National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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Lamaist temple is a recent structure and is said to be only twelve or thirteen years old. Its style is not different from that of the ordinary dwelling-houses of Rámpur : 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 Raid's garden-houses, we found more Lamaist frescoes. One of them interested me in particular, for it evidently 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 hal 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 Mughal, or of the Bashahr king, Kèhari Singh.' A party of Bashahr people, distinguished by their black round hats, are placed in front of the Mughal, 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 :Mate. The Tibetans who had been beaten by the Mughal army at Basgo, near Leh, had to cede a portion of Guge, viz., 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 document s.

At Rámpur we inspected also the royal palaces, gardens and guest-houses, but nothing appeared to be of particular interest. Unfortunately the Rájá and his party were not present. Here we engaged a Khalasi called Sádhu, to accompany us on our further travels. Although this man had har.11y seen any place beyond Rámpur, he proved useful and was always ready to work even under difficulties.

The road up the Satluj- valley, from Rámpur to Chini, 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. Oaten 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 liard to begin the ascent again under the scorching rays of a tropical midday sun.

We arrived at Gaura, a little village above Rámpur, on the 22nd June. The people

were holding their Festival 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 Bashahr Rajas see beneath Appendix D.