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

gave me one of those figures, which are made of flour and butter, and told me that it was
a custom in Tibet and Ladakh, to make presents of " flour-ibex " on the occasion of the
birth of a child. This is quite interesting information. I had often wondered why there
were so many rock carvings of ibex at places connected with the pre-Buddhist religion
of Ladakh. Now it appears probable that they are thank offerings, after the birth of
children. As I have tried to show in my previous article,¹ people used to go to the
pre-Buddhist places of worship, in particular, to pray to be blessed with children.

On the 30th September, we left Khalatse and travelled to Lamayuru. When we
arrived on the left bank of the Indus, after crossing the Khalatse bridge, I examin-
ed again the three stones with inscriptions, which I had discovered there several years ago,
and again made careful copies of the inscriptions, which later on I sent to Dr. Vogel.
Although it is not yet possible to read them with certainty, Dr. Vogel believes the kind
of character employed to be later Gupta, almost Śāradā, of c. 600—800 A.D.

At Lamayuru, we visited, first of all, the famous monastery of the 'aBri-khung-pa
order which is very picturesquely situated on a steep rock (Plate XL, a). According
to the Māhātmya of Lamayuru, the monastery was founded by the Buddhist priest
Naropa in the ninth or tenth century. When Naropa arrived at the site, the whole
valley was filled with a lake which he caused to dry up.² The monastery received its
name from a plantation of sacrificial grain which mysteriously grew into the shape of
the svastika (g Yung-drung). It is interesting that there are traces of deposits of a
former lake all around the mountains of Lamayuru, and it is strange that Drew in
his book does not make any mention of them. But the Ladakhis must really have a
geological instinct, to be able to invent stories of this kind. They have also tales of
the former existence of lakes at Leh and at Triloknāth in Lahul. The name g Yung-
drung was of course not given by Naropa, but must date back to a time long before he
arrived in the country, as it was then the foremost place of the Bon religion which
is called g Yung-drung-bon. The Māhātmya concludes with a tale of an image which
cannot be moved out of its original position. The 'barbarian' who spends his energy on
it in vain, is in this case Diwān Hari Chand, the Ḍogrā general who beat the Tibetans in
1842 A.D. I asked the monks, if they had an image of Naropa in the temple hall, to
which they replied in the affirmative. We were shown a rather modern looking stucco
statue of Naropa in the library which also contained images of several more lamas
connected with him, for instance, Tilopa, Marpa, Milaraspa. They seem to belong to
a complete set of figures of the bKā-brgyud lamas. These bKā-brgyud lamas who are
something like church-fathers of the 'aBrug-pa order of lamas, are enumerated in
inscription No. 128 from Kolong in Lahul, as follows: (1) rDo-rje-'achang, (2) Ti-lo-pa
(3) Na-ro-pa, (4) Mar-pa, (5) Mi-la-ras-pa, (6) rGam-po, (7) Thar-sab-pa, (8) gNas-
phug-pa, (9) dPal-ldan-'abrug-pa.

I asked the lamas to show me the most ancient part of the monastery, and we were
taken to a temple called Seng-ge-sgang, which is situated at the southern end of the