfict, “Brom^ston’s nose” or “the shrubbery of Broms- ton (Plate A A). Prom the historical work dPag-bsam-ljon-bzang we learn that Brom-ston erected four monasteries, one of them at Ke in Mangyul {Mmg-ynl-gyi-Ke-ru). Mangyul is a name often used to signify the Western Tibetan Empire, Ke i.s a mispriait for Ki. Whoever knows how carelessly Western Tibetan names are treated by Lhasa writers, does not wonder at their spelling Ke instead of Ki.

But the Ki monastery has been restored since the turbulent times of the Dogrn war, (Plate XXI). It is a typical example of ancient monasteries of a certain period. In this type we find the principal temple on the top of a little conical hill, and the cells (jf the monks round about and below it. The aspect of the whole establishment is unusually pleasing, especially as it is situated in a wilderness of bare and barren ro(;ks. liEona.steries of the same type are found in Khrig-rtse, Me-ru, Chem-re, Ling-shed, dKar-rgya of Zangs-dkar, and probably in several other places.

As all the old books and idols had been destroyed by ^ulam Khfin,* the outfit of the Ki monastery is rather modern. The door is carved in present day Tibetan siyit', and the library contains modern block^Drints. In the central hall, I noticed two .stucco idols; one was called Tum-chen-mo, “great mother,” probably a form of Tfira, the other sPyan-ras-gzigs (Avalokitelvara). There are several more stucco statues in the library opposite the temple, the most remarkable being Thse-dpag-med (Amitayua), Shakya thub-pa, bLo-bzang ye-shes, the Pan-chen, who resided at Traslulhumpo from 1663 to 1737 ; Padma-sambhava with two of his fairies, one being called Llia-shaman-da-re-ba (Mandarava) the other mKha-’agro-ye-shes-gtso-rgyal.

On the 4th August, we made preparations for our journey through the desert acro.ss the Pharang Pass, and on the 6th, we moved our camp four miles in the direction of the pass, especially as I wished to be near to Mr. Howell, the Assistant Commissioner, who was encamped at Lhanartsa, Spiti, at an elevation of about 14,000 feet.

On the way, not far from Kyibar (map Kibber), I noticed an ancient ruin of a temple built of sun-dried bricks, its walls sloping inward, as is always the case in Biin-chen-bzang-po s temples. It is called Lha-bla-mai-dgon-pa, and thus by its name it directly -points to tbe great priest- king of Guge, Lba-bla-ma-ye-shes-’od, whoso name we had found in an inscription at Poo. Local tradition says that King Lha-bla-ma or, as. another man understood it, the gods {Iha) and the lamas {blama) built it in one night.

At Lhanartsa I spent two enjoyable and instructive days with the A^istant Commissioner. Here I had an attack of malarial fever, and Mr" Howell did everything in

• Mistory of Western Tibet, p, 163 .

iPSi:

Ms ] 30 wer to cure me and make me fit for the road. Mr. Howell Avas just engaged in revising the Spiti portion of the Kangra Gazetteer, and as he had the Nono of Spiti as well as lamas of various denominations encamped in the vicinity, our time was sjAentin a very profitable way. Let me briefly review the principal points of our enquiries about Spiti.

There are now-a-days five principal monasteries in Spiti, which represent three sects of Lamaism. The Tabo, Drangkhar, and Ki monasteries belong now to the Ge-lug-pa sect. The Kaze monastery belongs to the Sa-skya-pa sect, and the Pyin monastery belongs to the rNying-ma-pa. Whilst the four first mentioned monasteries do not differ essentially from Central Tibetan establishments, Avith Avhich they keep up intercourse, the Pyin monastery has no connection Arith Lhasa, and maintains those traditions which have been handed down from the times of the most primitive Lamaism. I have already mentioned the wild appearance of its monks, and as Mr. Lyall tells us in the Gazetteer these monks were blamed for their uncivilised condition by a Lhasa emissary who travelled through Spiti. Mr. Lyall who saw these people perform a play, the substance of AvMoh was similar to that represented in the tale of Eka-^rina, describes also the head-dress of the Bu-rzhan, when performing. He says that they then appear with a head-dress formed of a mass of streamers of bright coloured silk. This observation is of great interest for this kind of head-dress seems to have been handed down in Spiti from the earliest time of Tibetan Buddhism. We read in the Tarlung part of the rGyal-rabs that king Ealpacan had silken streamers tied to his looks, and that he was connected by such streamers with the lamas who surrounded him The close connection of the rNying-ma<pa form of Lamaism AAith the pre-Buddhist Bon religion has already been noticed, and the Pyin monastery of Spiti seems to be a particularly favourable place to study it. I still regret that our limited time did not allow us to visit it. One of those Bu-rzhan lamas was in Mr. Howell’s camp, and gave us much information. Unfortunately, his dialect was so unusual, that I could not make out all he said. The Bu-rzhan lamas of Pyin travel also to Leh where they give grand conjuring performances, one of their most famous feats* being the breaking of a huge boulder on the belly of a boy.

We also made enquiries into the Tibetan system of clans, as it is represented in Spiti. In my article, “ Notes on a language map of Western Tibet, I drew attention to the importance of the study of the Tibetan “ father-brotherships ” {pha-spun) from a historical point of view. As the Indian officials who hold office among the natives of Indian Tibet apply Indian methods, instead of Tibetan ones, in their administration of the country, this important institution has not yet been discovered. I hope that in the next census, Tibetan methods will be used for Tibetans. When Indian officials try to fix the individuality of a certain Tibetan, they generally ask him to state his own name and that of his father. The first question is answered readily, but the second question puzzles a libetan to such an extent, that it takes him sometimes several days to clear up the mystery as to who is Ms sire. How could he tell at once, as he has at least two, and often three fathers, whilst many others are ignorant of their own parentage. The individuality of a Tibetan is fixed by three names : (1) by his personal name, (2) by his house

1 J. A. S. B., Vol, LXXIII, pp. 362. fE.

name, (3) by bis clan name. The latter name is the name of the pha~8pm-%\ii-^ (“ father hrothership ”) to which he belongs. As stated by Lyall in the Gazetteer, and as was also asserted in our presence, the pla-spun-s^iip is an exogamic institution, i.e. a boy of a certain pha- spun-ship is not allowed to marry a girl of the same plia-spun-ship. This interesting custom was already noticed by the most ancient Chinese authors who describe the Tibetans. Every pha-spun-ship has to look after the cremation of their dead, and monuments in commemoration of the dead, mcliod-rten or mani walls, are generally erected by the whole plia-sptin-ship of a certain village, and the name of the particular j 3 ^a-«j>?(M-ship is found on the votive tablets of such monuments. The historical interest of these clan names lies in the fact that they are often local names, viz., they indicate the locality from which a certain clan has immigrated into W estern Tibet. Thus, from the names of the -ships of Khalatse it can be proved that the greater part of the

population of this village emigrated from Gilgit, a fact which is supported also by other evidence, in particular by the preservation of a prayer in Eardi to certain house deities. As our inquiries in Spiti showed us, Mr. Lyall had almost discovered the whole institution. He uses the word clan for them and calls them ruspa or bones, a name which is actually used for plia- spun-ship in Spiti. He had collected the names of six mspa from Erangkhar, but he is wrong when he believes that the same ruspa are to be found in all the villages of Spiti. Some of the names may be found also in the other villages of Spiti, but quite new names also will turn up. Erom the six names he gives, we see at once that they testify to the presence of Tibetans in Spiti in early times, while they also suggest the presence of settlers from Kulu. The following four names are decidedly Tibetan : (1) rGya-zMng-pa, large field owners, (2) Khymg-po, ‘ Garuda-men,’ a name which was very common during the pre-Buddhist times of Tibet, (3) bLon-chen-pa, * great ministers,’ the men of this clan are doubtless the descendants of some early Tibetan official of Spiti, (4) sNyegs-pa, this is a word which is found in the names of the earliest Tibetan records. Two of the names, given in the Gazetteer, do not appear to be Tibetan : Memr and Nandu. JELenir signifies probably the Hensi caste of Kulu ; Nandu I cannot explain. I hope that on the occasion of the next census, every Buddhist Tibetan will be asked to give his three names, his personal name, his house name, and his clan name.

On the 6th August I had sufficiently recovered to be able to start on our journey tothe Lake Thsomo Biri of Eubshu. As we were very badly equipped for so trying a journey, Mr. Howell kindly helped us with as many of his provisions as he could spare. On the same day we travelled to Jugda, a small level spot on a brook in the midst of a horribly uneven country. On the 7th,. we crossed the Pharang Pass, 18,300 feet high. The chmb was very steep and trying, and as I felt that I could not do it walking, I mounted one of the spare yaks of our caravan. Another of the spare animals was used by Pindi Lai, but as there ’vere no more available, the Khansaman as well as the Khalasi, who were hiU-men from Kotgur and Rampur, had to walk. It was, however, too much for them, and the Khalasi was unwell for a number of days after it. These simple folks who had never seen anything but the Satluj valley and surroundings, had.

■become more and more alarmed at the increasing bareness and cold of the country we were travelling throughj and were now on the point of giving np all hope of ever seeing human habitations again. Pindi Lai had from time to time raised their spirits by prophesying that, in about ten days, we should reach a great town, Leh, where there would be abundance of delicacies, such as sugar, dal^ rice, and butter, the existence of which we had almost forgotten. In one of the last villages of Spiti, we unfortunately met a traveller from Ladakh who knew Urdu. They asked him how many days it would, take us to reach Leh, and when this man said that it could not be done under twenty days, they gave up all hope of ever reaching it. The only topic of conversation among them, now, was the malign conjunction of planets (as they thought), under which their birth had taken place. However, we reached the top of the pass after all, and had. a grand view over a large glacier directly below us, over many more glaciers hanging down from black rugged peaks, and a labyrinth of icy mountain ranges. And the thought came to them that they had to travel over these wild mountains with nothing but a little coarse flour in their provision bags. When then the yaks absolutely I’efused. to jump across cracks in the glacier, and we had to cross deep Assures in the ice by sliding down one side and climbing up the other, when the mountain sickness in its most acute form assailed the poor Khalasi, he lay down on a boulder on the edge of the glacier and gave himself up to die. I had not kept my eye on him, and thus we had descended a good way, before Pindi Lai drew my attantion to him, saying : “ One man is missing.’^ It was very unpleasant in this pathless country to return over the same boulders, but I had to send Pindi Lai hack again to fetch the Khalasi. He brought him to our camp at the only level spot in the vicinity, called Hrathang, 17,000 feet high. His face had become sallow, and his eyes had lost their lustre. The night was sure to be cold and his insufl&cient clothing as well as the small tent could not afford him sufi&oient warmth and shelter. I, therefore, cut one of my blankets in two, and gave him one half, and Pindi Lai gave him some of his clothing. Soon after, he came to my tent with the blanket in his hand. He could not believe that a blanket of scarlet colour should be his property. But when he was assured of the fact, there was a ray of light in his eye again. I am convinced that the expectation of one time or other showing this treasure' to his relations, was one of the most powerful factors in raising his spirits, and ultimately restoring him to health.

On the next morning, he was mounted on a yak and expected to ride thewhole way. That was, however, easier said than done. For the most part, no road of any kind could be distinguished, and we had to make our passage along the steep bank of a deep and broad river. Whenever the progress on dry ground was absolutely impossible, the yaks jumped into the water to wade or swim in it, which latter performance made me feel rather uneasy with regard to the photographic plates in the boxes on their backs, Pindi Lai, who was riding on one of the two horses of our caravan, had a narrow escape, when the ground under his horse suddenly gaveway, and the horse, performing a somersault, fell into the river, the rider holding on to the bank. Whilst we were thus ploughing on slowly, I noticed that the Khansaman

H

was staying behindj and. when I found him, I saw that his face had become black. He appeared hardly able to support himself any longer. I found it easy to guess at his thoughts which seemed to he as follows : “'Well” thought he, “have I not a right to be ill too ? Did I not walk up the high pass yesterday ? I cooked some food and got no reward ; the Khalasi did nothing and got a red blanket.” But part with the other half of my blanket ? No, that I could not. fortunately, I found two rupees in my pocket which I handed over to him, and lo, within no time he recovered so much that he was seen among the foremost yaks of our caravan.

We reached the desert place Umna on that day, and on the 9th August we marched to Nemaringmo camp which was distinguished by the proximity of a very extensive swamp, overgrown with a luxurious vegetation of alpine flowers, edelweiss, and red and yellow pedicularis. Leaves of wild rhubarb were conspicuous on the margin of the swamp. At noon of that day we stopped at a place called Eaco lhamo, the ‘ Horn goddess,’ where we noticed again signs of the occasional presence of man in these wilds in the shape of an altar of rude white stones covered with horns of sheep and goats. When entering the large swampy plain to the south of Lake Thsomo Eiri, we saw a tower-like building in ruins which was explained to us as marking the frontier between Spiti and Kas hmir . As the road from this camp to the lake was easier than what we had experienced during the previous days, it gave me time to review in my mind the times of Atl^a, which it was the good fortune o£ our journey to throw light upon. It is due in particular to the labours of Sarat Chandra Das, that we now know something of this interesting period of Tibetan Buddhism, when "Westem Tibet, and in particular the vassal kings of Gruge, held up the torch of guidance for the whole of Tibet.^

King Lha-bla-ma-Te-shes-’od of Guge (1025 A.D.), who resided at mTho-lding _ (his inscription at Poo will be remembered), was not satisfied with the Tibetan form of Buddhism, as it prevailed in his dominions, and resolved to prirify it by bringing it into contact with Indian Buddhism. He gave a careful education to twenty-one Tibetan boys, the name of one of whom was Ein-chen-bzang-po, and sent them to Kashmir and other parts of India to receive instruction in Sanskrit and philosophy. Although through their agency the king secured the services of thirteen Indian pandits, most of the boys died from the unhealthy climate, and only two, one of whom was Ein-chenbzang-po (Eatna-bhadra), returned to Guge.

Then the king heard of the famous teacher Ati4a at the monastery of Vikrama^ila in Magadha and sent an embassy to him with a large q^uantity of gold to invite him to come to Guge. Atiia gave the foEowing answer to the king’s messengers : “ Then it would appear that my going to Tibet were due to two causes : first, the desire of amassing gold, and second, the wish of attaining sainthood I ” and so he remained in Vikramalila.

King Te-dies-’od interpreted Ati4a’s words in a different way from what a European would have done. He understood that the great teacher had not yet been offered-

A detail«a acooant of tkis period is found in Sarat Chandra Das’ ‘ Indian Pandits in the land of snow,’ and the Tibetan text underlying this tale rras published by the same author in the dPag-hsam-ljoTtfhtan^.

b. Residence of Nomad ^ihieftain, Rubshu.

Plate XXIII

a. dKor-dzod Monastery, Rubshu.

gold enough, and began to work a gold mine which had just then been discovered by his minister. There, however, he came into conflict with a Muhammadan king of Qarlog (Turkestan), who claimed the mine for himself. In the ensuing war, Te-shes-’od became a prisoner of the king of Garlog, who said he would release him only on condition that a ransom, consisting of solid gold of the size and shape of the captive king’s person, was paid. Gold was now collected all over Tibet, but when melted and cast to form a statue, the gold fell short of the quantity that would be required to make the king’s head. The king of Garlog, who was not satisfied with the amount of gold offered, threw Yse-hes ’od into a gloomy dungeon to make him more miserable.

There he had an interview with the new king, Byang-chub-’od (the king of the Tabo inscription) who had continued collecting gold for his uncle’s release. Ye-shes-’od advised his nephew not to use the gold for his own release, but for bringing an Indian pandit to Tibet. He said : “ I am now grown old, and am on the verge of the grave. In none of my former births, I believe, did I die for the sake of Buddhism. This time let me, therefore, be a martyr in the cause of my religion.” Thus they parted, and Lhabla-ma- Ye-shes-’od died in prison.

Then we hear of another embassy of Tibetans to Vikrama^ila, who were almost robbed of their gold on the journey, and a religious assembly at this Indian monastery is described with its brilliant stars of wisdom and holiness who were all eclipsed by Ati^a. As the Indian monks would not have allowed their master to leave the country, Atiia disguised his intention of going to Tibet by saying that he was going on a pilgrimage to the eight places of Buddhist sanctity,^ which pilgrimage took him to Nepal. He was much honoured by the king of that country, called Ananta-kirti, and performed various miracles and acts of piety on the journey. Thus he made all the robbers who wished to assassinate him, dumb and motionless like statues, until he had passed by, and at times, he lifted himself into the air a cubit above the saddle with a view to be distinguished from the others. A smile was ever on his face and Sanskrit mantras were ever on his lips. At a deserted camping ground, he saw three puppies left uncared for. He took them in the folds of his robes, saying •' Ah, poor little ones, I pity you,” and resumed his journey. The breed of these puppies, says the historian, is still to be seen at Eva-sgrengs in Tibet.

When the party entered Guge, they found one hundred horsemen all decoi-ated with white ornamental equipments, sent by King Byang-chub-’od. The escort carried small flags and twenty white satin umbrellas. The band consisted of musical reeds, bagpipes, guitars, and other instruments. With sonorous and grave music, and uttering the sacred mantra, Om matii padme hum, they approached the holy sage to offer him a respectful welcome in the name of the king of Guge. *

^ THe eight great places o£ pilgrimage (Sanskrit mahasthana) aie 1st the Lninbini Garden (modem Eummindei in the Nepal Tarai) where Buddha was born ; 2iii Bodh Gaya where he attained enlightenment ; 3rd the Deei’park (modern Samath) near Benares where he preached his first sermon ; 4th Kusinara (modern Kasia ?) where he reached Nirvana ; 5th th Jetarana near Sravasti (modern Saheth-Maheth), where the great miracle took place, 6th Yaisaii (modem BasSrh) where he was fed by a monkey ; 7th Samkasya (modem Sankisa) where he descended from heaven, and 8th Bajagriha (modern Eajgii‘) where he subdued the wild elephant. [ Ed. ]

^ This reception seems to be represented among frescoes in monasteries of those times.

H 2

Ati^a had never yet tasted tea, and the first cup on Tibetan soil was offered him with the following solemn words ; “ Venerable sage, permit me to make an offering of this celestial drink which contains the essence of the wishing tree I” Ati^a said : “ This curious cup of precious material contains an elixir of the wishing tree. What is the name of this drink which you prize so much ? ” The Tibetans answered : “ Venerable sir, it is called tea. We do not know that the tea plant is eaten, but the leaves are churned in warm water, and the soup is drunk. It has many properties ! ” Thereupon Ati^a, who could pay compliments like any French abb6, remarked : “ So excellent a beverage as tea must have originated from the moral merits of the monks uf Tibet!”

The Manasarowar Lake pleased Ati4a so much that he stayed there for seven days. Then he proceeded to mTho-lding, the capital of Guge, where he was received by the king with due honours. Although all the lamas and noblemen rose respectfully when Ati^a approached them, the old lama, Ein-chen-bzang-po, would not rise, partly from ■envy, partly from weakness. But then Ati4a displayed his intellectual armour in such a brilliant way before the old monk that even he was conquered and ready to sit at the feet of the newcomer.^ After a residence in Guge of two years, Ati^a proceeded ^to Central Tibet. He died at Nyethang near Lhasa at the age of seventy-three in the year 1053 A.D. The founding of the so-called half-reformed sects of Lamaism was due to his exertions. The most important of them is the bKa-gdams-pa sect. It was in monasteries of this sect that Tsong-kha-pa studied, before he started the great reform movement which ended in the creation of the Ge-lug-pa sect. The object of all these reformations was not, as is often supposed, to go back to the early Buddhism as it was preached by Gautama, but to build up a church which represented the doctrines of the Mahayana school of Buddhism in a pure form. The doctrines of N agarjuna were propounded by all the great teachers of Tibet. But the Kala-chakra philosophy with its monotheistic tendencies was also favoured by them.

On the 10th August, we travelled to the southern end of the lake, and then along Its western shore, and at sunset we arrived at bKor-rdzod (map Karzok. Plate XXIII). The sudden appearance of the monastery in that barren desert was such a surprise that it was at first difficult to believe in its reality. On this march, the Tibetan fauna was much in evidence. There wore large herds of rhyang (wild asses which look like mules), and one of the rhyang came quite close to us and watched our caravan passing by. There were very many hares and marmots which did not show any signs of fear, and also the beautiful tail-less rats of Tibet looked at us curiously from behind many a stone. Whilst animal life was thus well represented on dry land, I could not discover any living being in the water of the lake. But as aquatic plants were plentiful it attracted -wild geese and ducks, of which we saw a good number. As Drew says, gulls have their breeding ground on an island in the lake. In spite of the desolation round about, the scenery is very fine. Snowclad peaks, bare hills of brownish colour, dark

’ Tliis incideat is refereed to in one of tlie Tato inscriptions, as stated above. Cf. dFag^hsam-lj on-hang, Part II, p, XVII.

Plate XXIV,

b. Milking goats at dKor-dzod.

blue-green water, and dunes of yellow sand combine to make a picture like those sublime -quiet landscapes, which have become familiar through Sven Hedin’s Tibetan sketches.

The first European who visited the lake was Trebeck in 1820. Cunningham gives the legend of the lake which explains its unusual name. W e heard the same legend at bKor-rdzod. Although the tale is quite without a point, Cunningham says that it is as good as many a Greek tale. The word Thsomo means ‘lake,’ and iJw’i is an ex- ■clamation used by people when driving yaks. According to the tale, an old woman ■ came riding on a yak and made the animal wade into the water. She was shouting Min all the time, and was finally drowned together with her yak. It is strange that Trebeck does not make any mention of a monastery on the lake, although he travelled along its western shore. All the same, the convent must have been in existence in his time, for in an inscription which I found on one of the many mani walls which line the lake shore, the expression dGon-snying, ancient monastery, was used with reference to it. These ma'^i walls extend to about two miles in both directions from the monastery (Plate XXIV, a) . The votive tablets on these walls contained the names of several chiefs of the Pubshu nomads who have their residence close to the monastery. Of royal Ladakhi names, I found only two mentioned, those of the two last independent rulers of Ladakh. But another tablet near the monastery contained a very beautiful hymn on Tibet, especially its western parts. This hymn was more of a geographical than historical character. W e took an impression of this inscription, and I had to make an eye-copy in addition.

I visited the monastery next morning and was disappointed to hear that it was a modern structure, between fifty and sixty years old.^ The old monastery stood on the brook, below the present site ; but not a trace of it now remains. The few ancient images and other articles of worship were taken up to the present building. Among the antiquities pointed out to us, were several miniature mchod-rien of the usual type. • Of all the stucco figures, and of a fine wood-carving in sandal wood, which represented Padma-sambhava with two of his fairy friends, it was asserted that fifty or sixty years ago they had been brought up here from gSham, Lower Ladakh. I suspect that these Eubshu people bought up the entire contents of a ruined monastery in Lower Ladakh. The principal stucco figure represents Buddha with two disciples, and another Padma-sambhava. The names of the other images, I did not try to ascertain, because the history of their date and origin will always remain obscure. I may mention here, that outside, near the site of the ancient monastery, I found a relievo representing Padma-sambhava, carved on a beautiful slab of snow-white quartz. I was greatly tempted to carry it off, but it would have been too heavy. One of the clay pots in the bKor-rdzod monastery reminded ,me of the stone age of Europe. It had evidently been made by plastering the inside of a basket with clay and then burning the basket. All the books at this monastery were modern Tibetan prints.

The neck ornament of a man at bKor-rdzod who acted as Lambardar, attracted my A attention, because it was of cruciform shape, and could at first sight be taken for a Christian ornament. He said, he had excavated it from a high hiU in the neighbourhood.

