was to make another 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, gNya-khri-btsan-po, Tho-tho-ri-snyan, Srong-btsan-sgam-po, Khri-srong-lde-btsan, sKyid-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 King 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 probably identical with the famous pupil of bTsong-kha-pa, Lha-dbang-blo-gros-chos-rje, who 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 15th century, Lama Lha-dbang-chos-rje converted the lamas to the reformed doctrines of the G e-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 then 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 prince who after the battle of Basgo was compelled to embrace Islam. I have already 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 mchod-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 mchod-rten is a room, square in ground plan, which the lama said was the earliest temple at Likir,. and was already in existence when Lha-chen-rgyal-po built the monastery.
On the 23rd September, we sv ent to Alchi on the left bank of the river. On the way thither, at Saspola, we photographed the two ancient ruined mchocl-rtes which are attributed to Rinechen-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.
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