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

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and in the Byams-pa temple of Basgo, we find the portraits of the royal founders by the side of the door. Whilst at Basgo the name of the king is found written below the picture, at Leh the inscription containing the name of the king is found on the other side of the door, as is the case here. The king wears a diadem, and his yellow mantle shows large round spots of blue or purple colour with the figure of a lion or tiger in each of them. His girdle shows a chequered pattern of white and red. In his hand he bears an axe of fanciful shape, and he is shaded by an umbrella. His son (probably Lha-chen-rgyal-po) is dressed in a similar manner, and the queen has her hair plaited in many little pigtails. The principal image in this shrine is of course Vairöchana (rNam-par-snang-mdzad). The temple door is most elaborately carved in Indian style (Plate XXXIX, a), and on both sides there are two narrow chapels which contain huge stucco figures.

4.  Lo-tsa-bai-lha-khang.—This temple is in a line with the first and second temples described above, but farther north. It contains a statue of a seated Buddha and a portrait painting of Rin-chen-bzang-po, the founder of the monastery. There is also an image of this lama in the same hall, but the monks say that it was modelled after the fresco. The hall is also furnished with an ancient, well carved door, and there are a few fragments of carved wooden pillars.

5.  'aJam-dbyangs-khang.--This temple contains a large stucco image of the Dhydnibuddhas of the four regions, the one towards the east being painted yellow, that towards the south white, that towards the north red, and that towards the west blue. Below them, there are more images and the sixteen emblems of happiness, i.e., the eight ordinary emblems of happiness with additions. Among there we could distinguish the pair of fishes, the wheel, the parasol, and even a cross, which is evidently intended to symbolise the four quarters of the globe. This hall is also furnished with beautifully carved door-beams and pillars. But the best wood-carving is that of a standing Buddha which is found above the door outside. It is already very brittle and will probably not last much longer.

6.  Lha-khang.—This temple is situated a little way to the south of the preceding ones. It contains only pictures and has suffered much by the rough treatment of the children of the village. A figure of Ganésa is painted above the door. On one side ofit are painted historical scenes ; for instance a group of West Tibetan noblemen on horseback, hawking. On the other side are pictures of Buddhist saints and lainas, all furnished with inscriptions. I ordered Puntsog to copy all the decipherable inscriptions ; but

the copying of the many interesting frescoes I had to leave to some future explorer. The inscriptions contain mostly naines, belonging to well known lamas. The following

is a list of such lamas as are known to me : Iglu-grub (Nftgarjuna) ; Arya-rdeba

(Á.rya-déva) ; Natropa (or Naropa) ; Telipa (or Telipa) ; Loipa (or Luipa) ; Kumara and Dharma-ki(r)ti of Srong-btsan-sgam-po's time ; Kamala(sila), Ananta, Shantipa (Santis

rakshita) of Khri-srong-lde-btsan's time ; E (n)-tra-bhodhe (Srîlendra bodhi) of Ralpacan's time. The latest seem to be Zla-ba-grags-pa and Kun-dgd-snyi ng-po of the 11th century. A further reason for attributing the frescoes and inscriptions of this temple to the 11th or 12th century, is that the orthography employed in the inscriptions shows signs of considerable age (myi and mye instead of mi and me).

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