^ A picture of the old monastery is found in Schlagintweits* B&isen in Indien und Soohasien Jena 1872-18.

I bought it from him for two rupees. It was made of a mixture of metals, similar tO' the Indian kliansl. It was a plain cross with beams of equal length, and at the end of each beam was found a double spiral as an ornament. As I was told by another man from Eubshu, there are ruins of ancient settlements and watercourses all over the country. They are found on high bill s in Eubshu, and are ascribed to a tribe of Mon, the pre-Tibetan inhabitants of the country. These Mon must have been marvels of endurance. How they could have cultivated fields at those altitudes, is a mystery. The barley fields of the bKor-rdzod monastery are in Mr. Drew’s opinion the highest in the world (Plate XXII, b). But those of the Mon settlers must have been higher still. According to Survey maps,^ the altitude of bKor-rdzod is 16,600 feet, but according to Drew it is only 15,000 feet high. Drew gives the following numbers with regard to this lake : length 16 miles, breadth 3 to 5 miles ; depth 248 feet. It may sound incredible that there should have been fields still higher than the present fields of bKor-rdzod whose harvest sometimes fails. But I remember that also on one of my former journeys, in Zangskar, I came across the ruins of a Dard settlement at an altitude where it was icy cold even in summer.

Whilst we were encamped at bKor-rdzod, the chief of the Eubshu nomads visited me, and to entertain him, I showed him the pictures of my “History of Western Tibet.” He enjoyed them thoroughly, but he was struck with emotion on seeing the portrait of the ex-king of Ladakh with his son and retinue. As tho cx-king was married to his own sister, this picture represented some of his nearest relation, and he implored mo not to go away without making him a present of it. There remained no alternative for me but to tear the picture out of the book, and hand it over to him. It was however, fortunate for us, to have placed under obligation sucli an important personage through this little present. Por, if we had not been in his favour, it would probably have taken a long time before the nomads found yaks for us. As matters stood, the yaks turned up in good condition next morning. In the same way, it was also our good fortune to have met with the Assistant Commissioner in Spiti. Otherwise we should certainly have had diflGLculty in getting transport animals from Spiti to the lake. It must be remembered that animals as well as men are scarce in tlicse frontier regions, that the roads are dMcult, if not dangerous, and that these frontier people can hardly be reached by any authority. Last year, as Mr. Ho^vell told me, transport was absolutely refused to a traveller in Spiti, who obtained it only by using desperate means.

As we have been travelling on yaks for some time, and as we have before us many more miles of yak riding, it seems the proper place to say a few words about these interesting Tibetan animals. The first yak ride we had on our way hack from Shipke, and the second on the journey from Spiti to the lake. All those yaks had rings through their noses, and could in a way be controlled by them, for it requires great anger on tho part of the yak to make him indifferent to the pain which would be caused by his tearing himself free and running away. But the yaks which we received for our journey

^ Surrey Map of 1874. Sheet 46 gives Karzofc as 14,960 ft. [Ed.]

Plate XXV.

a. Nomads’ camp on Lake Thsomo Riri.

b. Yaks on the shore of Lake Thsomo Riri.

from bKor-rclzod to Nyoma on the Indus, and from Nyoma to rGya in Ladakh, 'vrere without this last touch of culture, a nose-ring. They had neither saddles, nor bridles, nor even nose-rings, they were absolutely undefiled products of nature. When I asked the nomads why even this last remnant of civilisation was not found on them, they said that this particular breed of yaks did not possess any noses. I was pitying the poor creatures for whom the roses had no scent, when I noticed that two little holes could he distinguished above the mouth. That in these circumstances it was no easy matter to use the yaks for riding, can well he imagined. In fact, their management was so difficult, that I would have gladly renounced this doubtful pleasure altogether, if the ratified air of those altitudes had not compelled me to use these uninviting beasts. When I was tired, I would tell one of the nomads to get me a yak for riding. Then all the men would run in front of the herd of yaks they were driving, shouting at them and waving their arms in the air, to make them understand that they were wanted to stop. A single one could never be made either to stop or to start. Their esprit de corps was so strong that they insisted on doing everything together. Now, when the herd was stopped, one of the unladen yaks was singled out for my use and seized by the horns. Naturally he disliked this treatment, and whilst he was dancing round the man, I was supposed to fly through the air and 'drop on the yak’s back. As soon as I had reached my seat and seized its mane, the nomad would let go the horns, and off went the yak galloping up and down the hillside, until he had found his natural equilibrium, when he joined the herd again. The nomads had the kindness to select for me the least savage of their yaks, but the Khalasi and Khansaman had to take what remained, and that led often to exciting performances. I still see the Khalasi seated on the tail and hindquarters (for he had failed to drop down in the middle part of the animal) of a furious yak, which charged up and down with him on very uneven ground on the Thaglang Pass. Then, when the yak had found his place in the caravan of snorting beasts, he would look out for another yak, his adversary, and poke him with his horns. The opponent, naturally offended by this act of special attention, would pay it back in the same coin. In these continual fights, the yaks knocked a lock off one of our boxes, made holes in several others, and smashed the tripod of our camera. That they did not smash our own legs, was due to the continual care with which we watched these fights. Whenever one’s own yak was charged by his adversary, one had to lift high the threatened leg, and join in the struggle by using one’s stick and umbrella. There was, however, one weapon which was respected by all the yaks. That wns the stone whip of Eubshu. We were now in the centre of a large treeless country, and thus it is not to be wondered at, that even the whip should be a stone implement. It was an oblong stone, three to four pounds in weight, with which the yaks were hammered on their hind quarters, whenever they showed signs of laziness. Curiously, the a.TiiTna.1s seemed to fear the sight of this stone implement more than its weight. The one I was riding on was often energetically hammered by a nomad behind me, a treatment which he endured with the utmost indifference. But the moment he saw another nomad using his stone against a yak in front of him, he shuddered with terror. When the hammering failed to make an impression, the stones were thrown at the yaks.

Once, tlie Khalasi had such a stone flung at his leg, which caused him to complain bitterly, as he was an official personage, hut the nomads explained that it was intended for the yak.

On the 12th August, we had our camp by another mountain lake, called mThso-kyag, (Kyaghar). This lake is only 2^ miles long and one mile broad. Its depth is 67 feet according to Drew. Its water is brackish, like that of the Thsomo Diri. There is no permanent habitation on its shore, but many stone walls have been erected by the nomads who often have their encampment on this lake. The scenery round about is very grand and of the same character as on the Thsomo E.iri.

On the 13th August, we had our camp near Raldrong, where the Phuga brook enters the Indus. Opposite the confluence are the ruins of a Mon village. This is probably the deserted village mentioned by the late Dr. Shawe in his letter of the 19th J uly 1900, in which he advised me to visit Nyoma and surroundings. Dr. Shawe wrote as follows: “ Some miles west of Nyoma are said to be the remains of an old Mon village, where I was told boxes, household utensils, and coins have been found (apparently in graves). Unfortunately I did not hear of this till I had left and was across the Indus, or I would have made enquiries. Coins should prove interesting and instructive,” From the left bank of the Indus we could see deserted fields in terraces, a group of houses, and walls. As, however, the distance from Nyoma was fully ten miles, and we were perfectly ex-- hausted from our long desert journey, I could not manage to visit the site. In Nyoma I tried to obtain some of the articles found by the people at this deserted village, but they pretended not to possess any such things.

On the 14!th August, we marched to Nyoma, where we had our camj) on the loft bank of the Indus. Pindi Lai and myself crossed the Indus on a little raft of inflated skins. The river journey on this raft, where four men had to sit motionless on a single square yard, occupied fuUy half an hour. Pindi Lai got a slight touch of the sun, and a severe headache prevented him from enjoying the shade of the first willows after Kaze in Spiti, to which he had been looking forward. He was, however, bravo enough to take some photos of objects of interest.

The elevation of Nyoma (Nimu, Nima, etc., on maps) is given as about 14,000 feet by Drew. This is certainly exaggerated. It could hardly be more than 13,000. Dro"W mentions the few large wfllow trees of great age at the village. They would not be found, we may be sure, at an elevation of 14,000. Besides, we saw very many young and thriving ones. Before speaking of our own experiences, let me quote Dr. Shawe’s observations according to his letter of the 19th July 1906. He says : “ Here (at Nyoma) are very fine remains of a castle and old town on the top of a rock (Plate XXVI, a).. The buildings all more or less destroyed except the temple which is said to be of the same date as the rest, and contains a fine lot of small brass idols and other temple utensils. The town is said to have been built by bDe-skyong-mam-rgyal (c. 1730 A.D.) whose name I also found on a man,i wall. The only other king’s name was Don-grub - rnam-rgyal (1790 1841), but there are many old maijA walls, both of the ordinary and of the shelf type. On the plain behind the rock are extensive remains of a village whiclt

tlie. jjeople said, was of the same date as the castle, but which appeared to me much older from the style of building, also two or three " step mchod-rten'" but no ladder in the middle of sides (like those of. the AlcM-mhhar-gog carvings). One old mchod-rten of the ordinary type, now fast falling to pieces, had a small door at either end, some three feet high, and the interior was very finely decorated with paintings of Buddha’s temptation, his subduing demons, etc. The decorations of the ceiling were in relievo. It is by far the finest piece of vnchod~rten decoration I have seen yet. The only rock carving I could find was a migmang (kind of chessboard) on a boulder, but no inscriptions on rocks at all.”

As we see, Dr. Shawe himself did not feel satisfied with the people’s statement that the town of Nyoma was built by bDe-skyong-rnam-rgyal. He found distinct signs of an earlier origin. The old types of mchod-rten especially, and the fact that one of them was beautifully decorated inside, point to an age of at least 900 to 1,000 years. I went to examine the temple which occupies the highest position in the now deserted town on the rook and belongs to the ’aBrug-pa order of monks. Since Dr. Shawe had been told that the temple was built in the 18th centruy, the monks had altered their opinion, and I was told that it dated from the days of King Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal (c. 1600). I was, however, not satisfied with an assertion which possibly had no real foundation and asked the monks to show me proof of this assertion. Then they brought me a book which had been dedicated to the monastery by Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal and actually contained a dedication sheet on which the names of the king and his illustrious queen bSkal-bzang could be distinctly read. Of course, a document like that goes to prove only that Senga ge-rnam-rgyal took a certain interest in the settlement, and possibly renovated the temple. It is difficult to believe that there was nothing before Seng-ge-rnam-rgyaTs days in a pleasant vaUey like Nyoma, and ancient mchod-rten distinctly point to a time, earlier than this king. One of the many painted flags {thang-ka) in this temple, particularly interested me, for it not only contained an idealised portrait of Seng-ge-rnam- rgyal’s friend, the great lama sTag-thsang-ras-pa, but also scenes of the royal household 300 years ago. I wanted by all means to have it photographed, and as Pindi Lai was not well enough to climb up to this temple above the present town, I asked permission to take the picture down to the bungalow. This request was not granted, until I had interviewed a high lama of Hemis who was touring in the district.

On this picture we see a number of whitewashed houses, one or two stories high. They look exactly like the present Ladakhi houses and also have a red or black band round the roof, just as the present monasteries have. Then we see the inside of the royal kitchen with five or six people busy at work, and the male and female members of the royal family in separate rooms. Below the houses are painted two processions which approach the buildings from right and left. The men on the right hand side are riding on mules or rkyangs, and those on the left are walking, carrying presents, perhaps tribute. The. chief value of the picture lies in the fact that the costumes of those times ar(i painted so well. Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal is the king who is credited by popular tradition with the introduction of the Ladakhi type, of dress, as it remained unchanged down to the time

I

of the Pogra war. In a collection of Tibetan proverbs which I acquired from a man from rGya some years ago, and which is among the manuscripts brought to Simla, there is a proverb which refers to the change of dress under this king. There it is stated that the king, whose name S6nQ~y€ means “ lion,** said that he was willing to honoui his subjects by giving them one of his ears ; thus the men received the high black cap, called s6ng-g6 Ttioi-wbchog, “ lion’s ear ” which I finci pictured by Drew. The same proverb informs us that the great tiger lama {sTag means a tiger) favoured the women by giving them his spotted skin. Thus the dark blue dress of the Ladakhi women with its red and yellow spots was introduced. The picture in the Nyoma monastery does not, however, show the new fashion, having possibly been painted before its introduction. All the male persons wear turbans, as was the fashion in Western Tibet from c. 1000 A.D. downwards. The royal ladies are distinguished by their rich herags, fillets of leather which are covered with precious stones. Although I have not yet been able to trace them on pictures earlier than c. 1530 A.D., I am convinced that this fashion goes back to examples of old Indian art, where the Nagas and Nagis were represented by a human figure with a snake growing out of the back and over-topping their heads. The herag of the Ladakhi women which begins in the middle of the back and becomes broader over the head, looks like the representation of a snake. Perhaps the Ladaklii women wished to look like Nagis, because these water fairies were famous for their beauty.

We spent Sunday, the 15th August, on the left bank of the Indus river, opposite Nyoma, and resumed our journey on Monday the 16th. Our next aim was Leh, and as the road along the Indus river was impracticable at that time of the year, I had to decide which of the two other roads we were to take, the road by Drangtse (map Tankse), or that by Phuga. As regards the Drangtse road, it attracted me much on account of a description Dr. Shawe had given me of it. The Phuga road, on the other hand, would take us to rGya, the antiquities of which I had previously examined. I decided for the latter route, but I will quote Dr. Shawe’s letter on the Drangtse road to show the reader what we missed. He says in his letter of the 19th July 1906 ; —

“ I was told yesterday by one of the men that at Sakti you only visited the newest of the three old- castles — the oldest being a mile or two up the valley. I am sorry I did not know when there. I saw few, if any, rock carvings in Sakti, except a migmmig (see p. 67) on a boulder. At Drangtse is an old castle and village on top of a rock, destroyed by the Dogras. It is in very fair preservation, some of the streets being quite recognisable. Around Drangtse are numbers —thousands— of rock carvings of the usual ibex and yak type, but no Indian buHs, as far as I saw. At first I thought there were no inscriptions, and nobody could or would tell of any ; but later, on top of a large rock or boulder, I found a number of carvings of some of which I enclose original copies. One, a ehorten, had a long inscription beneath in letters which appear to be mostly, but not entirely, Tibetan, and on another boulder a line in Persian characters. Two or three carvings of crosses

^ J UtMuhco and p. 240 .

were rather interesting ; I give copies. Another carving about a mile out, on the road to Pangkong (lake) of a stag hunt, thus [drawing]. A large and rough outline of Buddha on a rock seems to be fairly new— newer than some chortens on the same rock. I found no kings’ names or votive inscriptions on manis at Drangtse, and the clay tablets were all of the chorten type, without letters, as far as I could see. Ohushol yielded nothing of antiquarian interest, and I found nothing more till I got to Nyoma on the Indus. ”

Let me now add a few notes on Dr. Shawe’s most valuable observations. I may remark that he was the first traveller w^ho ever passed through this district with his eyes open to objects of archaeological value. In 1906, 1 had travelled with Dr. Shawe as far as Chemre {IGe-hde) where we had investigated the monastery built by Seng-gernam-rgyal. We became thoroughly convinced that there had existed a monastery previously on the same site. I went up the valley from Chemre to Sakti on a hurried visit, and as Dr. Shawe points out, in his letter, visited only the latest of three ancient castles. The first European traveller who visited the Chemre-Sakti valley, was Moororoft in 1820. He also noticed the “ fort ” of Sakti which was already in ruins in his time. What he saw was also “ the newest of the three old castles. ” Thus, the two older ones still remain to be investigated. Moorcroft^ says : “ On the face of the mountain, forming part of the eastern limit of the valley, stood the fort of Sakti, a pile of buildings surrounded by a wall and towers, the whole built of granite blocks cemented with clay ; the houses were unroofed, but the walls were mostly standing. This fortress was evidently intended to command the northern entrance of the valley, but it was taken and dismantled by the Kalmaks nearly two centuries ago and has never been repaired. ”

The Kalmaks who dismantled this fortress, were evidently the Mongols and Lhasa Tibetans under Thse-dbang of Galdan, who after having beaten the Ladakhis in the battle of Zhamarting, besieged them in the fortress of Basgo. On their way to Basgo, 1646, they probably destroyed all the fortresses of eastern Ladakh, As we learn from Moorcroft, the Chemre-Sakti valley was under the command of the famous Ladakhi minister Bang-kha who ruled over seventy villages. The family of these Bang-khas evidently had the hereditary office of ‘defender of the eastern gates of Ladakh. Their principal castle was the gSer-khri-mkhar of Igu, in the neighbouring valley, where there are many ancient ruins, among them walls with frescoes in front of huge carvings of Bodhisattvas. One of the great generals of bDe-ldanr nam-rgyal (c.l630 A.D.) was a Bang-kha-pa from Igu. We also find a Bang-kha-pa in a high position of command during the first part of the Dogra war, when he did not quite justify the confidence placed in him.

As regards the other places of archaeological interest mentioned by Dr. Shawe, they were not noticed by Trebeck on his way to the Pangkong lake. But Trebeok gives an interesting description of a festival he witnessed at Drangtse. As regards the inscription “ mostly, but not entirely Tibetan, ” Dr. Shawe’s copy of it was sent to Dr. Vogel, who said that it probably dated from c. 700 — 900 A.D., judging by the form of the characters used. It contained the Buddhist formula Ve dharnM, etc., which.

i2

1 Travels, Yol* 1, p 426.

according to my obseiTations, played the part of the Oni mdtii pctchne fiiuh among the Ladakhi Buddhists of those times. The Indian, characters, used by them, bear a remarkable resemblance to the Tibetan characters, for "v^'kich reason 1 ha^ e come to the conclusion that the Tibetan script was developed in the western parts of Tibet, probably under the influence of Kashmir and Turkestan Buddhism.^ This inscription may possibly give a clue to the date of the Maltese crosses found by Dr. Shawc in the vicinity.^ Christianity in its Nestorian form was somewhat powerful in Turkestan about 900 A.D. and, although I do not venture to assert that there -aas a Christian community at Drangtse in those days, I think it not imj)robable that tlie ancient inhabitants of Drangtse had become acquainted with Christian lorms ol crosses. It is very probable that trade connections between Ladakh and Tui-kestan (.‘xistod as early as 700-900 A.D. The Ladakhis were jn-obably ready to try the ojficacy of the Christian crosses for the sake of exj)criment, just as they swallow pages of Christian books nowadays, if swallowed pages of Buddhist writings have not the desired effect.

I was told that there was another deserted Mon settlement above Xyoma on the hd't bank of the Indus. When our caravan started for Phuga on Monday the 16th August, I made a special trip to this old site which is called Staglung. On my way thither I passed by the village of Ngod (JfwcZ, or Mad of the maps) on the right hank of the Indus, which is known for its monastery. I was told that the Ngod nionast(‘ry was of more recent date than the Nyoma one, and that it was erected by Xgag-dliung-rnumrgyal, the step-brother of Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal who had been ol)liged to tak(^ n.digious orders. Staglung is about seven miles distant from Nyoma (or better Xidar) and is situated in a very dry side valley near the Indus. There I found a rocky hill covtu-ed with ruins of houses, the single rooms of which were very small. As there arc* no traces of ancient flelds round about, it is probable that Staglung was not a village, but a monastery. Below the rock is a number of ancient mchod'Hen (about 15 to 20) and several rows of 108 small mchod-rten, all of which are built of sun-dried bricks. In two of the larger mchod-rten we found cremation tablets of clay, painted red. Two of them contained an inscription of the Ye dharmd formula in an ancient type of Tibetan character. This would point to Tibetan influence before the abandonment of the establishment.

As the word ’aBrog-pa (Dard) is never used here at Xyoma, nor in Rubshu, to signify the pre-Tibetan inhabitants of the country, I believe that the word 3Ion, which is here always used for them, refers to the Dard settlers of Rubshu and Xyoma district. At any rate, the Dards of Da state expressly in one of their songs that they once colonised Rong-ohu-rgyud, w hich is the site of the present village of Xyoma and

Seo my article : The Kingdom of gNya hhn btsanpo,in J. A.

_ » These oroases Trere again examined by Eev. S. Schmitt of leh in 1911. Mr. Schmitt found inscrii.tions in an unknorra senpt, top to bottom, m the vicinity of the crosses. Professor A. Grunvedel of Beilin points to the simUirnty

between the Drangtse inscriptions and the Nestoiian tomh-inscriptions treated by Chvolson of St. Peterabui^. Dr. A. von,

to be Soghdian. The woi-d Sld\mafkla\nia may be read without diffoulty. According to Professor P. W. K. Mtller. the Drangtse inscriptions were can-ed by pilgrims and dated.

iiii

WKSrnm

ftmass

•surroundings^. But the Bard civilisation apparently went beyond the present Tibetan boundary, for on Sven Hedin’s new map I find a district near Euthog called Monyul, a name which evidently refers to a former colonization by Mons or Bards.

On the 17th August, we passed by the borax and sulphur mines of Phuga, 14,800 feet high, and saw some of the hot springs in the valley. The houses near the mines were uninhabited, but did not appear to be very old. It was apparently here that the Ladakhi kings obtained the sulphur which they sent to TCulh between 1650 and 1836 A.B. In Kulu, this sulphur was exchanged for iron according to the trade contract between Ladakh and Kulu.* In one of the old mcliod-rten at the upper end of the Phuga valley, we found a terra-cotta inscribed with Indian characters. This makes it probable that the mines were worked already by the ancient Mons (or Bards). As there are so many hot sulphurous springs in the valley, some even in the middle of the river bed, the air is in many places full of sulphurous gases.

W e crossed the Phologongkha Pass (16,500 feet) on the same day, and had our camp on the shore of another large lake called mThso-d kar (White Lake) by the Tibetans, and “ Salt Lake ” by the cartographers. The elevation of this lake is 14,900 feet ■according to Brew. The first European to visit this lake was Trebeck, who passed by it in 1820, on his journey to Spiti. He calls it Thog ji chenmo, Avhich is evidently the name of the monastery Thugs-rje-chen-j)o on the shore of the lake. This justifies our conclusion that this little monastery was already in existence in 1820. I was told that the present buildings were erected only a few years ago, instead of an older establishment which consisted mainly of cave dwelhngs. The present monastery contains only a few modern Tibetan books and a stucco statue of Avalokite^vara, after whom it is called, Thugs-rj e-chen-po.

In the vicinity I noticed a cave, the entrance to which was closed by a stone wall, n^nd this stone wall again had several clay seals impressed on it. Both kinds of seals showed complicated designs of the svastika. It is probable that some evil spirit was believed thus to be shut up in the cave. Erom one of the little houses near the monastery was suspended a piece of wood shaped like the male organ, painted red. As we read in the chronicles of Ladakh, “ King Lha-chen-rgyal-po (c. 1050 — 1080 A.B,), provided with untiring zeal the recluses that lived in the neighbourhood of the Kailua and the three lakes with the necessaries of life.” This passage undoubtedly refers to the Manasarowar lake in the first place, but it may also refer to the lakes of, Eubshu, for I am fully convinced that, although no ancient remains have been discovered in them, yet the monasteries on the Thsomo Eiri as well as on the Salt Lake are of great age. On the Pangkong Lake no monastery exists.

As the Salt Lake is surrounded by marshes, it does not make such a pretty picture as the Thsomo Eiri, and the Khyagar Lake. The best view is probably Obtained from the site of the little monastery. The following notes are taken from Brew who gh'^es a very interesting geological account of this lake. The former level of the lake, as saown

^ my translation of the eighteen songs of the Bonona festival, Ind* Y oh XXXI Y, p. 93.

