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

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Fig. 3.

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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 BŰdhisattvas, 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 by Indian Buddhist monks who emigrated to Tibet in the 10th and 11th centuries, when Buddhism rapidly declined in India. But there are also picturesof Tibetan origin. One of them had the inscription Gu-gei-sde, ` province 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 Maiju-ghösha which we photographed. (Fig. 3) . There were also two very beautiful ancient wood carvings of standing Buddhas with attendants. (Plate XVIII) .

On both sides of rNam-par-snang-mdzad,

there is a pile of manuscripts about five 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 Prájná-páramitá in Tibetan translation. This work by Nágárjuna was translated by the famous lama, Rinchen-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 Rin-chen-bzang-po, and copies were distributed among all 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 Prájncz páramitei 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