国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

at Leh as a missionary. But the late Dr. Shawe of Leh was the first to draw atten-
tion to the fact that there are traces of circular medallions on two of its walls. In that
respect rGya-mthsa reminds us of the ruined monasteries of Basgo¹ and Chigtan.
Inside and below the medallions, Dr. Shawe noticed holes in the wall, as if sticks had
once been stuck into it. He even found fragments of wood in two of the holes (according
to his letter of the 27th October 1905). He supposed that these sticks had once served
to support images. Our observations at the Tabo monastery of Spiti fully confirm
Dr. Shawe's supposition. As will be remembered, in the Tabo monastery we found
thirty-two raised medallions on the walls of the temple hall, and an image placed in
front of each of them. After digging only a little way into the mass of débris
below one of the medallions at rGya-mthsa, we came across several pieces of plaster com-
posed of clay, straw, and linen. This is exactly the material these images are made
of. From our observations it follows that rGya-mthsa is probably of the same time as the
Chigtan, Basgo and Tabo monasteries, i.e., of the times of Rin-chen-bzang-po (c. 1000
A.D.). But let me add that my assumption is not supported by popular tradition. The
present inhabitants of the valley do not even believe that the ruin is that of a temple,
but assert that it once served as a summer house for a minister (bkā-blon-gyi-dbyar-sa).

On the other side of some adjoining fields, there are several ancient ruined mchod-
rten. In one of them I found cremation tablets of the "miniature stūpa" type.
When I threw one of them to the ground, it broke to pieces, and out of it came a very
neat little tablet with an inscription in an ancient form of Śāradā. The inscription
again contains the Yē dharmā formula, and its characters belong to the 11th century.
Owing to its extraordinary receptacle, the characters of the inscription were as distinct
as any I had seen up to this. I made an accurate copy of the inscription on the same
day, and I am glad I did so. For, when my collection of clay tablets arrived at Simla
several months later, the distinctness of most of the inscriptions had suffered much, in
spite of very careful packing. Although I opened several more "miniature stūpas"
in search of inscribed tablets, I did not find any other specimens.

On the 17th September, I visited Munshi dPal-rzyas in his own house, called
To-go-che, at Leh. Mention has already been made of his old Tibetan book. This time
he showed us some of the contents of his private temple, several printed flags of no
particular importance, a few idols of the ordinary type, and a mask of an Agu (hero)
of the Kesar-Saga (Plate XXXIII, a). This Agu, dGra-lha, who is worshipped in the
Munshi's house, is also represented among the frescoes of Changspa. As I am told,
several more masks representing Agus of the Kesar-Saga can be found also at the
Lamayuru monastery. According to popular tradition, Lamayuru used to be the centre
of the Bon religion of Ladakh. Munshi dPal-rzyas told me plainly that he was fully
convinced that the religion of the Kesar-Saga and the Bon religion were absolutely the
same. As will be remembered, the study of the Songs of the Shar-rgan festival at Poo
leads to the same conclusion.² Then Munshi dPal-rzyas showed us the head of an