^ See the account of the trade in my pamphlet ‘ Di^ reli^ioseTi und historisQ^en ISrinnerungen der JjoihovZ^ ^

by distinct marks on the hillside, was 320 feet above the present level, and at that time the lake covered between 60 and 70 square miles as against its present eight square the small fresh-water sheet included. This change of level is explained by him as being due not only to the erosion of dams, but also to the diminution of the humidity of the air. The salt lake produces various kinds of salt. On the northern shore of the lake, common salt is deposited. This is collected by the nomads who trade with it. It is consumed all over Ladakh, and even in Kashmir. Over part of the plain round about the lake, a carbonate of soda, called patsa (Bathsa) by the Tibetans, is found. This is the salt of the poor, and of animals. Another mineral found in the vicinity is called gurm. It is a mixture of sulphate of magnesia with a compound of soda. The depth of the lake is only 30 feet at the eastern end, its deepest part.

We had our next camp at Debring, on the southern side of the Thag-lang Pass, and exchanged our yaks from Kyoma for others from Rubshu. Debring is a nomads’' camping groimd which is furnished with several mani walls and mchod-rten, although there are no houses.

CHAPTER III.

The Indus Valley,

a, LADAKH.

We crossed the Thag-lang Pass (17,500 feet high) on the 19th August, and marched to the village of rGya (13,500 feet high), the first village of Ladakh, on the road from Rubshu, Before entering rGya, we passed by the ancient remains of the village of Rum-rtse (map Ramcha) which is asserted to have been a Mon settlement. When Moorcroft halted here in 1820, the whole population of this little village, who had never seen a European before, fled in terror, leaving their houses empty.

What may be called the necropolis of the ancient Mons of Rum-rtse, is situated on a plain above the trade road, about two miles above rGya. It consists of a number of large single mehod-rtm, and many well-preserved rows of 108 little stupas. The present inhabitants of Rum-rtse said that all those mchod-rten, having been the work of Mons, were not reverenced by them. The Mons and the Tibetans had nothing in common, they said. Although we examined some of the ruined mchod-rten at the site, we did not find any inscribed tablets in thmi. We took a jdioto of a rather well-preserved specimen of these rmhod-rten which was of the so-called ladder type, as we find if represented among the ancient rock carvings near the Alchi bridge. The lower pari showed remains of stucco frames which, I suppose, originally enclosed stucco figures of Buddlia. This kind of ornamentation is not found on Tibetan mehod-rfen. If a Tibetan rrtehod-rten has stucco relievos, they represent lions, Garudas and other animals. These are not found round the base, but round the middle portion of the mehod-rien. Another of our photos shows some of the well-preserved rows of little slvpae (Plate XXVT, b).

Opposite, and a little below tlie necropolis, on the other bank of the rGya brook are the ruins of the ancient castle and town of the Mens, called Bjum-rtse-mkhar, with cave dwellings close by. The naost conspicuous building in the old town was a round tower of great dimensions. Unfortunately, our limited time did not allow us to visit the site. The rGya district altogether is so full of ancient remains that an archaeologist could profitably spend a couple of weeks here.

There is another ruined castle (called mBihar-gog'), on a spur in a side valley to the left, between Rum-rtse and rGya. Although I could not trace any traditions regarding it, it is apparently of Mon, *.e., pre-Tibetan, origin. Besides, there are many ancient Mon stupas in various places between Eum-rtse and rGya. The two large mchod-rten seen by Moororoft on the road before entering rGya, are apparently still in existence. They are of Tibetan origin, and probably not more than two centuries old.

The site of the old settlement of the Tibetans at rGya is called rQya-mJchar. It is situated on a spur of the right bank of the rGya brook. From Moorcroft’s account it appears that in 1820 A.D., the site was no longer inhabited and that Moorcroft’s town of rGya was identical with the present, which is situated on the left bank of the brook. He says’^ : “ Opposite to the town, on a lofty ridge of rocks, was a large pile of houses, formerly inhabited by the raja ; and lower down, one belonging to the lama.” The ruins of this ancient Tibetan town are stiU very picturesque. Higher up on the same hill are several ancient watch-towers. When Moorcroft was in rGya, he found one of the ancient chiefs of the district still in authority. He had friendly intercourse with this man whom he calls a raja. He says : “ The raja whose name was Tsimma Panohik, was a short stout man about fifty.” Of course, there were no kings of rGya, not even a vassal king. The title of raja {rgyal-po) may have been given to the chiefs, because they were related to the Ladakhi kings. Now the line is extinct, and all records being lost, I found it impossible to establish the identity of Moorcroft’s Tsimma Panohik. It is even difidcult to make out what Tibetan name may underlie Moorcroft’s sp ellin g of it. I suppose that the man was called Thse-dbang Phun-thsogs, pronounced Tsewang Puntsog. I asked several people at rGya if they could remember the names of the last members of their line of diiefs, and they gave me the following three names ; (1) bKa-blon-Thse-bstan ; (2) None bSod-nams jo-rgyas ; (3) bKra-shis (or Thse-ring) bZanggrub. More they could not remember. It is, however', possible that on a votive tablet on one of the mani walls at rGya the name of Moorcroft’s friend may yet be discovered. Thus an inscription on a may.i wall below rGya, of the time of bLe-ldan main-rgyal (c. 1630 A.D.) contains the name of one (or two ?) probable ancestors of Moorcroft’s Tsimma Panohik, via., Nono bSod-nams-ihun-grub, ‘ father and son.’ In this inscription the castle of rGya is called rGya-mkhar-rmug-po, ‘ the dark red castle of rGya.’ On another mani wall in the vicinity of the preceding I found a tablet which is of interest on swjcount of its reference to the state of Ladakh during .the times following the battle of Basgo, 1647 A.I>,

1 Travels^ VoL t, p. 234.

It gives the name of the Lhasa commissioner -who for a time was regent of Ladakh and who, as the chronicles prove, intended to make himself the independent ruler of the country. His name is given here as rGyal-hai rgyal-thsab rJe-btsun Mi-pham-mgon.. But unfortunately, there was no time for copying these inscriptions in full, nor for making impressions of them.

Behind the present village of rGya, on the left bank of the brook, there is a plateau studded with a number of ancient, mostly ruined mehod-rten. They are still held in veneration by the present inhabitants of rGya (Plate XXXI, a). This is remarkable, because many of these mchod-rt6n which are called Jjha-haib-nichod- Hen, undoubtedly go back to Mon times. And had not the people of the neighbouring village told us plainly that they were indifferent to everything connected with the Mons? The difference may be this, that whilst the Mons of Eum-rtse did not succumb to Tibetan influences, the Mons of rGya did. We found several types of cremation tablets with Indian inscriptions, containing the Te dharma formula. The characters employed are of c. 700 — 900 A.H. according to Hr. Yogel’s estimate. But there were also several tablets which showed the same formula in Tibetan characters. The difference between the Tibetan and Indian characters rests mainly in this, that in the Tibetan version the aspirated mediae are indicated by an ordinary media furnished with a subjoined h, whilst in the Indian version gh, dh, and hh are expressed in simple characters. Besides, the Tibetan version has the tripartite y, whilst the Indian version has a later form of the y. In two cases, there were two tablets showing almost exactly the same design, but the characters used for the inscription were Tibetan on one of them, and Indian on the other. Among the Zhd-bah-mchod-Hen, there were also the ruins of an ancient monastery of unknown origin, built of sun-dried bricks. I am almost convinced that the town of rGya is mentioned in the time of King Sadna legs, c. 850, in the chronicles of Ladakh. There it is stated that King Sadna legs built the temple of sKar-chung-rdo-dbyings in the province of rGya {rGya-sde). This could, of course, also be translated by “ Indian Province ” or "Chinese Province.” But it is very unlikely that a Tibetan king should have built a monastery in a district, the hold on which was always uncertain. It is a pity that the name of the ruined temple in the middle of the Lha-bab-mehod-rten has become entirely lost.

On the 20th , August, we left rGya for Mar-rtse-lang (map Marsahing), the MarsiUa of Moorcroft. Below rGya, we passed by a high lhatho, an altar of the pre-Buddhist religion, with a few houses and fields in the vicinity. It is the Zaiu of Moorcroft, and soon we reached the houses and fields of a small settlement, called Eong.^ ■ -

We made a short halt at this place, because I wished to examine the site of some ancient graves, called Mm-gyi-rom-khang, " graves of the Mons.” Tke first who told me of the existence of these graves, was our evangelist dGa-Phun-thsogs of Kyelang, who k a native of rGya. He had told me that he had been inside them when a shepherd

^ Oa the map this village is indicated by the name of

b. Ruined monastery at Miru,

l3oy. He said that then the graves were quite accessible ; that he went down a staircase and came to rooms furnished with boards of pinewood, on which were placed numbers of skulls. A native of Hong whom we met, also asserted that the graveswere very deep and furnished with masonry walls. As regards pinewood, I must say that it is a very rare article at rGya, which place is nowadays 150 miles away from’ the nearest pine tree. When we looked at the graves, we saw only pits in the ground for the superstitious people of Hong had closed them up with earth. As my observations later on in Leh showed me, it is very probable that these ancient graves of Hong belong to the same period as those of Leh, which I have much reason to attribateto the period of the “ Empire of the Eastern Women.” This State bordered on Ladakh, if it did not include parts of Eastern Ladakh. The Leh graves as well as those of Hong are furnished with masonry walls. Both contained numbers of skulls, a circumstancewhich points to the custom prevalent in that empire of burying all the higher oflBciala along with the chief. The fact that the skulls were placed on boards in Hong, seems to show that the corpses were cut to pieces. Also at Leh the skulls as well as the vases containing the bones were originally placed on boards which became rotten when irrigation water entered the graves. Most of the larger pots at Leh had holes inthe bottom, which shows that they probably had fallen down from a higher position. As excavations in Hong would have been possible only at a considerable sacrifice of timeand money, I abandoned the idea for the present.

The next village on the road along the narrow valley from rGya to the Indusis Meru, pronounced Miru. It has a monastery in ruins which was famous in oldem days (Plate XXVn, b). It is situated on a hill above the trade road. Its temple occupies the uppermost position on the top of a little conical hill, and the now mined cells

of the monks surround it below. It used to be one of the important monasteries-

of Ladakh, but its founder is not known. It lost much of its glory, when Eing Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal made it the “ mother ” of the Herais monastery which he builtin the Shang valley. On that occasion, not ordy the “ spirit ” of the Meru mona- stery was carried off in a bundle of twigs, but also most of the images were-

transferred to Hemis. But Meru had to suffer a still greater injury during the Hogra wars, when it was plundered, and the monks expelled. At present, there is not much remaining in the temple hall ; one of the frescoes is, however, of unusual interest as it represents Gog-bzang-lha-mo, the mother of Kesar and one of the great pre- Buddhist deities of the Ladakhis. This picture is probably of ancient origin, although it had apparently been renovated from time to time. It was painted at a time wheu Bon -po art was largely influenced by Buddhist art. The complexion of the goddess is a-, beautiful white, whilst her hair is black. The hair is raised over the forehead and furnished with a ribbon and a diadem of pearls. Her ear ornaments (probably shells) are white and spiral-shaped, and her dress is white with blue and red seams. In her hand she carries a white cup.

Opposite the monastery, there is a hill with cave dwellings, probably the mostancient inhabited locality at Meru. It is called ^aho (‘ Oaves ).

K

The place where the ixihabitaats of Mem had to liye before they built their present houses in the bottom of the yalley, is a hill spur on the right bank of the rGya riyer where there are extensire ruins of houses. As has been stated aboye, during the ascendency of the Ladakhi kings people were not allowed to liye among the fields, probably to prevent their trespassing too much on yaluable ground. But, as we learnt from Moorcroft’s account of rGya, the lofty sites on the top of rocks were already partly abandoned daring the times of the last king, Thse-dpal -don-grub -rdo-rje-rnamrgyal (1820 A..])). Prom his account it appears that at Meru also people hyed in their present houses in 1820.

Several miles below Mlera, the xGrya brook discharges into the Indus, and at this place is situated the village of TJbshi (Hoorcroft’s UhsKi). In this village we noticed several meJiod-rten of great age which were known to the inhabitants as mcliocl-rten of the Mons. We examiued the interior of one of them and found the walls inside covered with ancient frescoes which were apparently painted with two colours only, indigo blue and brownish red. There were any number of rows of figures of blue complexion seated cross-legged, Their garments were white with red scams. The larger pictures in the centre of the four walla were too far gone to allow of any identification. The headdress of these blue figures was somewhat unusual ; it looked as if the ends of a long hair-pin projected on each side. Later on, when I had examined several more similar frescoes at other ancient sites, I came to the conclusion that the TJhshi pictures represent Hagas {Klu), and that these ancient mchod-rten may he Bon-po, and not Buddhist, structures.

We spent the night of the 20th and the 21st August at Martsclang. Hero I had a pleasant surprise ia meeting one of the Leh mission ladies, Mivss Scliurtcr, vho had travelled through the desert wilds of Bubsbu from Kyelang to Leh, accom 2 )anied only by two Ohristiau Tibetans from the former place. I might bare caught her up much earlier, if she had not been alarmed by rumours of the ajopmoach of a very untrustworthy sportsman (myself !) which caused her to make double marches to escape him.

Martselang is situated at the lower end of the Shang valley (the Qhanga of Hoorcroft), which eontaiiis the Hemis monastery. This monastery which was built by king Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal only about 300 years ago, has acquired quite -unusual fame among European visitors to Ladakh on account of its devil-dances. These are performed here in June (originally probably on the occasion of the summer solstice), a convenient time for Europeans to attend them, whilst most of the other monasteries have the same performance in winter. The monastery was also frequently referred to fifteen or eighteen years ago, when the Bussian traveller Notovitch surprised "the world by stating that he had found in it a copy of a new Christian gospel written in Pali. A great deal of learned correspondence then took place which proved that Hotovitch’s extraordinary find was a forgery. The interesting Tibetan account of the foundation of this monastery was brought to Europe by the Schlagintweits, and the GCibetan text with an attempt at a partial translation was published by Bmil von

Sclilagintweit.^ I lioj)© to find time to prepare a reliable yersion of this interesting document. Although the Hemis monastery is not very ancient, yet it contains images of a type which is found only in monasteries of the 10th or 11th century. When the monks are asked to state the place of origin of such statues, they say that they were brought here from Lhasa. I wonder if that can be true. It seems to me that a more likely explanation is that these images were brought here from Meru, which is, as already stated, the “ mother ” monastery of Hemis.

At Martselang we saw again many ancient mohod-rten of the Mon type, and all along the road, from this place to Ohushod, these mchod-rten were much in evidence. I may add that it is very much the same on the other bank of the Indus, e.g., at Khrigtse, E/anbirpur, and Sheb, where they are numerous. At Eanbirpm’, I remember having seen even several specimens of the ladder type in fair preservation. The conviction that we are travelling here on ancient Buddhist ground, grew very strong on me. It is not impossible that the present village and monastery of Khrigtse are identical with the castle of Khri-btsegs-’abum-gdugs mentioned before Srong-btsan-sgam-po, who was the first Buddliist king of Tibet, and with the monastery of Khri-rtse mentioned under King Mes-ag thsoms (706 — 755 A.D). Local names in Sanskrit which are found here and there in Ladakh, date from the times of this more Indian than Tibetan form of Buddhism. The names of Meru, and Sakti (Skr. SaMi) have already been mentioned. I may add the names of Muni and Kanika (= Kanishka ? ) in Zahgskar, and Tar (Skr. Tdrd, on account of the Svayambhu Taras at that place), Hari rtse (Summit of Hari). The greater part of the Ladakhi local names are certainly Tibetan, but not a few are of Dard origin. In connection with the latter statement let me point to the many names which have the Bard word hem (Skr. hima) or hen “ snow,” as one of their component parts, mz., Hembabs (Bras), Henasku, Hema la, Hemis. Of other pla inl y Bard names like Hanu, Hunupatta, Garkunu, Chanegund, Hibti, Esu, et(j., I cannot yet explain the etymology. The name Banblrpur is a modern Bogra name.® A few ancient Indian personal names also have been preserved in folklore and inscriptions. Thus, the ruined castle opposite Stag-sna is called the castle of king Surgamati (Skr. Sury-amati, “Sun-mind”) and among the old royal names on inscriptions at Khalatse we find Shirima (Skr. Srlmdn) and (probably) Satyamati (“Truth-mind”), besides several others.

When riding along the left bank of the Indus river, we could see the villages, castles and monasteries on the right bank, a visit to many of which would amply reward archseological research. T'he conical hill of the Khrigtse monastery always looks picturesque, and so it is with the Stag-sna monastery which is built on a rock between two arms of the Indus. The buildings of this monastery look almost like a royal castle. It was built with the greater care, because it was the residence of several members of the royal family who had taken orders in the ’aBrug-pa sect. The erection of this monastery in its present shape is attributed to Kgag-dbang-rnam-rgyal, the step-

^ “ Buddhism of Tibet

2 The place is named after Eanbir fcSingh, tlie son

and successor of Gulab Singh and tha second Dogra ruler of Kasmir.

K 2

l)rotlier of Seng-ge-rnana-rgyal. The village of Sheh {Shel) oa the right baak has also maay attractions. It was appareatly the capital of Ladakh, before the old kings of Leh, the professed descendants of the mythological king Kesar, were expelled. Here are the ■most ancient royal rock inscriptions, but the best preserved of them will probably remain inaccessible for some time for the natives of Sheh, being afraid of a devil who has his abode exactly in front of the bast of them, have erected a wall which conceals the entire inscription.

We crossed the Indus at Ohoglamsa, The water was so high, that it flowed over part of the bridge, and we had to ride through deep water for several hundreds of yards on the bridge as well as on the left bank. At Ohoglamsa we met two ladies of the Mission who had come to the bridge to welcome Miss Schurter, and on the road through the sandy desert below Leh we were welcomed by several more members of the Moravian Mission. We rode along the long royal mani walls south of Leh which had astonished Moorcroft ninety years ago, and entered Leh with thankful hearts, for w^e w^ere all much in need of a good rest. Here in Leh we again received letters, the flrst since leaving Poo four weeks before, and also a remittance. But a more powerful inducement to continue our work was the approval of our past doings, which found expression in Hr. Marshall’s letters.

b. LEH.

The name of La-dvags is not mentioned in the Tibetan chronicles before the -reign of king Nyi-ma-mgon, c. 900 A.D., when it is stated that it was in the hands of Gesar’s descendants. The kings Lha-chen-she-srab and Khri-btsug-lde (c. 1850 — 1400 A..H.) seem to have resided chiefly at Sabu ; and only the kings from ’aBum-lde onward, (after 1400 A.H.) resided permanently at Leh. As has already been mentioned, the ■original name of the town is not sLel, as it is now-a-days spelt, but sLes, which signifies an encampment of nomads. These nomads were probably in the habit of visiting the Leh valley at a time when it had begun to be irrigated by Hard colonizers. Thus, the most ancient part of the ruins on the top of the rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo hill at Leh are •called ’aBrog-pai-mkhar (Hard castle), and of the supposed Hard graves at Leh, we shall have occasion to speak again.

The first European to visit Leh was apparently the Jesuit Hesideri who visited .Ladakh in 1715 during the reign of King JSTyi-ma-rnam-rgyal whom he calls Nima namgial. The Jesuit was kindly received by the king, but as the Muhammadan traders plotted against him and undermined the king’s confidence, he soon left the town and travelled to Lhasa. I regret to say that I have not yet seen a satisfactory account of this interesting and important journey.' A relic of Hesideri’s mission was discovered by the next European visitor to Ladakh, Moorcroft. He found at Pashkyum an old Bible on which he makes the following remarks “ A Sayid, who seemed to act as his [the Pushkyum Pi.aja i.e. vassal chief's] ghostly adviser, produced a book which had descended

^ The best seems to be ; Carlo Puini, II Tibet, secondo la velaidone del viaggio del P. IppoUto Desideri,

^ Traoels, Yol. II, ppt 22 ff.

:from his grandfather to the Ilaja, and which prored to be an edition of the Old and New Testament from the Papal press, dated in the year 1598. It was bound in Morocco, with the initials I. H. S. surmounted by a cross, stamped on each side of the cover. How it had come there no person could inform me, but it might possibly have been given to the ■former Raja by Desideri, who visited Ladakh, although it is very doubtful if he reached Le. The Khalun and Khaga Tan zin made, at my request, very particular inquiry regarding any evidence of a European having been at L6 before us, and no proof nor tradition of such an occurrence could be traced.” I feel confident that a critical edition of Hesideri’s diary will establish beyond doubt the fact that Desideri actually visited Leh.

But although Moorcroft was the second instead of the first visitor to Leh, his description of his visit is of the greatest importance in historical as well as geographical ■respects. Moorcroft visited Ladakh fourteen years before the kingdom lost its independence. He spent two years at Leh, and as he was a very keen and intelligent observer, his description of the kingdom is of unique interest. Trebeck, Moorcroft’ s travelling ■companion, who was a clever draftsman, made a pencil sketch of Leh, which was reproduced in the account of their travels, and this picture of Leh, the oldest known to exist, no archaeologist would willingly lose. The reason why Moorcroft spent such a long time :at Leh was his attempt to arrange for the king of Ladakh’s tendering his allegiance to the East India Company. It took him a long time to win the confidence of the Ladakhi king, Tuntuk namgial {Bong-mb-rnam-rgyaT) and his Prime Minister, Tsiva Tandu {Thse-dbang- dong -rub). But when they were ready to tender their allegiance, their offer was declined by the East India Company. How different the fate of Ladakh would have been, had it been accepted. Moorcroft had no doubts then, that Ladakh would soon be swallowed up by Russia, for the Prime Minister showed him a letter from ■the Emperor of Russia to the king of Ladakh whiclx had been brought there by a Jew, six years before. Moorcroft and Trebeck became eye-witnesses of some little warfare between the Ladakhis and Baltis, and between the Ladakhis and the Kulu State ; they also saw the seditious placard at Leh, in which the unsatisfactory rule of the king was contrasted with the excellent rule of his predecessor, his brother, who had died .young. There is simply no end of most interesting information in Moorcroft’s account, .and I hope to be spared to edit the Ladakhi portion of his journal with notes from the Tibetan point of view.

Let me now quote Moorcroft’s description of Leh, in 1820, and contrast it with the Leh of the present day. He writes ; ^ “ L5, the capital of Ladakh, is situated in a narrow valley, formed by the course of the Sinh-kha-bab[/S'myye Tcha-bab, i e., the Indus], and bounded on the northern and southern sides by a double chain of mountains running east and west, the highest of which are from eighteen hundred to two thousand feet above the plain. It is built at the foot and on the slope of some low hills, forming the northern 'boundary of the valley, and separated by a sandy plain about two miles broad from the river

1 Trcuoels^ Yol. I, pp. 315 fE.

It is enclosBd by a 'wall, furnisbed at intervals with conical and square towers, and extending on either side to the summit of the hills. It is , approached by a double line of the sacred structures or manis, frequently noticed in the journal, and houses are scattered over the j)lain without the walls, on either hand. The streets are disposed without any order, and form a most intricate labyrinth, and the houses are built contiguously, and run into each other so strangely, that from without it is difficult to determine the extent of each mansion. The number, it is said, is about a thousand ; but I should think they scarcely exceeded five hundred. I'hey vary from one to two or three stories in height, and some are loftier. The walls are in a few instances wholly, or in part of stone, but in general they are built with large unburnt bricks : they are whitened outside with lime, but remain of their original colour inside. They are usually furnished with light wooden balconies ; the roofs are flat, and are formed of small trunks of poplar trees, above Avhich a layer of willow shoots is laid, which is covered by a coating of straw, and that again by a bed of earth.”

