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

was to make another search. The monastery is very picturesquely situated on a little hill
inside the valley. This time the lamas showed me a long inscription written with black
ink on one of the walls, which contained the history of the monastery, as they
asserted. Although it dates only to the times of Thse-dbang-rnam-rgyal II, who
repaired the building after a conflagration, I ordered it to be copied. After a long
introductory hymn the inscription gives the names of several ancient kings of Tibet,
gNya-khri-btsan-po, Tho-tho-ri-snyan, Srong-btsan-sgam-po, Khri-srong-lde-btsan,
sKyid-lde-nyi-ma-mgon, and of some famous Buddhist teachers. Then follows a Bud-
dhist account of cosmology which concludes with a list of the most famous palaces
of the Ladakhi kings, the seats of king Thse-dbang-rnam-rgyal. Finally, a few dates
are given, connected with the history of the monastery. It is stated to have been
founded by Lama Lha-dbang-chos-rje and King Lha-chen-rgyal-po. We must not,
however, believe that these two persons were contemporaries. King Lha-chen-rgyal-po
lived in the eleventh century, and the lama is most probably identical with the famous
pupil of bTsong-kha-pa, Lha-dbang-blo-gros-chos-rje, who lived in the 15th century. The
passage should be understood in this sense:—King Lha-chen-rgyal-po founded the
monastery in the 11th century. In the 15th century, Lama Lha-dbang-chos-rje con-
verted the lamas to the reformed doctrines of the Ge-lug-pa order, and thus founded the
monastery afresh as a Ge-lug-pa establishment. Then it is stated that seven generations
after Lha-chen-rgyal-po, King Lha-chen-dngos-grub arose, and that he introduced the
custom of sending all the novices to Lhasa. This statement is given in exactly the same
words as we find it in the rGyal-rabs. Then we read : "Eighteen generations after him,"
but the name of the king who reigned then has been scratched out, as well as any notes
referring to him. Now, if we search in the chronicles for the name of the king who
reigned eighteen generations after Lha-chen-dngos-grub, we find the name of bDe-legs-
rnam-rgyal, the unhappy prince who after the battle of Basgo was compelled to embrace
Islâm. I have already drawn attention to the fact that votive tablets with the name of
this king have not yet been found in Ladakh. They were apparently all destroyed.
The Likir inscription is an instance of a similar kind. The lamas could not suffer the
name of the apostate king to figure in the inscription, and therefore it was obliterated.
Below the monastery of Likir (Klu-dkyil), there is a large mchod-rten which contains
frescoes inside. They represent bTsong-kha-pa and other lamas of his times. Painted
above the door, a very strange figure is found which looks very much like one of the
ordinary representations of Srong-btsan-sgam-po. I was told by the lamas that it represents
a lama of Srong-btsan-sgam-po's times. The figure wears a three-pointed hat of white
colour and carries two leopard skins under his arms. The lower part of this mchod-rten
is a room, square in ground plan, which the lama said was the earliest temple at Likir,
and was already in existence when Lha-chen-rgyal-po built the monastery.
On the 23rd September, we went to Alchi on the left bank of the river. On the
way thither, at Saspola, we photographed the two ancient ruined mchod-rten which are
attributed to Rin-chen-bzang-po's time (Plate XXXVI, b). On the remains of the larger
one has been erected a modern monastery, called Byams-pa-dgon-pa.