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

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This temple, the oldest of the existing temples of Poo, is called Lo-18a-bí'i-Lha-khang and is asserted to have been built by Lo-tsa-ba Rin-chen-bzang-po (Rataa-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 Maudgalyáyana, 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-páni, 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 Ye-shes-'od. As this temple was the successor to the ancient temple of rigor, 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 Thákur. The Lambardár 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 ci)uld be seen, in still iarer 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 rig, ` 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 Panjáb hills 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 several enclosures for sheep and cattle, two mani walls, and some small stone huts. One of the mani walls contained an inscribed slab in Sanskrit and Tibetan, instead of the ordinary votive tablet. I made an eye copy of it. The inscription contains a passage appa-

rently taken from the rajnáparamitá, addressed to the Yum-chen-po, the ` great mother.' This great mother is Tara, the wife of Siva, and at the same time the goddess of learning. It is not remarkable that we should find here a prayer addressed to the wife of Siva, for

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