Fi’em this description we learn that in 1820, although the general character of the houses was the same as it is nowadays, yet the ground plan of the old town must have been very different from that of the present town. It is true that even then some houses existed outside the walls, but the town proper was enclosed by a fortified wall . The two large bazaars which form such a conspicuous feature of the present to’W'n of Leh were not yet in existence. As popular tradition asserts, the large bazaar of Leh was laid out by the Dogras after the war of 1834-18-12, and the new bazaar was made in 1897 by Captain Trench, British Joint Commissioner. I have been told, the Schlagintweits give a very minute descrijotion of Leh as it was in 1856, when the large bazaar was aheady in existence. Where this description is to be found, I have not been able to trace. A few remains of the walls of Leh are found right in the middle of the present town, where there is also one of the ancient crooked gates. This gate, which is a little north-east of the great mosque at the end of the bazaar, marks the extent of the former town towards the south. All those houses which are found between the rNam-rgyal rtse-mo Hill and this gate, belong to the old town of Leh, of Moorcroft’s time. He makes special mention only of three conspicuous buildings, viz., the royal palace, the Chamba (.Byams-pa, i.e., Maitreya) and the Chenresi (sPyan-ras-gzigs, i.e., Avalokite^vara) Monasteries. These three buildings are still in existence, and will be referred to in due course. The folio-wing conspicuous buildings of the old town must also have been in existence in Moorcroft’s time, although he does not make any reference to them. The house Blon-po (“ Minister ’ ’) is situated directly below the castle, on the south-west corner ;the dGon-pa-so-ma, (New Monastery) is situated on the south-eastern corner of the same castle. It is the scene of the devil-dances which were witnessed by Moorcroft. Both these buildings can be distinguished on Trebeck’s picture of Leh. Below the d6on-pa-so-ma and the Byams-pa monasteries, is situated the mEhar-chung {“ the little Palace”), and exactly below the latter the ruined site of the house (“ Prime

Minister ”), possibly the very same house in which Moorcroft was received in audience by the then Prime Minister. West of the house lEg-hlon we see the house Ta-go-che. The

Plate XXVI I L

a. Clay pots from Dard graves, Leh.

b. Skulls from Dard graves, Leh.

To-go-ohe used to be au official who ranked between a minister and a Orong-dpon, or mayor. The present representative of the To-go-che is Munshi dPal-rgyas, the chronicler of Ladakh. To the west of his house we find the house Orong-dpon or “ Mayor,” and below it the old Byams-pa (Maitreya) monastery. But on Trebeck’s sketch of Leh we see two high palace-like buildings behind the Maitreya and Avalokite4vara Monasteries, of which no trace remains. What were the names of these two buildings ? From the chronicles of Ladakh we learn that a “ new palace” was built above the sPyan-ras-gzigs Monastery during the reign of King Thse-dpal-rnam-rgyal. That would account for one of those buildings. During the reign of the same king mention is also made of a Theg-cJien-gong-ma Hall.” As, however, nothing definite is s.nid with regard to its situation, we do not know whether it is a room in the old castle or the building shown on Trebeck’s sketch between the large royal palace and the “ New Palace,” behind the Avalokite^vara Monastery.

We could not possibly examine all the antiquities of Leh within four weeks, but we did some work, and I now wish to describe what we found.

We were just entering Leh, when I heard that somebody had again opened the ancient Dard graves near the Teu-gser-po, about two miles above the Commissioner’s compound in the Leh valley. This is the same site on which Dr. Shawe and myself had done some excavation work in 1903. As I did not wish anybody else to take away the more important objects of interest, I asked Mr. Schmitt of the Moravian Mission to go with me to the graves on the 23rd August. This we did, and the two Christian boys who accompanied us jmoved very useful in opening the graves, which involved very hard w'ork. The roof of the grave is more than a yard below the present level of the ground. It consists of largo unhewn stones of rectangular shape, each about 1-| yards long, and a foot or so broad. The w^aUs of the grave consist of masonry of unhewn stones. It is about two yards long, yards broad, and at least six feet deep. W e had not yet reached the bottom, when we stopped our excavations. Originally the roof of the grave was probably above the ground. Later on, the deposits accumulated and buried it. But destruction did not set in, as I believe, until a field was made above it. Then, the continual flood of the irrigation water destroyed all the woodwork and many of the bronze implements began to oxydize. I suppose that the Leh graves originally contained wooden boards just like those at rG-ya.

The grave contained clay pots of various sizes, a few entire, but most of them in fragments (Plate XXVIII, a). The largest pot, of which only fragments came to light, may have had a height of three feet, and its diameter was probably not much- less. The smaller pots, which were rarer than the large ones, had a height of 10 to 15 cm. There were also small, saucer-like vessels of clay, probably lamps. The natives who were with us at once asserted, that the pottery of the grave was distinctly different from present dav Tibetan pottery. The pottery of the grave is not wheel-made but hand-made and characterised by vei'y small handles. When Dr. Shawe and myself visited this grave (or another in the neighbourhood) in 1903, we found two elegant pots of medium size which were ornamented with designs in dark red colour. These pots were kept by

Dr. Sliawe in his house, and photographed by Miss Duncan.^ This time we coiilcl not find a single pot with painted designs in the grave. But there were linear ornaments impressed on several of them. The only places in Ladakh, besides the graves, where sim i lar hand-made pottery with dark red ornaments has been found, are the ancient ruined castles of sBalu mkhar and Alchi mkhar gog. A plate showing such pottery is reproduced in my article “ Arohseological Notes on sBalu mJchcir” * Another collection of such ornamental sherds was made at Alchi mkhar gog on our expedition and brought to Simla. These ornaments are all of a very primitive type. They consist of spirals, ladders, and a zigzag band ; and occasionally there arc bunches of lines which may represent grass or reeds.

As most of the pots had holes in their bottoms, I was led to believe tnat they had fallen down from some higher position, probably from wooden boards (as are said to exist in the rGya graves). When the irrigation water entered, the boards decayed and gave way. As I had previously observed, when examining the graves with Dr. Shawe, most of the pots were filled with human bones. This circumstance seems to indicate that the ancient inhabitants of the Leh valley indulged in the gruesome j)ractico of cutting the corpses to pieces and filling clay pots with the fragments. This custom, which is also found in other parts of the globe, is asserted by the Chinese to have been in vogue in the “Empire of the Eastern Women.” Some of the pots had old cracks aird carefully bored holes on both sides of them. Thus the art of mending broken pottery with strings must have been known to the race which built these graves.

There were, it appears, between fifteen and twenty skulls in one single grave (Plate XXVIII, b). How many, exactly, it is difidcult to state now, as w'e were not the first to examine the grave. When we opened a grave in 1903, Dr. Shawe carried homo three of the skulls. He took measurements of them and writes with regard to them in his letter of the 14tb November 1905, as follows : “ All the skulls I got are very decidedly egg-shaped. The measurements taken with an ordinary pair of compasses (we have no proper ' callipers ’ here) along the antero-posterior and longest transverse diameter of the roof of the skull are (approximately) 6fx5 inches, 6fx5|- inches, and 6fx Scinches, Against these, the similar measmrements of a skull which I got in Baltistan from a Musulman grave, presumably that of a Balti, are 6|x 6g inches.” If wo convert these measurements into the ordinary centigrade formulas of cephalic indexes, w^e obtain the following numbers ; three skulls from the Leh grave : 74,70 ; 77,77 ; and 77,77. Balti skull 82,82. Unfortunately, on our visit to Leh last year, even a pair of compasses could not be obtained, and I therefore cannot give any numbers. But as I have acquired an experienced eye for forms of skulls, I venture to state that all the skulls we found in the grave last year, were most distinctly dolichocephalic, and the formulas 74 to 77 would probably suit them all. We had also an opportunity to compare them with two skulls taken by Mr. Schmitt from the graves below Leh which date

• This photograph was reproduced in Miss Duncan’s "A Shimmer Side throv-gTi Western TihetP p, 148, where the painW ornament appears quite distinctly.

» Ind. Ant, Vol. XXXIV, pp. 208 ff.

Plate XXIX.

b. Implements used in devil dances, Leh,

from tlie last epidemic of small-pox in Leh, about a hundred years ago. These skulls from the small-pox graves appeared to be decidedly brachyeephalic, irhen compared with those from the ancient grave. As dolichocephalic heads are a characteristic mark of the Dards of Hanu, Da, and other Dard places of Ladakh, we are led to believe that the people who built the ancient graves were probably of Dard stock ; at any rate they were not of Tibetan, but of North Indian origin.

Besides human skulls, a head of a sheep, and a horn of an ox were also found in the grave. These are apparently remains of a sacrifice, or gifts to the dead.

The grave contained also a number of bronze implements, some in fairly good preservation (Plate XXIX, a). Most of them were, however, much corroded, and covered with a thick layer of verdigris. Phst of aU, I may mention small square leaflets of thin bronze furnished with an embossed ring, of which we found hundreds. Whether they were used for ornamental purposes, or as coins, I find it impossible to decide. Then there were numerous bronze beads, of round as well as of oblong shape, small and large, the largest thicker than a finger. Later on we discovered little pendants of bronze, of bell-like form, with triangular holes and a ring at the top. They were probably inserted between the bronze beads of the necklace. When we took photos of the bronze implements and other articles, we found a glass bead among the bronze beads. It was of mother- o-pearl colour, and looked like Roman or Greek glass. Dr. Marshall informs me, however, that this kind of glass is found all over Asia.

Once, when I Had made arrangements to go to the grave and continue my exploration, I was prevented from doing so by an attack of malarial fever. Then Mr. and Mrs. Reichel of the Moravian Mission .offered to go in my place, and they brought home several more very interesting finds. In particular, there were a number of bronze buttons of various sizes with a loop on the reverse. Some of them were of ordinary size, about half an inch in diameter, but others were much larger, nearlytwo inches in diameter. The largest had a scalloped edge, like an Indian one-anna piece. None of them contained an inscription. The smallest were quite plain, the largest had an elaborate spiral ornament, and those of medium size, a star ornament. I suppose that these buttons were worn by ancient officials as a distinguishing mark of rank, just as is the case in China nowadays.

Some other round pieces of bronze may have served as mirrors, such as are stBl found in Ladakh. Some fragments were probably the remains of bronze pots.

On the 28th August, three of our Christians went again to the graves of their own accord. They found many more bronze implements, several of them in fairly good preservation ; for instance, a can with a spout of excellent workmanship, though quite plain and without any ornament ; a seal with a cross-pattern engraved on it; an entire

bracelet with a pattern of little circles. Although we could trace decorative designs on several fragments, there was no vestige of any script.

In addition let me say that fragments of iron implements came to light also, and that Mr. and Mrs. Eeichel discovered the only gold article that was in the grave. It is of a shape similar to the mouthpiece of a trumpet, but its purpose is not known. Its ornamentation is a curved form of the Greek key.

L

u

After this description of the gra,ve and our finds in it, let me enter into the question of its date and the nationality of the people who built it. As I have pointed out already, in connection with the rGya graves, the condition of these graves calls to mind at once the description of the form of burial practised in the “ Empire of the Eastern Women,” of the Chinese historians. There we read : “ When a person of rank dies, they strip

off the skin, and put the flesh and bones mixed with gold powder into a vase, and then bury it At the burial of the sovereign, several tens of the great ministers and rela-

tives are buried at the same time ! ” The latter statement about this gruesome custom may account for the great number of skulls, sometimes as many as twenty, which are found in a single grave. As the grave contained large bronze buttons, obviously a mark of high rank, it is very probable that the Leh grave actually contained the remains of several “ great ministers.” This “ Empire of the Eastern Women ” has been described in the Sui sliu, a book which was compiled in c. 586 A.D. Here it is called Nii-Kuo. Hiuen Tsiang also heard of this empire, and a little after his time, we read that the last queen died and was replaced by a king. The frontiers of this curious empire are given by the Sui shu as well as by Hiuen Tsiang. They are : Khotan, Sampaha (Ladakh), Brahmapura (Chamba State), and Tibet. Erom these definitions we may conclude that the empire comprised the Tibetan provinces of Guge and Ruthog, and possibly Eastern Ladakh. The empire was a Tibetan one, according to our Chinese authorities, and it therefore appears strange that the skulls of the Leh grave are not those of Tibetans, but of Aryans. My explanation would be that it is very probable that portions of Ladakh were for a time at least included in this empire. The value of our grave finds lies in this that they afford us a glimpse of the general state of civilisation which prevailed in this empire. As regards its date, the presence of iron besides bronze precludes the fixing of any very early date, say before the Christian era. The absence of any form of writing in the grave would perhaps point to a time earlier than 586 A.D., at which time, according to the Chinese, the Indian characters were used in the empire. In my opinion the grave dates from between 1 and 500 A.D.

Eortunately for me, I had finished my investigations, when Mr. Chatterji, Director of Archseology in the Kashmir State, arrived in Leh with the message that it was the wish of the Maharaja that no further excavations of any kind should be undertaken in Kashmir State territory.

The village of Skara {aQa-ra in native documents) is situated south of Leh and forms a kind of suburb of that- town. On the 3rd September, I visited the ruins of the sGar-rtse Monastery at Skara. According to K. Marx this is the monastery " for four lamas only,” founded by King ’aBum-lde, about 500 years ago. It was built on a crag resembling an elephant. This little monastery was destroyed by the Dogras, at least so I was told. There was also another small temple erected below the ruin occupied by one lama who belongs to -the ’aBrug-pa order. Ho tradition regarding King " aBum-lde has been preserved in the locality.

The village of Skara was formerly situated on a rocky spur to the right of the Leh valley, where there are still many ruined houses. The chief reason for evacuating

the former site was said to be an epidemic. There are still many grayes in a side-valley near it.

Probably the most ancient monastery at Skara is the one which is situated in a little ravine, between the rGar-rtse iMonastery and the ruined village. Pour walls are still standing, and there are traces of red colour (frescoes) on the walls. Close by is an underground room, in which we found a human skeleton of recent date.

Below this ruined monastery, there is a mchod-rten shaped like a “ Mon mchod-rten.^' It consists of a lower square room, on the top of which is placed a round pyramid. Locally this mchod-rten is known as the grave of a king. It actually contained human bones, notably fragments of a skull.

Not far from it, on the plain, there is a group of three ancient-looking mchod-rten of the usual shape. A man from Skara had extracted from them several ancient household utensils filled with grain. Out of these, he sold me a sieve cup made of very thin copper leaf.

At Skara my attention was drawn to a rather modern-looking round mchod-rten which was hollow and furnished with a door. Inside of it w’^e found several cremation tablets of ancient style, some with Indian inscriptions. I was told that a few years ago an ancient mchod-rten was deslroyed by a Muhammadan who built a house for himself at Skara. He carried all the tablets found in the old mchod-oden to the new one and hid them there. In the desert below Skara, there are the low mounds of several ancient mchod-rten. We found in them cremation tablets with Indian legends, very much like those at rGya.

In the desert between Skara and Spithug {dPe-thub) on the Indus, on a plateau below the western mountain range, there are the ruins of a large building called Chad-pai-lha-hhang, “ I'cmple of Punishment.” The outer wall towards the east has a length of more than 100 feet. There is no wall on the west side. Perhaps it was left incomplete. I made a plan of it. I was told that in the days of the Ladakhi kings (no persona] name could be remembered) two men were ordered to erect this temple as a punishment for some crime. No woodwork remains, and there are no traces of images or frescoes on the site.

In the desert east of Leh, there is a large mchod-rten of yellow colour, which is called Ma-^i-gser-mo. Popular tradition asserts that it is one of the most ancient here. On the western side of the dome there is a niche with a complete figure of a seated Buddha. It must formerly have had such niches on all four sides. Attached to it are two or three mchod-rten of more recent date. One of them was open, and contained all sorts of old rubbish, viz., fragments of idols, pages of books, charms, and cremation tablets. We took away some of the better preserved tablets. In 1906 we obtained from the same mchod-rten a few sheets of manuscript in a modern Indian dialect which were sent to Dr. Vogel, for examination. As King Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal (c. 1600 A.D.) exhibited strong sympathies with the religions of India, the manuscripts may date from his time. Of more recent date are the pages of a Sanskrit book in D§vanagari character. This book used by the Dogras after the wars, 1834i— 1842 A.D., when they established a

£ %

was

Sanskrit school at Leli ; but the school soon came to an end, and the book was then placed in this mchod-rten. mQhod-rtens of this kind, which serve chiefly as receptacles for old and useless manuscripts, remind me strongly of the Jewish Genizas.

The hill behind the town of Leh is called rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo. On the top there are the ruins of the royal palace which was built by bKra-shis-rnam-rgyal (c. 1520 A.D.) As I had often visited this site during my former stay at Leh, I had not intended to visit it again on this occasion. Owing, however, to the return of the Italian, Dr. iFilipo de Lilipi, of the Duke of Abruzzi’s mountaineering expedition, with his wife and brother, it was decided to show them some of the sights of Loh. One forenoon was accordingly set apart for a trip to the top of rNam-rgyal-rts6-mo, Hr. Eeichcl of the Moravian Mission accompanying us. I had no reason to regret having been of the party, for on this occasion I noticed a few things which I had overlooked before.

The Maitreya temple on the rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo is apparently the oldest, and is in all probability identical with the “ Red College ” built by King ’aBunr-ldc, 500 years ago. It contains an inscription in praise of the reformer bTsong-kha-pa ; and, among many other frescoes, a picture of the bKra-shis-lhun-po Monastery in Tibet. Tliis picture shows the group of buildings which make up the large moirastery, and there is a long inscription attached to it which is distributed all over the picture. Although this inscription, as well as the other one, is in very bad preservation, several sentences can be made out. As masons or architects are therein mentioned, it proba])ly refers to a restoration of the temple. The name of a great minister, Phyag-rdor, is given in one of the inscriptions. He is possibly the same minister Phyag-rdor who is mentioned in the Daru rook inscription. I am inclined to think, for reasons which I will state later on, that Phyag-rdor served under Lha-chen Bha-gan, c. 1470 — 1500 xl.D. In that case the inscriptions in this temple may date from the latter half of the 15th century. I ordered both of them to be copied. On the right and left hand side of the huge Maitreya statue, there are fragmentary traces of two other statues ^vhich once stood there. This is in agreement with a statement in the rGyal-rahs.

There is another temple, of red colour, on the to23 of the same hill, namely, the temple of "the four Lords” {mGon-hhmg). This is the very one which was erected by Mug bKra-shis-rnam-rgyal c. 400 years ago, as stated in the chronicles. K. Mai’x was assured of its existence by bKra-shis-btsan-phel, his lama friend, but he was unable to visit it. It contains very artistically executed figures of “the four Loi’ds” which are about from three to eight feet high. The princij)al figm’e represents rXam-thos-sras (Vai^ravana). All four figures were covered with blankets ; but these were removed with the exception of the one which covered Vai^ravana. With regard to the latter imaffe we were told that it is exhibited only once a year. The lama showed us, however, a fresco of Vai^ravana on the wall, where he is represented in sexual union with his ^>akti. As these images belong to the few in Ladakh which can be dated, they are of the greatest importance for the history of Tibetan art. Among the frescoes on the walls, I found one on the right hand side of the door which represented gorgeously dressed men with Tarkandi turbans on their heads. I could not understand the presence

of these Muhammadan portraits in a Buddhist temple, until the lama in charge explained that they were Ladakhi kings. By the side of the picture, there is a long inscription in gold on indigo tinted paper, which mentions King hKra-shis-rnam-rgyal, the builder of the temple. Prom this inscription it appears that the pictm'e represents this king who testified to his close attachment to the Turkomans by dressing exactly like them. As regards the Turkoman invasion under Sultan Haidar during his time, it is very difficult to reconcile the Tibetan with the Tui’kish account. The latter is found in the Tarikh-i-Bashidi. Not only according to the Tibetan chronicles, but also .according to inscriptions from Ladakh, he gained a signal victory over the Turkomans. According to the Tarikh-i-Bashidi, on the other hand, he was a servant of the Turkomans who held him in little honour.^ I have come to the conviction that he was a very clever politician. hKra-shis-rnam-rgyal knew very well that he could not resist the first violent attack of the Turkomans with an armed force. He, therefore, concluded a treaty with them, and apparently took their side. He then very cleverly enlisted the energy of the Turkomans on his side, for co-ercing his disobedient vassal princes and unpleasant neighbours. Some of them were Muhammadans ; for instance, the chiefs of Sum, Sod, Baltistan, and one in Nubra, It is rather remarkable, therefore, that the Turkomans actually went against and fought them. Whether the Lhasa expedition came to an end a few marches beyond the Manasarowar Lake, or eight marches from Lhasa, as stated in the Tarikh, does not matter much. In the eyes of the Ladakhi kings, the chiefs of Guge as well as the Central Tibetans required suppress- . ing. After the Turks had spent aU their strength on the enemies of the Ladakhis, the latter rose against them themselves, and turned them out of the country. As the Ladakhi chronicles teU us, the corpses of the slain Turks were placed before the idols of the temple of the four Lords {mOon-hhang), This is the reason why the male members of the royal family of Ladakh are shown wearing the Turkestan dress in the frescoes, whilst the female members are dressed in trae Ladakhi fashion, wearing on their heads the herag, a leather strap covered with turquoises.

Above the temple of the four Lords {mGon-hhang) are the ruins of bKra-shis-rnamrgyaTs palace. They include a little Lamaist monastery which is of no particular interest. Buins of other parts of the ancient palace, for instance watch-towers, are found all along the ridge of the rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo hill. Some of the rains are of a ■decidedly earlier date than the reign of hKra-shis-rnam-rgyal. Por instance, I am told that the foundations of a certain round tower are commonly known by the name of '^iBrog-pai-mlehar, “Dard castle.” It may, therefore, be attributed to a building which was erected before the Tibetan conquest of Ladakh, in c. 900 A.D. A man from Leh brought me a fragment of a copper pot, which he said he had found on the top of rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo, It contained an inscription in ancient characters, giving the name of a prince : rQyal sras dBang-[nya ?)-gsing dbmg-po, “ Prince dBang-(nya ?) gsing dbang-po.” As the word rmm-rgyal does not occur in the name, it may be the name of a younger son of a king of the first dynasty of Ladakhi kings. In the

^ Tart kh’i’BasJMu pp. 418 423 and 460.

Ladakh chronicles we read that one of their early kings had placed the bones of Buddha in his elephant incarnation on the top of the same hill. I made inquiries as to their whereabouts and was told that they had been deposited in a mahod-rten which was utterly destroyed by the Baltis about 1680 A.D. ho trace of the relicsremains.

On our way down from the top of the hill, we passed by the Great Palace of Leh which was erected by king Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal in c. 1620 A.D. As I knew from former visits, it is practically empty. We did not enter it, but photographed the carved wooden gate, the famous “Lion Gate” of Ladakh (Plate XXX, b). One of the rooms of the palace contains heaps of old manuscripts. All the paper is indigo-tinted, and the writing is in gold, silver and copper. As this collection probably represents the old royal library, or part of it, I asked Mr. Ohatterji of the Kashmir State^ to make arrangements to put the manuscripts into order again.

I heard rumours of the existence of ancient Indian Buddhist manuscripts at Leh and in other parts of Ladakh, Munshi dPal-rgyas, the representative of the To-go-che family being reported to be in possession of one. Fortunately for me, Munshi dPalrgyas himself arrived in Leh soon after I had heard this, and readily showed me his old book. It was, however, not of Indian, but of Tibetan origin, being the eighth volume of the Tibetan translation of the Prajfia-paramita, and wu'itton throughout in 11th century orthography, gold on indigo-tinted paper. The wooden cover (Plate XXXVII, b) was ornamented with very beautiful ancient carvings, for which reason a photo was taken of the same. Munshi dPal-rgyas emphatically denied the existence of Indian manuscripts at the Hemis monastery, in spite of a rumour to that effect which had been brought to us. But he said that he had heard of the existence of a book, written in Lailthsa characters at the Sanid (or Muni) monastery in Zahgskar. This book may be identical with the old ‘ palm leaf ’ shown to the Bev. Mr. Bateson on the occasion of his iourney through Zahgskar in 1908.

