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

the former site was said to be an epidemic. There are still many graves in a side-valley
near it.

Probably the most ancient monastery at Skara is the one which is situated in a little
ravine, between the rGar-rtse Monastery and the ruined village. Four walls are still
standing, and there are traces of red colour (frescoes) on the walls. Close by is an
underground room, in which we found a human skeleton of recent date.

Below this ruined monastery, there is a mchod-rten shaped like a "Mon mchod-rten."
It consists of a lower square room, on the top of which is placed a round pyramid.
Locally this mchod-rten is known as the grave of a king. It actually contained human
bones, notably fragments of a skull.

Not far from it, on the plain, there is a group of three ancient-looking mchod-rten
of the usual shape. A man from Skara had extracted from them several ancient house-
hold utensils filled with grain. Out of these, he sold me a sieve cup made of very thin
copper leaf.

At Skara my attention was drawn to a rather modern-looking round mchod-rten
which was hollow and furnished with a door. Inside of it we found several cremation
tablets of ancient style, some with Indian inscriptions. I was told that a few years ago
an ancient mchod-rten was destroyed by a Muhammadan who built a house for himself
at Skara. He carried all the tablets found in the old mchod-rten to the new one and
hid them there. In the desert below Skara, there are the low mounds of several ancient
mchod-rten. We found in them cremation tablets with Indian legends, very much like
those at rGya.

In the desert between Skara and Spithug (dPe-thub) on the Indus, on a plateau
below the western mountain range, there are the ruins of a large building called
Chad-pai-lha-khang, "Temple of Punishment." The outer wall towards the east has a
length of more than 100 feet. There is no wall on the west side. Perhaps it was left
incomplete. I made a plan of it. I was told that in the days of the Ladakhi kings (no
personal name could be remembered) two men were ordered to erect this temple as a
punishment for some crime. No woodwork remains, and there are no traces of images
or frescoes on the site.

In the desert east of Leh, there is a large mchod-rten of yellow colour, which is
called Ma-ni-gser-mo. Popular tradition asserts that it is one of the most ancient here.
On the western side of the dome there is a niche with a complete figure of a seated
Buddha. It must formerly have had such niches on all four sides. Attached to it are
two or three mchod-rten of more recent date. One of them was open, and contained
all sorts of old rubbish, viz., fragments of idols, pages of books, charms, and cremation
tablets. We took away some of the better preserved tablets. In 1906 we obtained from
the same mchod-rten a few sheets of manuscript in a modern Indian dialect which were
sent to Dr. Vogel, for examination. As King Seng-ge-rnam-rgyal (c. 1600 A.D.) exhibited
strong sympathies with the religions of India, the manuscripts may date from his time.
Of more recent date are the pages of a Sanskrit book in Devanāgari character. This book
was used by the Ḍogrās after the wars, 1834—1842 A.D., when they established a

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