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

the altar. They told us that the temple was still visited by their Buddhist neighbours
from Da and Hanu who pay adoration to its old deities.

On the 4th October, we marched to Mulbe, crossing the Namika Pass (13,400 feet
high). On the way, Puntsog and myself visited the ruined castle of Waka which
is situated at the east end of the Mulbe valley. On a steep spur, to the north of the
present village of Waka, lie the ruins of the old castle and town. They are of consider-
able extent. Some parts of the well-built castle are now inaccessible. This fortress was
probably once a stronghold of great importance, as would appear from Jonarāja's Second
Rājataraṅgiṇī,¹ where a war between two Tibetan tribes, the Vakatanyas and Kālamān-
yas, is described. The former name probably stands for the garrison of Waka, and the
second for the Baltis of Khar-mang. Of ancient remains we found only a stone mortar,
a bone tube, and several sherds of thick, hand-made pottery, but no inscriptions.

A little below the fortress, towards the east, there were traces of an ancient hermit-
age (mthsams-khang), a kind of cave dwelling. Above the caves, we noticed a smooth
place on the rock surface with indistinct traces of ancient frescoes. We could only make
out the outlines of the picture of a mchod-rten, and a few letters of an ancient inscription.
On the plain beneath, a little to the west of the ruined castle, are the remains of an
ancient temple called Lha-khang-gog-po ( " ruined temple " ), a large square hall which
reminded me at once of the temples of Rin-chen-bzang-po's times. It had been lately
used as a dwelling place by several Muhammadan families who had built partition walls
across it. This may be the reason why nothing remains of ancient frescoes. It had
its door probably in the western wall.

The most famous relic at the village of Mulbe is the huge rock sculpture of Maitreya
the Mulbe " Chamba " (Byams-pa). It was noticed by Moorcroft² in 1820, who has the
following note on it : "Near the end of this day's journey, the road passed between the
foot of the mountains on the right of the valley and an insulated pillar of rock, about fifty
feet high. On the face of this was sculptured the figure of one of the Tibetan divinities
named Chamba. It differed from the same representation in the temples in being decorat-
ed with the Brahminical cord, hanging from the left shoulder and over the right hip.
The figure was naked, except round the waist, and was about twenty-four feet high, but
the lower part was concealed by a low wall in front ; the upper had been protected by
a screen projecting over it from the rock, but this was gone, leaving only the holes in
which the pins that had fastened it, had been inserted."

As we see, Moorcroft noticed already the Brahminical cord among the characteristic
emblems of the Maitreya sculpture of Mulbe. The other emblems, a flask and a rosary,
are of similar interest. Several students of Indo-Buddhist art feel inclined to derive
the most ancient types of Bodhisattvas from deities of the Hindu pantheon. Thus