Mr. Meebold^ also makes the statement that he Avas shown ‘ palm leaf ’ books at the Eangdum monastery of Zahgskar. These statements await verification. It is strange that Munshi dPal-rgyas should have bought his ancient book at Lhasa, as he says. The Prajfiia-paramita, as already stated, was translated into Tibetan by Lama Bin-cheu-bzang-po, who was a West Tibetan, and most of the copies of his book were distributed among the W est Tibetan monasteries of his time. Sending them to Lhasa would have been of no use, as Buddhism had practically disappeared from Central Tibet in the 11th century, being introduced into the country again from West Tibet and Khams. But at a much later time, possibly only a century or so ago, a number of important books were carried off to Lhasa. So I was told at the Alchi monastery where no ancient manuscripts now remain. The history of Munshi dPal-rgyas’ book may therefore be as follows : It was originally Avritten for one of the Western monasteries. Then it AA^as carried off to Lhasa ; and was there again sold to a pilgrim for a high price.

^Indieriy p. 264.

'jsinii*.

Here I may add that I made another find of mannscrijjts of a yery different •character at Leh. In the Mission library at Leh, I found a good number of my old liand-written hooks which I had collected in former years and quite forgotten. As they contain many hundreds of pages of hitherto unpublished folklore, I carried them off with me and sold them to Government for the benefit of the Mission, together with another collection of unpublished folklore which T had still in my possession. Among these latter manuscripts was a sheet which contained a kind of introduction to the cryptic alphabet used in Tibetan seals. The inscription on the Dalai Lama’s seal, among many others, is written in this alphabet. How gratifying it was to find that my sheet from Leh proved to be the correct key to the reading of the Dalai Lama’s seal.^ Among my treasures are several hymnals relating to the pre-Buddhist religion of Ladakh which, I hope, it wUl he possible to translate in course of time.

At Ohangspa, a village half a mile from Leh, there is the large residence of a family of ministers {hha-llon) of the former Ladakhi kingdom. In a garden-house {rah-gsal) belonging to the minister’s estate are the remains of frescoes illustrating the Kesar-Saga. Several years ago, I ordered one of them to be copied by a local painter. This time, I had photos taken of three of them, in addition to a copy in colours executed by a localartist. The frescoes in the garden house iviU soon be gone altogether, and as pictures relating to the Kesar-Saga are very rare, I was resolved to save for science what could be saved. All the frescoes in this hall refer to a chapter of the Kesar-Saga, entitled Ljcmg-dmag, “the war against the country of Ljang,” as we find it in the literary version of the Kesar-Saga. Let me remark that the famous epic of Tibet, the Kesar or Gesar Saga, is preserved in two versions which are very different from one another. One of them, the oral version, exists only in the mouths of the people, whilst the literary version is found in several manuscripts in Ladakh, and possibly even in woodprints. All my publications with regard to the Kesar-Saga deal only with its oral version. A manuscript of the literary version of the Saga is in the hands of the present ex-minister of Ohangspa. Prom an article by Schiefner^ it is evident that it was the Ohangspa minister’s Gesar manuscript, which was copied for the Imperial collection of manuscripts in St. Petersburg. Up to the present, nobody seems to have been able to read and translate it. This is very natural, considering the extreme difficulties of its language. K. Marx says that it is written in the Khams dialect. As there are people here at Ohangspa who can read and understand the Saga, their knowledge ought to be utilised for the benefit of science. I copied all the wall-inscriptions relative to the frescoes which it was still possible to decipher. The following notes on the dress of the pre-Buddhist divinities represented in the frescoes, may be of iconographical interest : dBang-po-rgyab-zhin has a red coat, and white cloak with blue seam ; Gog-bzang- Iha-mo is dressed in white, but her trousers are red, and she has a green shawl ; one of her sons (Don-yod ? ) has a red jacket with green seams ; another of her sons (Don-ldan ? )

1 Cf. J. B. A. S. 1910. p. 1206.

^ Publications of the Imperial Academy of Science at St. Petersburg, entitled “ De^ Missiona'r JasMe's Bemii* huncjsn um eine SandschTift des Gesctr. **

lias a wliits and green jacket and red trousers ; Kesar lias a red coat, and a white cloak with green seams; he sits on a red carpet, and the background behind him is bine.

There is a large pyramidal mchod-rten at Changspa which is called “the Kings*' mofiocl-rten” by Europeans, and bKra-shis-sgo-mang by the natives (Plate XXXI, b). The present inhabitants of Changspa say that it was not erected by their ancestors, but by Turks or Mongols on one of their expeditions to Ladakh. The latter assumption is, however, difficult to believe. This old mchod-rten may go back to the times of the Mons or Lards. It is surrounded by rows of one hundred-and-eight mchod-rten. And this goes to prove that it cannot be of much later date than the 15th century, and may very welt be of much earlier date. The mchod-rten has received its name sgo-mang “ many doors on account of the many little niches with which it is furnished. In all probability these niches once contained Buddhist images, but none now remain. On the whole, however, this old mchod-rten has been wonderfully well preserved and is still regularly whitewashed.

Not far from it are several stone sculptures in relievo which probably also go back to Mon or Lard times (c. 700 — 900 A.L.). The best of them shows a standing Buddha with Bodhisattvas on Ms right and left (Plate XXXII, a). The one on his right who carries a vase is Maitreya. The one on his left, and higher up, with a flower in his hand, is Avalokite^varah Above Mm, in the air, we see two flying figures (Gandharvas ?) On the reverse of the same stone is a four- armed figure, perhaps a Maitreya, and a mchod-rten is carved on one of the narrow sides (Plate XXXII, b). I will not now describe ail the stone sculptures of Leh and surroundings, because it would take too long, for there are many of them. A number have been mentioned or described in my article, “ Archaeology in West Tibet.”^ But I will mention another sculpture at Changspa near a group of houses, lower down, not far from the brook. It is enclosed by a masonry wall. This figure is furnished with an unusual headdress and seems to represent a Buddhist priest of the Mon or Lard times.

On a rocky hill to the west of Changspa, there are several crematories and some ancient mchod-rten. Higher up, on the same hill, are the ruins of the Eibug (Ri-phug) monastery. As the monastery was reported to be of ancient date, I visited it but could not, however, discover any inscriptions or documents referring to it. One of the mchod-rten close by is of an ancient type, but the cremation tablets contained in it are unfortunately without inscriptions. The temple hall being roofless, nothing remainsof former frescoes except a few traces of colour on the plaster-

The ruined mchod-rten called Teu-bkra-shis-’od-mtho is the laigest in Ladakh. It issituated about 1^- mile from the Commissioner’s compound, a little higher up in the Leh valley. We measured the circumference of its base at about 10 feet above the ground, a height at which the masonry rose clear above the surrounding rubbish, and found it to be 550 feet. It was erected by king ’aBum-lde, in order to cover up a crag which was believed to be harmful to the country, and is now in a very dilapidated condition.

^ The kneeling figure on the proper left looks more like a human devotee. [ Ed. ]

= Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXY, p 237, and XXXVJ, pp. 85 and 148 ff.

Plate XXXI

-sgo-mang, ancient mchod-rten at Changspa, Leh.

Plate XXXII

On the 9tli September, I went to the Teu-gser-po or Tiserru (as ordinary people call this ruined mchod-rten), accompanied by Mr. Schmitt of the Moravian Mission, Lobzang, a Christian and Meteorological Observer at Leh, Pindi Lai, and the Khalasi. Our object was to study the inside of the structure. When we had climbed up to half its height, we found a hole in tiie surface, the opening of a narrow shaft. Lobzang went down first o f all. He came to a narrow room of triangular shape, which was perfectly empty. W e then tried to dig a new hole in a different place, when suddenly a number of men. who had been working in the fields, rushed towards us terrified. They implored us not to open the Tiserru, as such a procedure would bring incalculable misfortune to the country. From their remonstrances we learned something about the history of the old monument. The story reminds us of European fairy tales, such as that of the devil being caught in a bottle. In King ’aBum-lde’s times, there used to live a demon in a cavity of the rock Teu-gser-po. This devil, who had fire proceeding from his mouth, roamed about the country and destroyed the king’s palace and portions of the town of Leh. To exorcise him, the huge stupa was built above his abode. If we opened the stupa, the people feared that the evil spirit which had been kept under custody for 500 years, might once more attain liberty. We pointed to the old holes in the building, and observed that he might have escaped long ago. But that was of no avail. At the same time, we were told that the old stupa was not only a repository for devils, but for heavy gales also. When in the days of King ’aBum-lde, the country suffered severely from storms, several largo clay pots were held against the wind with their mouths open. As soon as the wind subsided, their mouths were closed, and they were stored up in the stupa with the storms contained in them. People were afraid we might find and open this ancient pottery, and that the country would be plagued with heavy gales again.

From the opposition which we met in this case from the peasants of Leh, it was plain to me that it is difficult to do archaeological work in an inhabited country. The chronicles of Ladakh have only a very short note on this mohod-rten. They simply state that it was built, because “ some fatality ” had occurred at Leh. I am still of opinion that the idea of a devil living in this place has something to do with the ancient graves described above. These graves are situated in proximity to, and some of them possibly below the mohod-rten.

On the same day, I went higher up the Leh valley, following the desert road to the w'^est of the cultivated area, accompanied by Pindi Lai and the Khalasi. Close to the village of dG-onpa, we passed by the ruined site of an old town with mchod-rten of ancient type near it. There we found also a stone sculpture of some Bodhisattva, enin a masonry wall, with a IhatJio (altar of the pre-Buddhist religion), in front of it (Plate XXXIV, a). As usual, the altar was furnished with many ibex horns. This ruined town may be the original site of the present village of dGonpa.

Marching upwards in the side-valley to the left of the village of dGonpa, we came to the ruins of an ancient temple, which is generally known by the name of Gya-mthsa. I had visited it occasionally, ten or twelve years ago, when I was stationed

at Leh as a missionary. But the late Dr. Shawe of Leb was the first to draw attention tc the fact that there are traces of circular medallions on two of its walls. In that respect rGya-mthsa reminds us of the ruined monasteries of Basgo and Ohigtan. Inside and below the medallions. Dr. Shawe noticed holes in the wall, as ii sticks had once been stuck into it. He even found fragments of wood in two of the holes (according to his letter of the 27th October 1905). He supposed that these sticks had once served to support images. Our observations at the Tabo monastery of Spiti fully confirm Dr. Shawe’s supposition. As will he remembered, in the Tabo monastery wc found thirty-two raised medallions on the walls of the temple hall, and an imago placed in front of each of them. After digging only a little way into the mass of debris below one of the medallions atrGyamthsa, we came across several pieces of plaster composed of clay, straw, and linen. This is exactly the material these images are made of. Drom our observations it follows that rGya-mthsa is probably of the same time as the Chigtan, Basgo and Tabo monasteries, %.e., of the times of ILin-chcn-l)zang-po (c. 1000 A.D.). But let me add that my assumption is not supported by popular tradition. The present inhabitants of the valley do not even believe that the ruin is that of a temple, but assert that it once served as a summer house for a minister {hJcd-hlon-gyi-clhyar-sa).

On the other side of some adjoining fields, there are several ancient ruined mcUodrten. In one of them I found cremation tablets of the “ miniature stiipa ” type. When I threw one of them to the ground, it broke to pieces, and out of it came a very neat little tablet with an inscription in an ancient form of Sarada. The inscription again contains the Ye dliarmd formula, and its characters belong to the 11th century. Owing to its extraordinary receptacle, the characters of the inscription were as distinct as any I had seen up to this. I made an accurate copy of the inscription on the same day, and I am glad I did so. Dor, when my collection of clay tablets arrived at Simla several months later, the distinctness of most of the inscriptions had suffered much, in spite of very careful packing. Although I opened several more “ miniature stupas ” in search of inscribed tablets, I did not find any other specimens.

On the 17th September, I visited Munshi dPal-rgyas in his own house, called To-go-che, at Leh. Mention has already been made of his old Ti])otan book. This time he showed us some of the contents of his private temple, several printed flags of no particular importance, a few idols of the ordinary type, and a mask of an Agu (hero) of the Kesar-Saga (Plate XXXIII, a). This Agu, dGra-lha, who is worshipped in the Munshi’s house, is also represented among the frescoes of Ohangspa. As I am told, several more masks representing Agus of the Kesar-Saga can be found also at the Lamayuru monastery. According to popular tradition, Lamayura used to be the centre of the Bon religion of Ladakh. Munshi dPal-rgyas told me plainly that he was fully, convinced that the religion of the Kesar-Saga and the Bon religion were absolutely the same. As will be remembered, the study of the Songs of the Shar-rgan festival at Poo leads to the same conclusion.^ Then Munshi dPal-rgyas showed us the head of an

^ See also beneath pp. 86, 100.

2 <7/. ’.above p. 21.

Plate XXXIII

Mask of Agu dGra-lha of the Kesar Saga, b. Head of ibex, believed to be that of Buddha in his deer

in possession of Munshi dPal-rgyas, Leh. incarnation, in possession of Munshi dPal-rgyas, Leh.

Plate XXXIV,

Sculpture in ruined town at dGon-pa near Leh. b. Rock-cut image of Maitreya on the Yarkandi road, Leh.

ibex in bis possession, mtb the rigbc bom crooked like an ammonite (Plate XSXIII, b). Tbis bead was found in Ladakb, and tbe famous lama bKra-sbis-bstan-’aj)bel, wbo died in 1890, pronounced it to be tbe head of Buddba in his antelope incarnation. It is, of course, treated with proper respect by its owner, wbo will not part with it for anything. Tbis is tbe second “bone of Buddba,” wbicb we bave come across in Leb. Tbe first is contained in a gaily coloured clay tablet wbicb was brought to us for sale. It was said to bave come from Lhasa, and the ofidcial seal stamped on its reverse indicates that a bomoeopatbic measure of a Buddba relic was mixed up with tbe clay composing it. Mention has been made of another Buddba bone, that of Buddba in bis elephant incarnation. With regard to the latter, Munshi dPal-rgyas said that it was a tooth of the Buddha elephant on wbicb tbe mystic syllable Om could be plainly read.

As I bad suspected, Munshi dPal-rgyas turned out to be tbe writer of Dr. Marx’s Manuscript 0. Through Mr. Beicbel’s exertions I bave come into possession of copies of tbe last two chapters of bis rGyalrahs, and a comparison with Dr. Marx’s translation shows that Munshi dPal-rgyas’ te.Kt coincides with such passages of tbis version as are marked C-MS. As regards the “ History of tbe Dogra war,” Munshi dPal-rgyas has written no less than three different versions of it. He would perhaps never bave thought of writing one, if Dr. Marx bad not asked him to do so, Tbe first account be wrote probably soon after tbe latter’s arrival at Leb in 1886. Tbis account was lithographed at Leb, and used as a school book. Tbe Munshi seems to bave soon found out that tbis account contained several mistakes, and therefore he wrote another version wbicb he presented to Dr. Marx apparently in 1890 ; but tbe latter did not live to translate and publish tbe whole of tbis.^ As Dr. Karl Marx’s text was believed to be entirely lost, the text and a translation of Munshi dPal-rgyas’ first version of bis account of tbe Dogra war was published.^ Mr. Beicbel’s manuscript contains tbe third version of Munshi dPal-rgyas’ account. It is by far tbe best, and much fuller than bis two preceding versions. I hope soon to be able to publish a translation of it. Prom what has been said, it follows that Munshi dPal-rgyas is quite an unusual man. Who else among tbe natives would have kept a certain subject of scientific interest in bis mind for about twenty-five years, without being paid for it ? Who would bave continued bis inquiries with so much patience and, discarding all bis previous work, bave started afresh, when more recent research showed him the truth in a Dew light ? What a gain it would be to science if all historians were so conscientious !

Besides those already mentioaed, it is necessary to refer to a few more buildings of importance at Leb. Tbe mosque at tbe upper end of tbe Bazar is not tbe first of its kind at Leb.® Tbe first mosque is a veiy small building; but tbe time of its erection has not yet been fixed. Tbe Christian church is situated to tbe west of tbe Great Palace ” of Leb, behind tbe Bazar. North-west of tbe New Bazar is a small temple.

• One pa‘>'8 of M-f translation is to be found hy J. A. S. JB., Vol. LXIIl, pp- 106 ff.

sj: Vol.LXXI,pp.21fE. „ . . , ,, 4 .- 0 ,,-,,

’ Aeoording to an inscription on a wooden board, preserved in the principal mosque, it was erected by a certain bhaiMi

Muhi-ud-Din in 1077 A. E., i.e., apparently after the battle of Basgo.

belonging to the Hemis monastery. It is said to have been erected at the same time as this conrent.

The old kings had two pleasure gardens near Leh. One of them was the hKar-ltzo garden. It is the present Joint Commissioner’s compound. The other one is the Mu-rtse garden. It is situated south of Leh, near a ridge of rocky hills running across the desert The latter garden contains the royal Polo ground {Shagaran). It is believed to have been planted by king Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal, c. 1600 A. D., who brought the game of Polo from Baltistan.

Below Leh, at the Tewar gorge, is the longest mani w^all in the country. It was built by king bDel-dan-rnam-rgyal, and has the following measurements : Length : 1,931 feet 8 inches. Height : varying between 6 feet, 7 feet, 7‘4 feet, 7’8 feet. Breadth : 39-6 feet. The mehod-rien at both ends are built on square ground plans, each side of the square being 49 feet long.

In conclusion, let me say that the Wazir of Leh, Chaudhari Khushi Muhammad, a very well educated gentleman, and the Tahsildar, did their utmost to make me comfortable during my stay.

CHAPTER IV.

From the Indus to the Jehlam.

On Tuesday, the 21st September, we left Leh and marched to the village of sNyemo, 18 miles distant. Five miles below Leh, at Spithug (dPe-thub ; map Pittuk), the road passes by the rook, on which King ’aBum-lde built his famous monastery 500 years ago. This monastery can be entered only with special permission of the aKu-shog'^ and as such a sKu-shog was not present at Leh, we had to give up the idea of visiting it. On the top of the same rock can be seen also the ruins of some older building, i)robably a castle. On the plain below, we found a ruined mchod-rten of ancient typo, which contained cremation tablets of the shape of miniature stupas. These tablets had an inscription in Indian characters impressed on them. Pandit Mukund Bam of Kashmir, to whom we showed such a tablet, was fortunately able to read the inscription. It again contains the Ye dharma formula, which in this case is written in an early type of Devanagari characters, say, of the 11th or 12th century A.H. On the western prominence of the rock we noticed several very flat relievos, representing bTsong-kha-pa and his disciples. It will be remembered that the Spithug monastery was erected in honour of that reformer. This type of relievo which probably dates from the 15th or 16th century, is very different from the old type as it is represented at Leh and Changspa. The new type reminds us of the flat, carved figures often found on slabs placed on walls.

The trade road passes through the lowest extremity of the village of Phyang. This is a pity, for the village is well worth a visit. I should have visited it, in spite of everything, if at the time of our expedition, the thought had dawned upon me, that Phyang

^ sKu-shog, tlie incarnation of its first abbot.

(spelt Phyi-dhang ; map Pliayang) is probably tbe most ancient town of Western Tibet. Unfortunately, I bad not then yet started my studies of the geographical names contained in the account of gNya-khri-btsan-po’s empire. Subsequent studies have shown me that practically aU the places mentioned in the Ladakhi account of gNya-khribtsan-po’s kingdom exist in Ladakh, and that the village of Phyi-dbang is in all probability identical with Phyi-dbang-stag-rtse, the earliest capital of Tibet.’-

The Phyang (Phyi-dbang) monastery is a stately building of much later date. It was erected by King bKra.shis-rnam-rgyal (c. 1500—1532 A.D.) and belongs to the ’aBrikhung-pa sect of lamas. This monastery comes into view when the plain on the right bank of the Phyang brook is reached. At this place King bKra-shis-rnam-rgyal raised a long flagstaff on an elaborate pedestal. As we know from the chronicles, this flagstaff was intended to serve as a place of refuge for aU those who were guilty of a orimen Icbscb majestatis. It is quite possible that King bKra-shis thought of the crime committed by himself, when he erected the flagstaff. Had he not plucked out his elder brother’s eyes and deprived him of his royal power? No doubt, bKra-sMs himself had good reason to embrace the flagstaff most cordially. The pedestal still remains and is generally known by the name of Tliar-chen, “ great flag.” Prom a note in Dr. Marx’s “ Three Documents ” we learn that the Phyi-dbang monastery contains a beautiful collection of ancient armour.

A plain called La-dvags-gong-khai-thang stretches from the village of Phyi-dbang to Ihe village of Umla (Umbla ?) in the west. Halfway between the two is situated the little village of Daru. The mani walls of Darn contain votive stones mentioning King bDe-ldan-rnam-rgyal, c. 1630 A.D., and a minister Thse-dbang-don-grub (c. 1822 A.D.). These walls have little ruined houses built on one end which are known by the name of Man Ehang {Mani Khang). These huts were built by the people who erected the mani walls, to serve as hospital stables for horses which had become exhausted on the long march across the great plain.

We examined and photographed the rock with sculptures at Daru. Thanks to the historical information contained in the Leh inscriptions of the rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo MU, the sculptures and inscriptions on the Daru rock can nowadays be dated with more certainty than it was possible a few years, ago. I made a flrst attempt at dating them in my article, “ Archgeology in West Tibet, when I tried to identify King Lha-chen-kun-dga-rnam-rgyal, whose name appears on the Daru rock, with Lha-rgyal (c. 1250 A.D.) of the chronicles. But even then I had to assume that part of the inscription was probably of later date. Judging by the name of a lama wMch occurred in it. Now, the rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo inscriptions give the name of a great minister, Phyag-rdor-jo, who is also mentioned on the Daru rock. Phyag-rdor-jo of the rNamrgyal-rtse-mo inscriptions is plainly stated to have been a contemporary of King

’ TtisquestioTi has been fully treated in my article, “The Kingdom ol gNya-lchri-Usa.n-po‘' J. A. S. B. 1910, p. 98. Here we mast distingnisli between the chronicles of Ladakh and the chronicles of Central Tibet. Whilst the places mentioned in tbe former book are found in Ladakh, the places mentioned in the latter book are found in the vi<dnity of Lhasa. See Yarlung ’* in the geographical work ’ aBzciM'gling-ye-shes translated by S. Ch. Das.

Cf. Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXVI, pp. 89 ff.

bKra-sMs-rnam-rgyal. Here at Daru his name is found connected with a king Kun-dgarnam«rgyal. The question, therefore, naturally arises: Are bKra-shis-rnam-rgyal and Kun-dga-rnam-rgyal the names of one and the same Idng or not ? Was bKra-sMs hun-dgd-rnam-T'gyal the full name of this king ? Up to the present, only two inscriptions of bKra-shis-rnam-rgyal haye been found, one on the rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo, the other one at Alchi. Neither of them contains the name hKra-sliis-hun-dgd-Tnam-rgynl as the name of a king ; both give bKra-sMs-rnam-rgtjal. It is, therefore, possible that king Lha-chen-Bha-gan, the founder of the rJSam-rgyal dynasty of Western Tibet, did not only give names ending in rNam-rgyal to his sons, but took a new Jiame ending in rnam-rgyal for himself, that name being Kun-dga-rnam-rgyal. The minister Phyagrdor-jo would then appear to have served two kings, father and son, which is not at all uncommon. Similar cases are found in the history of the Tibetans as well as in that of other nations. If we say, therefore, that the Darn sculptures and inscriptions date roughly from the year 1600 A.D., we shall not be far Avrong.

