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famous Satraps of Buddhist India ? He is shown in the dress of an ancient Tibetan knight, mounted on a horse or rkyang, with five arrows in his quiver. The lama said that Satrapa was the brother of Agu Drumba who himself is represented by a stucco image. The latter is depicted in the dress of a Ge-lug-pa lama the order to which the monastery now belongs. On one of the walls I noticed also a modern inscription which contained a Tibetan calendar. The people of Mulbe assert that the Shargola monastery was built by two of their ancient chiefs, Thog-lde-Jo (Tog-ide-jo ?) and Yang-ide-Jo, father and sou.
On he way from Shargola to Kargil, and from Kargil to Dras, I was continually on the look out for traces of Buddhism, which is said to have been the prevailing religion in Purig three or four hundred years ago. But though there were many rock carvings representing ibex, or hunting scenes, I could not, even after a long search, find a single carving representing a stúpa or the Orin mayai padme 1i[ ih formula. Yet, I feel sure that there were many of them in. the old Buddhist times. They were probably all destroyed, when Kargil became Muhammadan. Many boulders there look, indeed, as if they had been deprived of their outer coating.
People told me that there was a rock with a large Buddhist sculpture at dKar-rtse in the Suru valley, and that it also contained a Tibetan inscription. I could not, however, go there. Another sculpture from Shiinggo is found pictured in Drew's book of travel.
The Muhammadanism of Purig (Kargil to Dras) is probably closely connected with a certain type of Balti Muhammadanism, another type of which appears to be connected with that of Kashmir, to judge from the style of its mosques. The Kashmir type is found north of Skardo ; and what may be called the Purig type, south of Skardo, and in Purig. As Mr. W. M. Conway has made a thorough study of this kind of architecture we cannot do better than quote his description. He says' : " We were now come to a country in which the mosque type is different from that north of Skardo. The Gol mosque may be taken as an example of the change. It is relatively lower and flatter than the Shigar Nagyr mosque. Its walls are built of mud. Its roof is carried on long beams transverse to the axis of the building, and each beam is supported on a row of columns. There is no emphasized central square with four columns round it, and a lantern above, as in the other type. Here the centre is occupied by a column more ornamental than the rest, and standing right between the door and the mihrab. The other columns are of all sorts, oblong and polygonal in section. Capital, column, and base are carved from one log. There is a portico along the east wall. For external finish there is a kind of double corbelled arrangement of beam ends and beams, where roof and walls join. The carving about doors, capitals, and the like, is of a style that was new to me, It affects foliation and flowers rather than geometrical designs. Outside the mosque, on the east, is meydah, a collection of round walled latrines — numerous, obvious and large."
On the 6th October, we marched from Kargil to Shimsha Kharbu. On a rock between Kargil and Chanigund, in the Dard district, are several rock carvings which
1 ctimLinq and exploration in the Karakorum, Vol. II, p. 582.
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