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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 Avalőkité4vara, he seems to have forgotten Buddhism altogether. Among the pictures we find Indian garden-houses in full Mughal style, and Indian nobles (perhaps meant to be portraits of bKra-shisrnam-rgyal and his court) who look exactly like the Mughals themselves. This adaptation of Mughal 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 bKra-shisrnam-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 thirty-two figures at Tabo ; but it was impossible to count them.
(3) rNam-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. Chatterji 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 servants ? " 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 with painted galleries. These frescoes are very rudely executed, and hardly do credit to King bDe-skyong-rnam-rgyal who renovated this courtyard, according to an inscription written on one of the walls in black ink. Fortunately for archeology, 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-d$ who reigned in the first half of the 11th century. He calls himself Nyag-rct, i.e. " warden," of ihe monastery, and in the inscription he gives admonitions to the monks. Besides the king's name, the epigraph contains also the names of three famous lamas, his contemporaries, viz., Mar-pa, Al-lci-pa and 'aBrom-ston. Whilst Mar-pa and 'aBrom-ston are widely known, Al-lei-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-dpá with his wife and son. My reason for this assertion is that both in the dGon-khang temple of Leh,
1 Of some interest is a little song, placed at the 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.
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