On the western end of the plain, called La-dvags-gong-khai-tliang, there is a rock called bLa-ma-guru. It has an eroded holloAv on one side whicli looks as if a man had left the mark of his head and shoulders in mud. This holloAV is believed to have been formed through Padma-sambhava’s sleeping on tlie rock on one of his journeys ilirough Indian Tibet. The rock is worshipped by the people, who smear oil or butter on it. The Oth manpi yyadme hwnn formula has been carved twice upon it.

At sNyemo we j)hotographed the ancient castle on the river, called Ohuug-mkhar (Plate XXXV, a) ; and also the stone sculpture of Jo-mo-rdo-rje, the ancient abbess of the nunnery at sNyemo. These antiquities were discovered by me in 1900.^

On the 22nd September, we marched to Saspola, by way of Basgo and Likir. Before reaching Basgo, a little north of the road from sNyemo, the ruins of an ancient temple can be seen (Plate XXXV, b). It is built of sun-dried bricks and is of the typo of Ein-chen-bzang-po’s temples. It particularly reminded me of the Tabo temjrlc. The number of raised medallions on its walls is thirty-two as in Tabo ; and there was p)robably another medallion above the door.® I made a plan of this temple which, according to the best traditions, dates from the days of the great lama Ein-chen-bzang-po. Popiular tradition connects it, without any reason, with an invasion by Turks or Mongols.

Not far from the ruined temple are two ancient stupas of the " ladder ” type, and also the remains of a third stupa of the same kind. In the latter Ave found cremation tablets with inscriptions containing the Ye dharmd formula, in exactly the same type of ancient Sarada as had come to light at rGyamthsa near Loh. The Basgo and the rGyamthsa monasteries are evidently of the same period.

The temple of Byams-pa (Maitreya) at Basgo is appai-ently the only well preserved building in the place. In my article, ‘'Archaeology in Western Tibet,” I wrongly attributed it to King Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal. As it contains the inscribed portrait of Thsedbang-rnam-rgyal I and those of his two brothers, it was evidently erected by him,

• Western Tibet, " Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXVI. pp. 88 fi

' The arraaigement of the medalUons is shown on Plate Xo. IV of my aa-ticle Archceology in Western Tibet.

b. Ruined temple near Basgo.

althotigli the chronicles do not contain any statement to that effect. On the Trails of this temple are found frescoes : for instance, a series of pictures illustrating the Buddha legend, viz., Buddha’s conception, birth, seven steps in the four directions, etc. Their execution is of a ruder type than that of the paintings on the rNam-rgyal-rtse-mo. But the most important pictures in this hall are undoubtedly those Tvhich represent the royal family. All the male members Trear turbans and look almost like Murals. The servants are also furnished Tvith turbans, and the royal ladies seem to Tvear some form of the bemg, mentioned above. There is another portrait of an historical personage on one of the -walls, that of the famous lama sTag-thsang-ras-pa, which is evidently a later addition. Besides the huge statue of Maitreya, I noticed a few small images in tlie ball of the same temple. One of them again represents sTag-thsang-ras-j)a, the other a four-armed Avalokite^vara.

The Seljang monastery of Basgo is estabhshecl in the ancient royal palace. It contains a huge statue of Maitreya which was erected by king Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal, about 1610 A.D., and which is in remarkably good preservation. Several large jewels still remain on it. We saw only the upj)er part of the image, as, the key not being procurable, we could not enter the hall of the temple. This building contains a very large library, consisting mostly of loose sheets, which is the ancient library of the kings of Ladakh. Dr. K. Marx, who was the first European to draw attention to it, proposed to convey it to the Leh palace, arrange it projperly, and appoint one of the Moravian Missionaries as chief librarian. The gallery above the Seljang monastery contains a number of very rude frescoes which are furnished with explanatory inscriptions ; and also the remains of a very long historical inscription of King Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal’s time. We took a photo of what remains of the latter.

There is a great number of ancient mohod-rten at Basgo. We examined only two of them. One is called Kha-gan-stong-sku, and is furnished with three (originally four) doors. Kha-gan is probably a corruption of the word Khanggani, “ door.” It is called stong-shu, “ one thousand images,” on account of the many little pictures of blue, Buddha-like figures, which are pointed on the walls and the ceiling. The pictures have mostly faded. I am of opinion that it is a monument of the Bon religion of former days. We found aU kinds of old rubbish below the roof, and amongst it a well moulded image of sGrol-ma (Tara) made of burnt clay.

The other prominent mohod-rten of Basgo is called Rag-pa (Plate XXSVI, a). It is situated at the entrance of the gorge leading up to the plain on the road to Saspola. This mcliod-t ten which is attributed to Lama Bin-chen-bzang-po, is of pyramidal shape. Its ground-plan has the form of a star and the dome is furnished with niches which originally must have contained images of Buddha, like the Mani-gser-mo at Leh.

In the evening of the same day, whilst the caravan went straight to Saspola,

I marched to Likir, with Puntsog, my Tibetan assistant, whom I had engaged at Leh. The Likir monastery is mentioned in the chronicles of Ladakh as having been erected by King Lha-chen-rgyal-po (c. 1060—1080 A. D.). I had visited it before, but could find no record confirming the statement of the chronicles. The object of my present visit

was to makb anotlier search. The monastery is very picturesquely situated on a little hill inside the valley. This time the lamas showed me a long inscription written with black ink on one of the walls, which contained the history of the monastery, as they asserted. Although it dates only to the times of Thse-dbang-rnam-rgyal II, who repaired the building after a conflagration, I ordered it to be copied. After a long introductory hymn the inscription gives the names of several ancient kings of Tibet, gXya-khr:-btsan-po, Tho-tho-ri-snyan, Srong-btsan-sgam-po, Khri-srong-lde-btsan, sEyid-lde-nyi-ma-mgon, and of some famous Buddhist teachers. Then follows a Buddhist account of cosmology which concludes with a list of the most famous palaces of the Ladakhi kings, the seats of king Thse-dbang-rnam-rgyal. Finally, a few dates are given, connected with the history of the monastery. It is stated to have been founded by Lama Lha-dbang-chos-rje and Eing Lha-chen-rgyal-po. We must not, however, believe that these two persons were contemporaries. King Lha-chen-rgyal-po lived in the eleventh century, and the lama is most j)robably identical with the famous pupil of bTsong-kha-pa, Lha-dbang-blo-gros-chos-rje, w'^ho lived in the 15th century. The passage should be understood in this sense : — King Lha-chen-rgyal-po founded the monastery in the 11th century. In the i5th century. Lama Lha-dbang-chos-rje converted the lamas to the reformed doctrines of the Ge-lug-pa order, and thus founded the monastery afresh as a Ge-lug-pa establishment. Then it is stated that seven generations after Lha-chen-rgyal-po, King Lha-chen-dngos-grub arose, and that he introduced the custom of sending all the novices to Lhasa. This statement is given in exactly the same words as we find it in the rGyal-rabs, Then we read : “ Eighteen generations after him,” but the name of the king who reigned tlien has been scratched out, as well as any notes referring to him. Now, if we search in the chronicles for the name of the king who reigned eighteen generations after Lha-chen-dngos-grub, we find the name of bDe-legsrnam-rgyal, the unhappy ijrince who after the battle of Basgo was compelled to embrace Islam. I have abeady drawn attention to the fact that votive tablets with the name of this king have not yet been found in Ladakh. They were apparently all destroyed. The Likir inscription is an instance of a similar kind. The lamas could not suffer the name of the apostate king to figure in the inscription, and therefore it was obliterated.

Below the monastery of Likir (Klu-dkyil), there is a large mohod-rten which contains frescoes inside. They represent bTsong-kha-pa and other lamas of his times. Painted above the door, a very strange figure is found which looks very much like one of the ordinary representations of Srong-btsan-sgam-po. I was told by the lamas that it represents a lama of Srong-btsan-sgam-po’s times. The figure wears a three-pointed hat of white colour and carries two leopard skins under his arms. The lower part of this mehod-rten is a room, square in pound plan, which the lama said was the earhest temple at Likir, and was already in existence when Lha-chen-rgyal-po built the monastery.

On the 23rd September, we went to Alohi on the left bank of the river. On the way thither, at Saspola, we photographed the two ancient ruined mchod-rten which are attributed to Ein-chen-bzang-po’s time (Plate XXXVI, b).. On the remains of the larger one has been erected a modern monastery, called Byams-pa-dgon-pa,

b. Ancient book cover from Lhasa.

:hsag Temple,

Alchi

• f

..f:

4M tf

The famous moiaastery of Alchi is situated to the east of the village. It is called iFam-par-snang-mdzad, and according to popular tradition is of B,in-chen-bzang-po’s times. We could distinguish the following six different temples ; —

(1) Lha-khang-so-ma. — It is an insignificant square hall with a small mchod-rten in the middle, but several of the frescoes appear to be of ancient date. Some of them refer to the Buddha legend, whilst others seem to represent persons of the times when the pictures were painted. The head-dress of these people is quite unusual, and at first I took it for a kind of white top hat. A closer examination showed, however, that it represented a certain type of turban. What looks like the top of the hat, is in reality the turned-up end of the linen of the turban. I noticed two inscriptions in this hall. They were written in a kind of Takari character ; but I have not yet met any one who was able to read them.

(2) gSum-thsag, meaning “ Three Stories.” — This temple has three stories, each narrower than the one below, and the general appearance of the temple is that of a stepped pyramid. The ancient temple of mTho-lding in Guge was probably of the same type. gSum-thsag is the only temple at Alchi on which the old wooden gallery and the trefoiled wooden arches have been preserved (Plate XXXVII, a). It gives us an idea of the appearance of the ancient Buddhist temples of Kashmir. All the woodwork, especially the many columns, were covered with mythological carvings, and aH the columns had on the inner side of their richly decorated capitals figures of jumping animals , apparently lions, stretched forth towards each other. But what reminded me of Kashmir most of all, were three trefoiled arches under high pointed gables, exactly like those of the ancient stone temples of that country. On closer inspection it became evident that only the middle arch was of perfect shape, and that the two on the right and left were rude imitations of it. The middle one contains a wooden image of a Buddha seated in the earth-touching attitude, the one to the right (of the spectator), the green Tara (sGrol-ma), and the one to the left, Vajra-sattva (rBo-rje-sems-dpa). I am of opinion that these two statues were inserted later on in place of two more ancient ones. An the woodwork is painted red, except the arch of the green Tara, which is blue. Inside the temple are three stucco images, larger than life size, of the following Bodhisattvas : Vajra-pani (Phyag-rdor) which is painted yellow ; Mafiju^ri {’aJamdbyangs), the tallest, which is painted red ; and Avalokite^vara {sTyan-ras-gzigs) painted white. At the feet of Avalokite^vara we found an inscription recording the restoration of this temple under King bKra-shis-rnam-rgyal in the 16th century. It is interesting that in this inscription, the amount of red, blue, and gold colour which was contributed by various peasants of the neighbourhood, is mentioned. King bKra-shis-rnam- rgyal’s court painter was apparently an Indian who knew the Mu^al art of painting. When he restored the temple, this artist preserved the old outlines of the 11th century as far as possible ; but in the choice of colours, he was more original than the old masters had been. Por a large part, the walls had been covered with endless repetitions of the Buddha figure in the same oolom’s. He brought variety into their dress, haloes and backgrounds. Whenever a picture had disappeared altogether, he invented new

scenes in perfect Mughal style, viz., Indian musicians with, harps, flutes, clarionets and violins ; Indian acrobats, scenes of animal life, etc. Everything is of the most pleasing design and execution, and of the most brilliant colours. Ample use was made of silver and gold. When the artist painted the dress of AvalokiteSvara, he seems to have forgottL Buddhism altogether. Among the pictures we find Indian garden-houses in full jVIu gh al style, and Indian nobles (perhaps meant to be portraits of bKra-shisrnam-rgyal and his court) who look exactly like the Mughals themselves.^ This adapta- tion of 3Iu gh al art to a Buddhist subject is probably unique. Interesting also is the representation of lamas with dresses of various fragments patched together. Such representations are found at Alchi among the old originals as well as among bEra-shisxnam-rgyal’s renovated pictures, Among the frescoes of this hall we find also a row of monks in yellow dress whose hats are of the shape of European soft hats with broad brims. On the walls, there are many little stucco figures of the type of the thirtytwo figures at Tabo ; but it was impossible to count them.

(3) xEam-par-snang-mdzad. — This temple is a little to the north of the other temples and quite hidden by other buildings. It is not shown to foreigners, and for this reason I did not see it on my previous visits. I should not have seen it even this time, had Mr. Chatter ji not been at Alchi before me. It had been shown to him, and when Puntsog, my Tibetan assistant, heard of it, he said to the monks : '■ Mr.

Chatterji is the Maharaja’s servant. We are King Edward’s servants. What do you think King Edward will say, when he hears that a temple was shown to Mr. Chatterji, but was closed to his own seiwants ? ” This argument appealed to the monks, and the doors of rNam-par-snang-mdzad were flung open. There is a little courtyard in front of the temple Avith painted galleries. These frescoes are very rudely executed, and hardly do credit to King bBe-skyong-mam-rgyal who renovated this courtyard, according to an inscription written on one of the walls in black ink. Fortunately for archseology, the king did not attempt to renew the principal temple which seems to have remained untouched since the days of its foundation in the 11th century. The temple hall contains a great number of ink inscriptions in an ancient form of dbu-med characters. The orthography employed shows that they must be contemporaneous with the Tabo monastery inscriptions. One of them, near the door, seems to mention King Byangchub-sems-dpa who reigned in the first half of the 11th century. He calls himself Nyag-ra, i.e. “ warden,” of the monastery, and in the inscription he gives admonitions to the monks. Besides the king’s name, the epigraph contains also the names of thre,e famous lamas, his contemporaries, viz., Mar-pa, Al-lci-pa and ’aBrom-ston. Whilst Mar-pa and ’aBrom-ston are widely known, Al-lci-pa was probably only a local celebrity On the wall on the other side of the door, we find a well executed picture of a king with his queen and son. Although there is no special inscription added to this picture, it most probably represents King Byang-chub-sems-dpa with his wife and son. My reason for this assertion is that both in the dGon-khang temple of Leh,

1 0£ some interest is a little song, placed at tte end of the inscription which gives an account of Alchi in the 11th. century. Alchi was then famous for its bows and arrows, its watermills, and its beer.

Plate XXXVIII.

Stucco figure in gSum-thsag Temple of monastery, Alchi. b. Fresco in gSum-thsag Temple of monastery, Alchi.

aud in the Byams-pa temple of Basgo, we find the portraits of the royal founders ty the side of the door. Whilst at Basgo the name of the king is found Avritten below the picture, at Leh the inscription containing the name of the king is found on the other side of the door, as is the case here. The king wears a diadem, and his yellow mantle shows large round spots of blue or purple colour with the figure of a lion or tiger in each of them. His girdle shows a chequered pattern of white and red. In his hand he bears an axe of fanciful shape, and he is shaded by an umbrella. His son (probably Lha-chen-rgyal-po) is dressed in a similar manner, and the queen has her hair plaited in many little pigtails. The principal image in this shrine is of course Yairochana (rNam-par-snang-mdzad). The temple door is most elaborately carved in Indian style (Plate XXXIX, a), and on both sides there are two narrow chapels which contain huge stucco figures,

(4) Lo-tsa-bai-lha-khang. — This temple is in a line with the first and second temples described above, but farther north. It contains a statue of a seated Buddha and a portrait painting of Ein-ehen-bzang-po, the founder of the monastery. There is also an image of this lama in the same haU, but the monks say that it was modelled afteithe fresco. The hall is also furnished with an ancient, well carved door, and there are a few fragments of carved wooden pillars.

(6) 'aJam-dbyangs-khang. — This temple contains a large stucco image of the Dhyanibuddhas of the four regions, the one towards the east being painted yellow, that to- wards the south white, that towards the north red, and that towards the west blue. Below them, there are more images and the sixteen emblems of happiness, %.e., the eight ordinary emblems of happiness with additions. Among them we could distinguish the pair of fishes, the wheel, the parasol, and even a cross, which is evidently intended to symbolise the four quarters of the globe. This hall is also furnished with beautifully carved door-beams and pillars. But the best wood-carving is that of a standing Buddha which is found above the door outside. It is afieady very brittle and will probably not last much longer.

(6) Lha-khang. — This temple is situated a little way to the south of the preceding ones. It contains only pictures and has suffered much by the rough treatment of the children of the village. A figure of Gane^a is painted above the door. On one side of it are painted historical scenes ; for instance a group of West Tibetan noblemen on horseback, hawking. On the other side are pictures of Buddhist saints and lamas, aU fur- nished with inscriptions. I ordered Puntsog to copy aU the decipherable inscriptions ; but the copying of the many interesting frescoes I had to leave to some future explorer. The inscriptions contain mostly names, belonging to well known lamas. The foUowing is a list of such lamas as are known to me : Xlu-grub (Nagarjuna) ; Arya-rdeba (Irya-deva) ; Natropa (or Naropa) ; Tilipa (or Telipa) ; Loipa (or Luipa) ; Kumara and T)harma-kl(r)ti of Srong-btsan-sgam-po’s time ; Kamala(4ila), Ananta, Shantipa (^anti« rakshita) of Khri-srong-lde-btsan’s time; E (n)-tra-bhodhe (Srilendra bodhi) of Ealpaoan’s time. The latest seem to be Zla-ba-grags-pa and Kun-dga-snying-po of the 11th centmy. A further reason for attributing the frescobs and inscriptions of this temple to the 11th or I2lh century, is that the orthography employed in the inscriptions shows signs of considerable age {ynyi and my 6 instead of wiand

Besides the temples mentioned above, there is at Alchi a great number of ancient mohocl-rten and mcliod-rten gates with four doors. Several of them contain pictures similar to those noticed at Basgo and Ubshi, i.e., Buddha-like figures of blue complexion. They probably represent Nagas, and these gates and mchod-rten may be of Bonpo origin. But there were so many that it was found impossible to register them all.

Let me add a few words with regard to Tibetan palaeography, based on a comparison of the Alchi and Tabo inscriptions of the 11th century. Besides the Alchi and Tabo mscriptions of the 11th century, the following datable inscriptions of ancient Tibet are known : (1) The Endere manuscripts, excavated by Sir M. A. Stein in Turkestan.

The latest date which can be attributed to them is the year 788 A.D., but several appear to be earlier. (2) The inscription of Khri-srong-lde-btsan in Lhasa of c. 780 A.D. discovered and edited by Dr. Waddell.^ (3) The inscription of king Eal-pa-can in Lhasa, of c. 810-820 A.D."

The most archaic of the Endere relics have the following peculiarities : —

(1) The i vowel sign is often inverted.

(2) In several cases, the final consonant of a syllable is written below the first.

(3) The article is in many cases pha and pho, instead of the ordinary pa and po.

(4) Ordinary c and ts are in many oases replaced by oh and ths ; and ch and ths both have y, 6, and d prefixes attached to them.

(5) When m precedes iov e, y intervenes.

(6) Words ending in r, I, or n, are furnished with a d suf&x, called drag.

If we examine the Tabo, Poo and Alchi inscriptions of the 11th century, with regard to the peculiarities of the Endere manuscripts enumerated above, we find that they exhibit only the two last mentioned peculiarities, viz., y intervenes between m and ior m and e ; and r, I, and n are often furnished with a d suffix. Thus we see that during the period from the 8th to the llth century, the Tibetan orthography has come much nearer to its present state. The i vowel sign, for instance, is no more found inverted, but always in its present position. At Alchi we found the i vowel sign only once inverted and that was probably due to want of space. From this observation we may conclude that all those inscriptions which contain inverted i vowel signs, may be older than the llth century. As regards the position of the[e and o vowel signs on the right or left upper end, or above the consonant base, it varies with the age of inscriptions. I am of opinion that the compilation of the hKa-’agywr and hStan- agyw)', in c. 1300 A.D., marks an epoch in Tibetan palaeography. It probably put an end to the intervening y between m and i or e, and to the suffixed d. From the year 1300 A.D. onwards Tibetan orthography presumably remained stationary, and the age of an inscription after 1300 A.D. <®n be estimated only by the form of its compound letters, and the position of vowel signs on or above their consonant bases.

• Ancient historical edicts at Lhasa in J. JS. A. S. 1909, pp. 923 fE. ‘See my reading and tian^tion JSp. Ind., Tol. X, pp. 89 ff.

On our way back, from Alcbi to Saspola, I visiteci tlie site of a ruined castle called AlcM-inkhar-gog, which once guarded the Alchi bridge. I found a number of sherds of pottery with dark red designs. The pottery was not wheel-made, but rudely shaped with the hand. As will be remembered, entire specimens of pottery with dark red designs were found in the ancient graves at Leh. On the boulders round about the ruined castle are found many inscriptions of officers who once resided here. As I have shown in my article “ Archseology in Western Tibet, ” most of these epigraphs may be attributed to the times of King Nyi-ma-mgon, in the 10th century, and his immediate successors. We took a photo of one of them.

On the 24th September, the principal caravan under Pincli Lai, marched to sNyurla, by the ordinary road. I myself went to sGyera on the left bank of the Indus, accompanied by Puntsog, my assistant, and Labpa, the Khansaman. Prom s Gy era, I went up ■the valley, to visit the famous monastery of Mang-rgyu. Just below it, we passed a very rudely-executed rock sculpture which represents Mahju^ri. The inscription below it mentions King Phun-thsogs-rnam-rgyal of the 18th century. It is the latest rock sculpture in West Tibet which I have seen.

The Mang-rgyu monastery consists of four temples standing in a row, with their doors towards the East like so many others of the same period.

(1) Byams-chen (or Loke^vara). — This temple contains a huge stucco image ; but the present lamas are uncertain whether it represents Maitreya or Avalokite^vara. I should think that it represents the former. The door is furnished with ancient wood narvings of Indian type.

(2) ’aDu-khang (or Thugs-rje-chen-po). — The door of this temple is ornamented with ancient wood carvings of artistic workmanship, which represent the five Dhyani-buddhas with Vairochana (rNam-par-snang-mdzad) in the centre. We found an ancient and much effaced inscription in this hall near the door. I ordered it to be copied. Neither a personal nor a local name has been preserved in it, and it contains hardly a single coherent sentence. But the preserved fragments afford several instances of intervening y between m and i, and for this reason I feel inclined to attribute it to the 11th or 12th century. Local tradition connects the Mang-rgyu monastery with Lama Ein-chen-bzang-po. In another part of the same hall, we found a short fragmentary inscription giving the name of a forgotten prince, possibly a younger son of one of the kings of the first dynasty of Ladakh. It reads Jo-no-ohmg-Khri-stod-’adi, the younger prince Khri-stod.”

(3) rNam-par-snang-mdzad. — ^This temple contains a number of stucco images, some ■ of which reminded me of the thirty-two at Tabo. On the wall outside, there is a long inscription recording the renovation of the monastery under King Thse-dbang-rnam-rgyal n (?) If the present ugly pictures in this and most of the other temples are the result of that renewal, it was absolute barbarism. The principal hall has lost its ancient door.

(4) ’aJams-chung (or Mafiju4ri). — This temple also contains a huge stucco statue, concerning the identity of which the present lamas do not seem to be agreed. They do not know whether it represents Manju^ri or Maitreya. The frescoes of the hall have

6&CRp6d r6iLOV&tioji stud. rBniiiidcd. ni 0 of similsir pioturos I li&d soon st Hioro slso

■R’ere pictures of moiiks Tpith. patcliwork gowns of many colours.

(5) Tretapuri (Tirthapuri).— This is a large stupa, which is enshrined in a ruined, house. The name of the building would point to its former occupation by a community of heretics (Skr. tlrtUha), as they were found in Tibet by Atila on the occasion of his advent into the country. Judging by the images contained in it at the present time, however, it is now as Lamaist as any other temple at Mang-rgyu. There were four stucco images of the following Lamaist deities : ’aJam-dbyangs, (Manju-ghosha) painted yellow, in the eastern corner ; sPyan-ras-gzigs (Avalokite^vara) painted white, in the southern corner ; and Phyag-rdor (Vajra-pani) painted blue, in the western corner ; and further the reformer bTsong-kha-pa (Sumati-kirti), resplendent with red, orange, and yeUow, in the northern corner.

At the time of its foundation, the Mang-rgyu monastery may have equalled the Alchi monastery in splendour. Now-a-days it is far inferior to it.

On the 25th September, we marched to Khalatse, on the right bank of the Indus. Half way we passed by a gorge which forms the entrance to the valley of the village of Tar. I should not have visited the latter, if rumours had not been current that a very ancient rock inscription had been discovered there by Mr. Chatterji and others. Just below the village of Tar, there is a rock, on which people believe they can see twentyone figures of the goddess Tara (sGrol-ma) which have come into existence of themselves. There used to be a high flagstaff in front of this rock. These svayambhu figures of Tara may account for the name of the village. It was probably called Tara original* ly, the name having become abridged to Tar. Lower down the vaUey, we found very well moulded clay representations of Tara in a mchod-rten. In the village we examined the “ famous ” inscription mentioned above. It contains only the name of King Thse-dpal-rnam-rgyal, the last independent ruler of Ladakh, and is very fragmentary.

We arrived at Khalatse just in time to prevent the boulders containing the oldest inscriptions of Ladakh from being broken. There are several rocks near Khalatse bridge, bearing ancient Kharoshthi inscriptions, and one with an ancient Brahmi inscription. As a new bridge was under construction, many boulders, some with interesting rock carvings and inscriptions had been blasted; and the boulder with the Brahmi inscription had already been marked for blasting. I spoke to the Public Works overseer in charge, as well as to the authorities at Khalatse, and entreated them to preserve these invaluable stones. I hope that this may not have been in vain. We took photos of the Brahmi, the longer Kharoshthi,^ and the old Gupta inscriptions. The- latter is found in the close vicinity of the mGo-chen mchod-rten. Some of the ancient rock carvings were also photographed, and impressions taken of the royal Tibetan and the Kharoshthi inscriptions. The mGo-chen mchod-rten belong to the

’ Onr photogiapli of the longer Eliar6sh,tlu inscription was sent to Professor Eapson of Cambridge. He writes in his letter of the 2drd September 1910, as follows : ** The title ’^oihoiTOijdsoi, is (^uite clear. After this comes the name beginning with A and ending with the genitire termination m. Pour or five syllables intervene, but I am not (^uite certain about any of. them. Above the king’s name is a date which I read— with some doubt as to whether three strokes at the end are part of thedate or not — as 100+20+20-1-20-^20+4 f +8 ] ; that is to say 184 or 187.”

site of a ruined Dard castle at Ehalatse. They ■were photographed and a plan ■was made of the whole ancient site.

As regards the antiq^aities of Khalatse, they ha've been described by me elsewhere^. I do not ■wish to repeat here all I have said in my preyious articles, and, therefore, I will simply give a list of the more important of those antiquities (1) certain places of the cult of the pre-Buddhist religion in the neighbo^urhood, (2) Tndia n inscriptions extending over a period of more than one thousand years, several of which have already been mentioned. (3) A number of royal Tibetan inscriptions near the bridge. (4) Besides the ancient custom house {sBalu-mkhar) which is only three Tnilfts from Khalatse, there are three more ruined castles at this place, one being of Tibetan, and the others of Dard origin.

Whilst we were at Khalatse, the people of the village sold me a good many anti- ■quities which they had found either in their houses or at ancient sites in the neighbourhood, viz., sBa-lu-mkhar, Brag-nag-mkhar, or Brog-pai-mkhar. Among them was a stone knife, a stone axe, to be used without a handle, several stone lamps, beads of bone, stone charms, ancient female head-dresses, a bone knife, a stone inkpot, a pair of goggles made of turnips, etc.

Our Christian evangelist at Khalatse had become a father a few weeks before, and the people of the village had made presents of “ flour-ibex ” to him and Ms wife. He

' “ Misityrische DoTcumente von SlkaZoetse" in Z. D. M. G., Vol. LXI, pp. 583 ff, and “ Duvds at JLhatatse, ” Jf. A. S. B., Yol r, No. 19.

me one of those figures, which are made of flour and butter, and told me that it was a custom in Tibet and Ladakh, to make presents of “ flour-ibex ” on the occasion of the birth of a child. This is quite interesting information. I had often wondered why there were so many rock earrings of ibex at places connected with the pre-Buddhist religion of Ladakh. Now it appears probable that they are thank offerings, after the birth of children. As I hare tried to show in my prerious article,^ people used to go to the pre-Buddhist places of worship, in particular, to pray to be blessed with children.

On the 30th September, we left Khalatse and travelled to Lamayuru. When we arrived on the left bank of the Indus, after crossing the Khalatse bridge, I examined again the three stones with iascriptions, which I had discovered there several years ago, and again made careful copies of the inscriptions, which later on I sent to Dr. Vogel.- Although it is not yet possible to read them with certainty. Dr. Vogel believes the kind of character employed to be later Gupta, almost ^arada, of c. 600 — 800 A.D.

At Lamayuru, we visited, first of all, the famous monastery of the ’aBri-khung-pa order which is very picturesquely situated on a steep rock (Plate XL, a). According to the Mahatmya of Lamayuru, the monastery was founded by the Buddhist priest Naropa in the ninth or tenth century. When Naropa arrived at the site, the whole valley was filled with a lake which he caused to dry up.^ The monastery received its name from a plantation of sacrificial grain which mysteriously grew into the shape of the smstika {gYung-dmng) , It is interesting that there are traces of deposits of a former lake aU around the mountains of Lamayuru, and it is strange that Drew in Ms book does not make any mention of them. But the Ladakhis must really have a geological instinct, to be able to invent stories of this kind. They have also tales of the former existence of lakes at Leh and at Triloknath in Lahul. The name g Yungdrmg was of course not given by Naropa, but must date back to a time long before he arrived in the country, as it was then the foremost place of the Bon religion which is called g Ymg-drung-hon. The Mahatmya concludes with a tale of an image wMch cannot be moved out of its original position. The ‘ barbarian ’ who spends Ms energy on it in vain, is in this case Diwan Hari Chand, the Dogra general who beat the Tibetans in 1842 A,D. I asked the monks, if they had an image of Naropa in the temple hall, to - wMch they replied in the affirmative. W e were shown a rather modern looking stucco - statue of Naropa in the library which also contained images of several more lamas connected with Mm, for instance, Tilopa, Marpa, Milaraspa. They seem to belong to ■ a complete set of figures of the bKa-brgyud lamas. These bKa-brgyud lamas who are something like chm’ch-fathers of the ’aBrug-pa order of lamas, are enumerated in inscription No. 128 from Kolong in Lahul, as follows ; (1) rDo-rje-’achang, (2) Ti-lo-pa (3) Na-ro-pa, (4) Mar-pa, (5) Mi-la-ras-pa, (6) rGam-po, (7) Thar-sab-pa, (8) gNasphug-pa, (9) dPal-ldan-’abrug-pa.

I asked the lamas to show me the most ancient part of the monastery, and we weretaken to a temple called Seng-ge-sgang, which is situated at the southern end of the

’ Sistorische Dolumente von Khalatse in West Tibet {Ladakh) in Z.l). M. Vol. LXI, pp. 683 ff.

• A amikr legend is told about Kasbmir. Of. JRaJataranffini 1, 25-27 trsnsl. Stein, Vol. I, p. 5. [ Ed. ]

Plate XL.

a. View of Lamayuru.

b. View of ruined town, Bod-Kharbu.

Lamajruru rock. There we were shown a hall which reminded me strongly of Eiin-chenbzang-po’s temples, especially the stucco images on the walls, which were of a style similar to those at Tabo. The entrance is towards the east. The principal image is that of ’aJamdbyangs (MaSju-ghosha). On his right we find the blue Tara, and on his left, the yellow Tara. The figure aboye the blue Tara is said to represent Thse-dpag-med (Amitayus), but the identity of the figure above the yeUow Tara cannot now be established. Gamda is placed above the whole group of images. Below it is a stone pedestal showing well carved relievos of elephants and lions. The frescoes in this haU are far gone and most of them can no longer be identified. I noticed a picture of a divinity with very many arms, and another fresco apparently representing the ‘ Wheel of Life’ {Srid-pai-’akhor-lo) showing in its better preserved parts the torments of hell, and the gods fighting the Asuras. The lama who had taken us to this temple, said that, according to an inscription in the bCu-gcig-zhal temple at Wanla, the following four temples date from one and the same time, called the bKd-gdams-^a time : (1) the Seng-ge-sgang temple of Lamayuru, (2) the bOu-gcig-zhal temple at Wanla, (3) the ruined temj>le of Ohigtan, (4) the Lha-bcu-rtse- Iha-khang temple at Khanji. As regards the bKd-gdams-jpa time, this expression seems to indicate the times of the great teacher ’aBrom-ston, the founder of the bKd-gdams-pa sect, who lived in the 11th centmy. This statement is quite in agreement with the general appearance of the Seng-ge-sgang temple. I had sent a man to the famous bOu-gcig-zhal temple of Wanla to copy any ancient inscriptions, he could discover in it. He evidently did not find that of the bKa-gdams-pa times mentioned by the lama, for what he brought me, was one of the Muhammadan period, as is evident from the occurrence of Moslem names in it. In a side chapel of the Seng-gesgang temple, there are three large images of terrible appearance, similar to those which we found in the mGon-khang at Leh. A female figure riding on a mule, is called dPal-ldan-lha-mo (^ri Devi) ; and a male figure seated on a man, mGon-po (Mahgkala). The two remaining %ures I cannot define, although the name of one of them was said to be Abchi.

Below the monastery of Lamayuru there is an ancient shrine which appears to be the old Bon-po temple. The roof is almost gone, and for this reason the frescoes on the walls have suffered badly. The door was also in the wall towards the east. All the divinities painted on the walls of this hall are of Buddhist type ; hut their complexion is either blue or black, and their dress is red. These pictures seem to represent Nagas, similar to those we saw at Ubshi and Alchi. Those ancient gates with four doors, and this mysterious temple at Lamayuru are apparently all of Bon-po origin ; but they were erected in the days when the Bon-po religion was largely influenced by Buddhism and TTind uism . Although a good number of pictures of Buddha-shaped %ures have been preserved in this ruined temple, I could not discover a single one with a white, yellow, or red complexion. But there were several female figures of very unusual shape whose complexion was white. They appeared to wear ear-flaps, like the modern Ladakhi women, and were depicted on the walls as well as on the ceiling. On the latter were ^presented well designed rows of female musicians, alternately white and grey.

Tlie most interesting group of frescoes is that which represents what I believe to be priests of the Bon-po religion (Plate XLI, a). One of them is represented in almost life size, whilst the others are smaller. They are all clothed in white undergarments and striped gowns. The large figure, and one of the smaller ones, show a gown with black and blue stripes, the other small figures have black and grey stripes. The large figure is shown wearing a blue hat, like a European soft felt-hat with a broad brim. The smaller figures have hats of the same shape but of black colour. There are but few early references to the dress of the Bon-po priest ; but in most cases it is described as being black. There are, however, a few passages which make mention of the blue colour of their dress.^ These relics of the Bon religion at Lamayuru are of some importance ; for, as we know from Sarat Chandra Das,^ the present day Bon-po priests of Central Tibet cannot be distinguished from Buddhist priests, their dress being exactly alike.

Above the Lamaym’u Bungalow, there are several modern and two ancient gateways. They are called Khagani (Khanggani). As the ceilings of the old ones are painted all over with blue Buddha-like figures, we may ascribe their origin also to Bon-po times.

Moorcroft® in 1820 discovered in the Lamayuru monastery several letters of protection issued by Aurangzeb, Mu gh al ofldcers, and even by one of the Balti kings.

On the 30th September we marched from Lamayuru to Kharbu by the ordinary trade road across the Phothola Pass, 14,000 feet high. The castle of Kharbu is situated on the top of a rocky hill above the present village of Kharbu. It is all in ruins, and rather difficult of access. Puntsog climbed up to it, but he could find neither ancient implements, nor inscriptions. One of the ruins appeared to be an ancient temple, built of sun-dried bricks. But even here no ancient remains were discovered, nor any traces of raised medallions on the walls.

The old town of Kharbu lies on the rocky plateau above the present village, but below the castle (Plate XL, b). It is easier of access than the latter, and was probably deserted, between circa 1620 and 1630 A.D., when King bDe-ldan-rnam-rgyal wrested it from the Khri Sultan of dKar-rtse. According to the chronicles, the conqueror carried all women and children away into captivity, so after this war it was probably never reoccupied. Captain Oliver, the present Joint Commissioner of Ladakh, informed me that a man at Dras who is now one hundred and eight years old, told hiiri that the fort or ancient town of Kharbu was taken by storm in the Ldgra war. But I feel very doubtful with regard to this statement which is not confirmed by the Ladakhi chronicles, nor by Basti Barn’s account. Moreover, Moorcroft in 1820 A.D. found the old town in ruins. At the eastern end of the old town, not far from two small whitewashed mchodrten, there is an inscription of the times of King Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal carved on the rock.* It is very indistinct, and extremely difficult to decipher. The rough surface of

^ Cf. J". A, S, B., YoL L, pp, 198 and 211.

^ Journey to Lhasa^ p. 207.

® TraveU^ Vol. II, p. 14.

^ ^ I discovered tHs inscription in 1906, and pnblislied it as No. 65 of my First Collection of Tibetan JEutorical Z»* scfi^tions. It seems to contain a reference to ^ah JabSn’s attempt to conquer Ladakh.

Fresco in Bon-po Temple, Lamayuru. b. Ancient wood-carving" of Garuda, Chigtai

the rock also makes it impossible to take impressions of it. I beliere, howerer, that I haye succeeded this time in getting a more correct reading of a certain passage. What had been read Shu-med 'aJam-yang> seems to be in reality Sku-nikhar mkhar-^hu, and thus the name of King ’aJam-dbyang-rnam-rgyal does not occur in it after all. But there are several more passages, the reading of which is still very doubtful. This much we may, however, safely infer from the inscription, viz., that the old town of Kharbu was still inhabited in King Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal’s days. On the western end of the old town, there is a solid round tower with a staircase inside. These stairs lead down to a spring which used to provide the town with fresh water, even when it was besieged.

On the elevated plateau between the old town and the jn’csent village, there are a number of old mcliod~rten and mani walls. But there are also many ancient graves, the origin of which is not known to the present inhabitants. They may be either of Dard, or of Muhammadan origin. Bor, when the town of Kharbu was in the hands of the Khri Sultans of dKar-rtse, the inhabitants were probably compelled to embrace Islam together with the other subjects of the Sultans in the Suru valley. Possibly they date from the Mu^al war.

A very remarkable ruin in the Kharbu vaUey is the castle of Stag-rtse (map Takhcha), on the opposite bank of the brook. It was built on a very steep rock, apparently also very difficult of access, and once formed part of the possessions of the chiefs of Chigtan. It was probably destroyed by bDe-ldan-rnam-rgyal of Ladakh at the same time as Kharbu.

In the Kharbu valley, between Eharbu and Stag-rtse, are the ruins of a large temple called Mun-dig-lha-khang, ‘ the dark temple.’ It is 20 paces long and 16 paces broad. This temple had apparently two doors, one in the eastern, and one in the western waU, and there were separate doorways at some distance from the temple. In the vicinity, I noticed the ruined remains of at least two rows of one hundred and eight mchod-rten. A native whom we met, told us the following tale regarding this ruin : “ It was built by two lamas after the model of the Chigtan temple. One

of them went to Lhasa, and the other to Kashmir, to buy colours for painting frescoes. Both died in those distant countries, and the temple was never completed. ” There were no traces of any frescoes or raised medallions to be seen. But that is not to be wondered at, as the ruin was roofless.

On the 2nd October, we went to Chigtan, situated in a side valley, on a tributary of the Indus. The old castle of the chiefs of Chigtan, the Purig Sultans, is very picturesquely situated on a steep cliff (Plate XLII, a). Below the castle are the ruins of the old town. The greater part of the rooms of the former are no longer accessible, owing to the dilapidated state of the whole building. A great number of the doors, and also several windows, were adorned with very artistic wood carvings in Tibetan style (Plate XLIIE, a) . Two of those in the inner court of the castle were said to be the portraits of the two architects, father and son. In one of the rooms we found a large wooden board on which is carved the figure of a Naga-devouring Garuda. (Plate XLI, b) - Although no document recording the erection of this castle has yet been found, the

Tibetan style of the carvings suggests that its construction took place before 1550 A.D.,

i.e., bef(-re the chiefs of Chigtan became Muhammadan.

4.mong -the ruins of tbe old town below the castle, we found two stone slabs whicb contained inscriptions in a very faulty form of Tibetan. One of them treated of the remission of taxes and forced labour, and gave the name of Adam Malig of Chigtan. This Adam Malig is probably identical with a chief whose name is found in the genealogical roll of the chiefs of Chigtan, and who probably reigned c. 1580 A.D. The other inscription is more fragmentary. It does not contain the name of ^ any chief, but apparently treats of a similar subject and may be attributed to the same time.

The ancient Buddhist monastery of Chigtan is situated at the other end of the village and on the further bank of the brook, coming from the palace (Plate XLII, b). It is similar in type to the monasteries of Ein-ohen-bzang-po’s times and is attributed to the so-called bKa-gdams-pa epoch, judging by the Wanla inscription, mentioned above. The bEa-gdams-pa epoch probably began in the middle of the 11th century, a generation or so after Ein-chen-bzang-po’s time. There are a great number of raised medallions on the wall opposite the door, and all had formerly stucco images in front of them, which were destroyed, when Chigtan adopted the Muhammadan religion. I counted the medallions and found their number to be thirty-nine. This is seven more than the usual thirty-two ; but the seven additional medallions seem to belong to a special group of larger images which once occupied the central portion of the waU. We found traces of a number of inscriptions on the temple walls, the best preserved of which is the Tibetan inscription of the old Lamaist chiefs of Chigtan, which I discovered in 1906.^ There are also traces of another Tibetan, one Arabic (or Persian), and at least five or six Sarada inscriptions. Most of them are found on the medallions. We took photos of two of the §arada inscriptions, and with one of them we succeeded so well that Pandit Mukund

Shastri of Kashmir who examined the photo with a magnifying glass, was able to read a couple of words. The inscription was in Sanskrit, and the character a very late type of Sarada. As the words “ army ” and “ inflated skins ” occur among the distinct portions of the inscription, it looks almost as if it had been written by a Dogra Brahmin during the time of the Pogra wars. In front of the medallions has been erected an altar {lhatho) which is ornamented with twigs of the pencE cedar ; a number of brass cups containing offerings of butter, have been placed below it. The temple hall is a square of 14 or 15 paces each side. Its height is about 24 feet. The roof which was recently renovated is supported by four high pillars of pencil cedar wood. They are quite plain, but the door of the temple is elaborately carved in Indian style (Plate XLIII, b). It shows the figures of a number of Buddhist saints, whose identity it is however impossible to ascertain, owing to the decayed state of the wood. We found the temple in charge of two Muhammadans who said that they were descended from its former Buddhist keepers. Their house name is JOha-khang-pa or dOon-pa-pa. These people still light the butter-filled lamps in the temple, and look after

^ It is desmbed iii my First Calhction of Inscription^ under No. 43.

ihe altar. They told us that the temple was stiU visited by their Buddhist neighbours from Da and Hanu who pay adoration to its old deities.

On the 4th October, we marched to Mulbe, crossing tlie Namika Pass (13,400 feet high). On the way, Puntsog and myself visited the ruined castle of Waka which is situated at the east end of the Mulbe valley. On a steep spur, to the north of the •present village of W aka, lie the ruins of the old castle and town. They are of considerable extent. Some parts of the well-built castle are now inaccessible. This fortress was probably once a stronghold of great importance, as would appear from Jonaraja’s Second Bajatarahgini,^ where a war between two Tibetan tribes, the Vakatanyas and Kalamanyas, is described. The former name probably stands for the garrison of Waka, and the second for the Baltis of Khar-mang. Of ancient remains we found only a stone mortar, a bone tube, and several sherds of thick, hand-made pottery, but no inscriptions.

A little below the fortress, towards the east, there were traces of an ancient hermitage (mthsams-khang), a kind of cave dwelling. Above the caves, we noticed a smooth place on the rock surface with indistinct traces of ancient frescoes. We could only make out the outlines of the picture of a mohod-rten, and a few letters of an ancient inscription. On the plain beneath, a little to the west of the ruined castle, are the remains of an ancient temple called Lha-khang-gog-po ( “ ruined temple ” ), a large square hall which reminded me at once of the temples of Bin-chen-bzang-po’s times. It had been lately used as a dwelling place by several Muhammadan families who had built partition walls across it. This may be the reason why nothing remains of ancient frescoes. It had its door probably in the western wall.

The most famous relic at the village of Mulbe is the huge rock sculpture of Maitreya the Mulbe “ Ohamba ” (Byams-pa). It was noticed by Moorcroft^ in 1820, who has the following note on it : “Near the end of this day’s journey, the road passed between the foot of the mountains on the right of the valley and an insulated pillar of rock, about fifty feet high. On the face of this was sculptured the figure of one of the Tibetan divinities named Ohamba. It differed from the same representation in the temples in being decorated with the Brahminical cord, hanging from the left shoulder and over the right hip. The figure was naked, except round the waist, and was about twenty-four feet high, but the lower part was concealed by a low wall in front ; the upper had been protected by a screen projecting over it from the rock, but this was gone, leaving only the holes in which the pins that had fastened it, had been inserted.”

As we see, Moorcroft noticed already the Brahminical cord among the characteristic emblems of the Maitreya sculpture of Mulbe. The other emblems, a flask and a rosary, are of similar interest. Several students of Indo-Buddhist art feel inclined to derive the most ancient types of Bddhisattvas from deities of the Hindu pantheon. Thus

» Jonai^ja, Bajatarmgim, 167 fE. (Bombay Sanskrit Series, No. LIV, pp. 14 f.) Ziitsfs of Kashmira (transl. J. C. Dotty, Vol. Ill, pp 16 fP. Ike passage is not quite clear, but it seems to convey that one Vakatanya was kiM^by certain Tibetan .(BAo((»)’obieftains called Kslamanya, who in tbeir turn were exterminated by Yakatanya's sonEiSobana (see beneath :pp. 107 ff) who had escaped the massacre. [Ed.]

• Trmels, Vol. II, p. 17.

Avelokite^vara lias been compared with, ^iva, andMaitreya with Brahma. And in fact there are representations of Brahma which are hardly different from some of Maitreya. Thus, for instance, among the wood*carvings of the Sakti temple at Chhatrarhi in Chamba State, there is a four-armed Brahma, carrying a rosary and a water-pot, and accompanied by a pair of geese. The Chhatrarhi sculptures date from about 700 A .D., and the Maitreya of Mulbe is of the same time, approximately. Cunningham, without any foundation, assigns it to the 17th century ! We visited the little temple below the huge sculpture, and found that its keepers were of an old family of On-po& (Astrologers). They said that their family had always been in charge of the sculptures, and that their family name was On-po-pa. The small temple in front of the sculpture was built by Wazirb Sod-nams, who is the present baron of Mulbe. According to these On-pos, the sculpture is either of Ein-chen-bzang-po’s time, or a little older. Ein-chen bzang-po is at any rate credited with having taken an interest in it. The On-pos say that the image was carved by " the eight great sons of Nyeba,” whose figures are shown carved at the feet of Maitreya.^ It is particularly interesting to notice that one of those sons of Nyeba is shown wearing a round hat with a brim, as is the fashion with On-pos who probably inherited this costume from the ancient Bon-po priests of Tibet. The name Nyeba means “friend " {Skr. mitra). In the modern little temple of Wazir bSod-nams there are fanciful fresco paintings, representing “ the eight great sons of Nyeba.” They are of various complexions, one has a blue, another a green face ; some are even yellow black- and brown-faced. Except several repetitions of the Om ma^i padme hum formula no inscriptions are found on the sculpture.

As regards the other antiquities at Mulbe, viz., a Bard castle, two monasteries, and several important rock inscriptions, they have been fully treated in my article “ The rock inscriptions at Mulbe.

Erom Mulbe we marched to Kargil by way of Shargola, on the 5th October. The name of the village of Shargola {Shar-ago-lha) seems to mean “ Lord of the first rising ” and to refer to the morning star. This amounts almost to a certainty when we examine the “Song of iloB gDung-rten ok Shargola.” A. gDmg-rfen is a kind oi stupa. The song begins with the eulogy of an ancient hero, called Agu Drumba, who is the supposed builder of the monastery as weU as of the stupa, and ends with a direct praise of the morning star. The morning star is called here nam-langs-kyi-skar-chen-po, “thegreat star of the rising heaven.” Agu Drumba is probably a personification of the morning star, as is the case with Agu ’aBu-dmar-lam-bstan of the Kesar Saga.® The morning star is the herald of the sun, and therefore its personification would

‘ As we learn from S. Ch. Das’ Dictionary, the eight great sons of Nyeba are Buddhist saints. Their names are given on p. 485 of the dictionary. But on p. 91 of the same hoolr, we find a group of eight Bon-po deities who are called thiirsras-hrgyad, the ‘ eight great sons. It is evident that the Mnlhe sculptures originally represented eight Bon -po deities who were converted into eight Budd hi st deities at a later time.

The custom of representing the donors at the feet of the deity is met with both in Christian and Buddhist art.

See ITote sur um siattie du Q-andhSra. B. B. F. E. 0 . TTn.r.m^ Vo], m, 1903, p. 149, [Ed.]

» Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXV, pp. 72 fF.

^ A loKer Jjadahhi version of the Zeswr (Saya, Bibliotheca Indica. [Can Drumba be connected with Dhruva as the- Polar Star is called in Sanskrit ? ] [Ed.]

be the messenger of tbe king in the Saga. And indeed, Shargola is believed to be the home of a legendary messenger 'pm excellence. Here, the house of bLon-po Big-pa can is still shown to travellers. bLon-po Big-pa-can is said to have acted as the measenger of King Srong-btsan-sgam-po who sent him to China to fetch a bride for the king. The tale of Big-pa-can’s journey to China is apparently indentical with the Prime minister Gar’s journey to the same country. I obtained a popular Ladakhi version of the former story, which also contains the tale of the passage of an ant through a spiral labyrinth, as told by Sarat Chandra Das,^ but the other parts of the Ladakhi tale differ from the Lhasa version. This tale of the minister’s embassy is very similar to such episodes of the Kesar Saga as “ Kesar’s journey to China.” The tale of the minister Big-pa-can’s embassy is fuU of nature-mythology, and may have only a very slight historical foundation. The house in which the minister Rig-pa-can is believed'to have been born, is situated near the bridge of Shargola. It is very well huilt and looks like a nobleman’s house ; but only a small portion of it has preserved its original beauty. Here also, a Moslem famdy have taken up their abode and spoilt the

old architecture. . , n . i ri j

The ancient gdmg-rten (stupas) of Shargola are painted in red, blue and yellow.

They are adorned with stucco figures round the base— -a feature which is quite unus^l in Ti ^^dfllcb . The figures are very time-worn, but seem to represent Garudas, or similar fabulous creatures. They are, however, popularly known as Gyad-pa, “ heroes,” and as the word Agu is also used to indicate the heroes of the Kesar Sa^a, there may be some sort of connection between these figures and Agu Drumba, mentioned above.

The idea that the messenger par excellence has his home at Shargola, seems to have been accepted also by Buddhism, when it entered the vpage. I found here a stone with a rock carving representing Vajra-pani (Phyag-rdor), the constant companmn of Buddha on Gandhara sculptures. This carving is well drenched in oi or ghee, and includes an inscrintion running from top to bottom which gives the name of the donor, She-rab-zang-po. H looks as if it Ls from about the 15th century, to judge by the form of ifa characters. Vaira-pani is easily confused with Yajra-sattva ; in fact, Jaschkee asserts that both are JeraBy’taken for the same divinity, and thus we find an inscription Om Badzrastca L one of the ancient gdung-rten. This inscription is raised in stucco and appears to be

older than the Vajra-pani inscription. i j t+

The convent of Shargoh i» e genuine cave monastery and probably very old. Its former name was apparently MorhUng, “ Mother house. ’ Ttoname ie found in the fbove-mentioued so^ o£ the gdung-rten. It may refer to Sn-Devi (dPal-ldM-lba-mo) or her pre-Buddhist equivalent to whom the monastery was evidently ^8 it

™ ^ntlyrenovated,no ancient wall-paintings or images were foundin it ; but the pre- Zt Lco^ trere possibly painted in imitation of more ancient on«. I t’"'

Miring picture,! dPal-ldan-lha-mo (Sri-Bevi) riding on a male ; and Ohos-skyo^ . SZpa r Satrapa, the protector of rd ^on”). Can this be a reminiscence of the

” " j j. A. 8. B., Vol. L (1881), Part I. p. 220.

famous Satraps of Buddhist India ? He is shown in the dress of an ancient Tibetan knight,, mounted on a horse or rhyang, with fire arrows in his quiver. The lama said that Satrapa was the brother of Agu Drumba who himself is represented by a stucco image. The latter is depicted in the dress of a Ge-lug-pa lama the order to which the monasterynow belongs. On one of the walls I noticed also a modern inscription which contained a Tibetan calendar. The people of Mulbe assert that the Shargola monastery was built by two of their ancient chiefs, Thog-lde“Jo (Tog-lde-jo ?) and Tang-lde-Jo, father and son,

On the way from Shargola to Kargil, and from Kargil to Dras, I was continually on the look out for traces of Buddhism, which is said to hare been the prevailing religion in Purig three or four hundred years ago. But though there were many rock carvings representing ibex, or hunting scenes, I could not, even after a long search, find a single carving representing a stupa or the Om mani padme hum formula. Yet, I feel sure that there were many of them in the old Buddhist times. They were probably all destroyed, when Kargil became Muhammadan. Many boulders there look, indeed, as if they had been deprived of their outer coating.

People told me that there was a rock with a large Buddhist sculpture at dKar-rtse in the Suru valley, and that it also contained a Tibetan inscription. I could not, however, go there. Another sculpture from Shinggo is found pictured in Drew’s book of travel.

The Muhammadanism of Purig (Kargil to Dras) is probably closely connected with a certain type of Balti Muhammadanism, another type of which appears to be connected with that of Kashmir, to judge from the style of its mosques. The Kashmir type is found north of Skardo ; and what may be called the Purig type, south of Skardo, and in Pur%. As Mr. W. M. Conway has made a thorough study of this kind of architecture we cannot do better than quote his description. He says^ : “ We were now come

to a country in which the mosque type is different from that north of Skardo. The Got mosque may be taken as an example of the change. It is relatively lower and flatter than the Shigar Nagyr mosque. Its walls are built of mud. Its roof is carried on long beams transverse to the axis of the building, and each beam is supported on a row of columns. There is no emphasized central square with foTir columns round it, and a lantern above, as in the other type. Here the centre is occupied by a column more orna- mental than the rest, and standing right between the door and the mihrdh. The other columns are of all sorts, oblong and polygonal in section. Capital, column, and base are carved from one log. There is a portico along the east wall. Por external finish there is a kind of double corbelled arrangement of beam ends and beams, where roof and walls join. The carving about doors, capitals, and the like, is of a style that was new to me. It affects foliation and flowers rather than geometrical designs. Outside themosque, on the east, is meydah, a collection of round walled latrines — numerous,, obvious and large.”

On the 6th October, we marched from Kargil to Shimsha Kbarbu. On a rock between Kargil and Chanigund, in the Dard district, are several rock carvings which

^ Ciimhinq and ex^loraiion in the Karalcorum^ Yol. II, p. 582.

Plate XLIV.

a Rock carvings at Dongga.

b. Rock carvings at Dongga.

reminded me of the pre- Buddhist religion of Western Tibet, mz:, a svastika and a yoni, and several ibex ; a little later on, we also found a sun symbol among the carvings at Chanigund.^ • ^

On the road from Ohanigund to Shimsha Kharbu, at a place called Dongga, there is ■a boulder which is covered with many carvings. (Plate XLIV.) The older ones are of a yellowish colour, the modern ones are white. Here we actually found’ carved representations of stupas, one of the cross type. Most of the more recent carvings repi'esent ibex, but not scenes of ibex hunting. As I have already pointed out in other articles, "the ibex is a symbol of fertility according to the pre-Buddhist religion, similar to the ram of Bahul. The pre-Buddhist divinities, Kesar, ’aBruguma, etc., are invoked to grant children. When one is born, the neighbours make presents of “ flour ibex ” to the happy family. I am inclined to think that the many figures of ibex carved on the rocks of Ladakh, represent thank-offerings for the birth of children.

On another boulder at the same site, I found carvings, representing war-like scenes, mz., the capture and slaughter of prisoners. They do not look very old and may refer to the Bogra war.

There is an extensive ruin of a castle at Shimsha Kharbu, above the bungalow. When I asked the inhabitants, if they knew who built it, they said that it had been the property of the Khri Sultans of Sod (near Kargil). The word Khri is not pronounced Thi at Shimsha Kharbu, but Khri. The Dard women here, as well as at Dras, wear high caps. We tried to induce one of them to allow herself to be photographed, but were not successful. After the long desert journey from Leh to Purig, we hailed with delight the first appearance of occasional trees on the road side, during this day’s march. The mountain sides also ceased to be entirely bare, and showed occasional patches of green pasture.

On the 7th October, we marched from Shimsha Kharbu to Dras, or Hembabs. When Moorcroft visited Dras in 1820, he found it to be the joint property of the king of Ladakh and a Kashmir Malik, both of whom extracted one rupee annually from every household in the Dras vaUey.* He does not mention the ancient Buddhist stone sculptures of Dras at all. They were, however, discovered by Vigne, twenty years later. Cunningham says that the images represent females, and that they are called Jomo, “ nuns.” Both statements are wrong. The sculptures represent Bodhisattvas and are called Qhamba {Byams-pa, i.e,, Maitreya). Cunningham made a copy of one of the inscriptions and gives his reading of it. We managed to take Kasik paper impressions -of all three inscriptions found on the sculptures, and also photos of the stones. The sculptures may be described as follows : —

(1) The first stone which is the smallest, shows a man on horseback, his right hand ■on the bridle, and his left hand above his head, probably wielding a sword. This rider represents a Eiap.a {Skr, rajdnaka), and has nothing to do with sati, as was supposed by C'tinningham.® This stone has a very clear Sarada- inscription on the reverse. It is the

• my art-icle Sistorische Dokrimente von KkaZatse^ Z. T). G,i Vol, LXI, p. 683. ^ Moorcroft, Travels, Yol. II, p. 41.

3 Cf. J. PL. Vogel, The Ran%s of the Panjah Sills, J. B. A. 1908, p. 539,

P

one wMcli was copied by Cunningliam, who was unable to translate it. Pandit Mukund Earn of Kashmir who studied our rubbing of it, had, however, no particular difficulty in reading and understanding it- The language is Sanskrit, and the inscription records the erection of two images, one of Maitreya, and another of Aval4kitd4vara, evidently the two larger sculptures.

(2) The second stone is about six feet high. The carving shows a plain Maitreya. He wears a three-pointed tiara, and has a rosary in his raised right hand, and a vase in his left Three small figures, probably human devotees who reach up to his knees, are carved below him, one on his right and the two others on his left. Below them is a lotus throne which contains the figures of two lions couchant. To the left of Maitreya’s head is carved another very small human figure. To the right of his head is carved a ^arada inscription which is, however, in a very dilapidated condition.

(3) The third stone is also six feet high, and shows a standing human figure. The right hand is raised, and the left band is probably carrying some object. The head-dress has been destroyed. This figure apparently represents Avalokite^vara. On his right and left we see two female figure which are almost of the same siz« as the main image. They are represented in the “ Indian attitude,” resting on one foot, and holding onehand above their heads. They may be taken as representations of the two Taras. Below the female on Maitreya’s right, we see three small kneeling figures, with their hands raised in supplication (Skr. mijali). Below Avalokiteivara, there is lotus throne, with two miniature figures emerging from it. ^ There were probably also several small standing figures on both sides of Avalokitelvara, reaching up to his knees ; but they cannot now be distinguished. On the reverse of this stone, there is a large and elaborate carving of a stupa, with thirteen umbrellas on the top. There are also thirteen steps below it leading up to a square in the centre w'hich contains a human figure. Above the head of the female figure to the left of Avalokite^vara,- we discovered a much damaged inscription, partly in Tibetan. All the sculptures seem to date approxi-. mately from the 10th century A.D.

(4) The fourth sculptured stone stands on the opposite side of the road. The carving represents a full-blown lotus flower, as we often find them on the fountain tablets of Manchad. But this one was decorated with additional vases on the four cardinal points of the wheel.-

Accorffingto the chronicles of Ladakh, the ancient boundaiy between .Ladakh and Kashmir was at La-rtsa,- and a “ stone with holes ” was the boundary stone. The people of Bras told me that their village was also known by the name of La-rtsa (‘Boot of the Pass’) j but they did not know of such a stone. They also said that, according to their belief, the watershed on the Zo-ji Pass was the frontier between the two countries.

I had to leave Pindi Lai with two assistants at Dras, to wait for better weather. He had not been successful in his first attempt at taking rubbings of the inscriptions,

' Tt seeiHS tKat oiis of these tTiro' ■figures is- kneeling, while-the other is standing and cariies a lotas-filower as an. offei*- iog in his right hand. They bear a remarkable resemblance to the two Indo-Scythian donors in the Vaisravana image of the Lahore Museum. [Ed,]

-as the wind tore off the moistened paper, as soon as it was laid on the rock. He and his companions caught us up at Baltal on the other side of the pass, and the Nasik paper impressions which he brought along with him, were excellent.

On the road between Dras and Pandras, on the Tibetan side of the pass, there is a boulder, on which a much worn inscription Ork niani yadme hum can be distinguished. This is the only inscription of that kind which I have been able to trace in the now Muhammadan territory between Shargola and Kashmir. As is the case with all ancient examples of the Om mam padme hum formula, the Pandras inscription also has the d and m written sej)arately, while all the more modern inscriptions show d and ni combined into one compound character.

The Zo-ji Pass is called Du-zhi-la by the Tibetans after a goddess l)u-zhi-lha-mo (probably Dus-bzhi-lha-mo, “ goddess of the four seasons ”). The following tale is told of that deity. Pu-zhi-lha-mo was the wife of Naropa. When the latter went to Ladakh, he wished to leave her behind, on account of her Kashmiri smell {Ghe-H, in full Kha-

■ che-dri). She w^as displeased at that, and turned her back towards Ladakh, and her face towards Kashmir. This caused Ladakh to dry up, and Kashmir to become fertile. People say ; “I wish he had taken her to Ladakh, then it would be as green as Kashmir.” And the sudden appearance of the luxuriant vegetation on the Kashmir side of the Zo-ji Pass is really an ever fresh and pleasant surprise to the traveller from Ladakh. Although during the last two or three days a few scattered trees have made their appearance on the roadside, a beautifully wooded mountain slope is more than he would ex- pect to rise before his vision, and yet it is so ; for on turning a corner of the excellent new road across the pass, green wooded Kashmir suddenly makes its appearance, and desert Ladakh remains behind.

The first typical Kashmiri village on the south side of the Zo-ji Pass, is Sonamarg (Golden Meadow). A short distance above the village, there are remains of ancient ramparts which were built across the valley. The Tibetans call them Jja-dvags-rgyal-poi- mchibs-ra, “the king of Ladakh’s horse-enclosure.” They believe that their ancient kings had their horses on this side of the pass. The Kashmiri inhabitants of Sonamarg, however, believe that these ramparts are the remains of a QUa’ (fort) of a certain Ibrahim Kban of Kabul. I may add that the Tibetans call the resthouse of Baltal Shing- Mang, and the village of Sonamarg, bSod-mms-ma-Ug.

About a mile above the village of Gund, on the old road, is a rock covered with

■ several ancient and crude carvings of human figures which are believed by the Tibetans to represent King Kesar. They remind one of those put up in commemoration of the

• dead in Manchad and Lahul. How these carvings of human beings (about eight), came to be connected with King Kesar, I do not know. On the same rock we found also sun

■ symbols, for instance, wheels with eight spikes.

In Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir, I was particularly interested in all those places which are connected with Binchan Bhoti, the Tibetan (Ladakhi) king of Kashmir (circa :1319— 1323 A.I).). As is stated by Sir Walter Lawrence in his book on Kaslxmir.i

^ Valley of Kashmir^ p. 100.

P 2

Eaindian Shall (Rinchan Bhoti) built the Jami‘ mosque of ^riuagar. I went there on the 18th October, two days after our arrival. I'he priests said, they knew for certain that the mosque was built by Sikandar But-shikan, a statement which agrees with Mr. JiTicholls’ reading of the inscription. When they understood that I was particularly iuterested in Rainchan Shah, th(iy told me that he was the founder of the Awwal Masjid “ The first Mosque ” in Maharaj-Ganj. We therefore visited the latter which is also geiieraUy known as Bindan Shah Masjid. (Plate XLV, a). It is a smalh insignificant builclingj and cannot be compared with the beautifub later mosques of Srinagar. It is empty, has not even a minaret on its roof, and the walls have lost their coating of whitewash. i could not discover in it any kind of works of art. Formerly there had been a stone slab which was inscribed with non- Arabic characters, said to have been a kind of §astri, which designation may stand for ^arada or Tibetan.^ About twenty years ago, so I was told, a European carried off the inscribed slab and took it to England. As this gentleman did not leave his address, there is not much chance of rediscovering this important recoi’d. However, a Persian translation of the inscription has apparently been preserved in Haidar Malik*s Persian History of Kashmir. It runs thus. My friend for the sake of gaiety has become the observed of observers ! His face claimed Islam and his hair adorned Paganism. He controls both Paganism and Islam, and takes interest in both.” Prom this inscription it follows, that RiSchan Bhoti had become only half Muhammadan.

Pandit Mukund Ram Shastri says that there is another stone, at or near the Jami’ Mosque, lying on its face, which also has a non- Arabic inscription. The Muhammadan priests, however, woidd not allow him to examine it.

The Awwal Masjid is, according to popular tradition, the oldest mosque of Srinagar and people assert that thousands of Hindus were here converted to Islam. Pandit Mukund Ram Shastri told us Rihchan Bhoti’s story, exactly as it is given in Sir Walter Lawrence’s “ Valley of Kashmir.” When I asked him how he came to know it, he said he had read it in the Rajatarahgini. He could not, however, produce a passage in that book which contained more than Pandit Daya Ram Sahni’s translation of the account of Rihchana’s reign.® He provided me, with extracts from two Persian chronicles which de.seribe the same times, viz., Haidar Malik’s chronicle, and the “History of Azmi.” In both these chronicles it is plainly stated that Rinchan Shah built also the shrine called Bulbul Lanhar, besides the mosque.

This shrine is situated only a few steps from the Awwal Mosque. It is a comparatively plain sanctuary. The fresco flower ornaments on its w'^alls seem to be of more recent date. People assert that it was built in Rainchan Shah’s time, and everybody here knows of the friendship between king Rainchan Shah and the priest Bulbul. It is interesting that this Bulbul has also found his way into Ladakhi folklore, where he is mentioned in the “ Song of the Bodro Masjid of Srinagar.” The Ladakhi poet who w'rote this song in times gone by, must have known of the Ladakhi origin of the Kashmir king Rifichaua. Bodro-

' Sdstri is a term commonly used in Northern India to designate Nagari. [Ed.] ... .

=* Ind. Ant., Vol. XXXVIl, pp. 181 ff.

Plate XLV.

a. Awwal Masjid, Srinagar, Rinchan Shah's grave, Srinagar.

means “Tibetan” and the Lada^khis, therefore, called Rinchan’s mosqne “TheTil)etan Mosque.”

Only a short distance from Bulbul Lankar, people showed us the “grave of llindan Shah.” It is indicated by a plain stone without an inscription, a little larger than the tombstones of ordinary people. It is surrounded by a low stone wall on all four sides, and rose bushes have been planted inside the enclosure (Plate XLV, b).

There are many rumours among the Ladakhis about another Bodro Masjid (Tibetan Mosque) at Srinagar. They say that it was an old Buddhist temple which was converted into a mosque several centuries ago, and that pictures of Buddhist saints are traceable under its whitewash. Popular tradition has connected this mosque with Xarojia and calls it Na-ro-pai-thsogs-khang, “Naropa’s Assembly Hall.” Of this Bodro Masjid, it is asserted that it is situated below the Hari Parbat or castle hill of Srinagar ; but although we tried our best to find it, we were not successful. In the course of our researches we -were taken to another very insignificant little mosque outside the town, at Idka (Idgah) which did not appear to be very old. This little mosque was also called Bodro Masjid by the Kashmiris. It may have been erected on the site of a former mosque which was more worthy of the name ; but the real Bodro Masjid with the Buddhist pictures below its whitewash stiU remains to be discovered.

The Ladakhis regard the Takht-i-Sulaiman, the hill overlooking Srinagar, as the former abode of Padma-sambhava, and have legends connected with him. Padma-sambhava is supposed to have lived in the present stone temple on the top of the hill, which is believed to have been his hermitage. They called the hill Fmpa ari,^ and say that the hermit once saw seven magicians perform miracles on the surface of the lake which then covered the Kashmir valley. He threw a handful of barley over them and thus prevented, their escape; for according to Tibetan belief, spirits can be arrested by throwing barley at them. He kept them in his service, and the present inhabitants. of Kashmir are descended from them. The worts of art executed by the Kashmiris are like the work of magicians in the eyes of the Ladakhis.

At Srinagar I enjoyed the hospitality of the two doctors Neve, well known as medical missionaries and explorers. In their house, I also made the acquaintance of Dr. Longstafi who had just returned from a most successful expedition along the frontier of Ladakh and Turkestan. The results of this expedition, viz., the discovery of the largest glacier, and of one of the highest mountain peaks in the Himalayas, are now beingpublished in various geographical journals. It was a great treat for me to be able to discuss a number of geographical questions, regarding Tibet, with this experienced geographer. It was also encouraging to meet here with Sir Francis Younghusband’s intei'est in our work and achievements.

As Pindi Lai belonged to-Dr. Spooner’s establishment we travelled first to Peshawar, to divide om* office equipment between the Peshawar and the Simla offices. After a few ideal days, spent under the hospitable roof of the discoverer of the “ Buddha’s relics,” we reached Simla safely on the 11th of November.

^ The oviginal name was Qopadri. Cf, Stein JRotj Vo). I, p. 51, note 341.

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