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

Avelōkitēśvara has been compared with Śiva, and Maitrēya with Brahmā. And in fact
there are representations of Brahmā which are hardly different from some of Maitrēya.
Thus, for instance, among the wood-carvings of the Śakti temple at Chhatrārhi in
Chambā State, there is a four-armed Brahmā, carrying a rosary and a water-pot, and
accompanied by a pair of geese. The Chhatrārhi sculptures date from about 700 A.D., and
the Maitrēya of Mulbe is of the same time, approximately. Cunningham, without any
foundation, assigns it to the 17th century! We visited the little temple below
the huge sculpture, and found that its keepers were of an old family of On-pos
(Astrologers). They said that their family had always been in charge of the sculptures,
and that their family name was On-po-pa. The small temple in front of the sculpture was
built by Wazirb Sod-nams, who is the present baron of Mulbe. According to these
On-pos, the sculpture is either of Rin-chen-bzang-po's time, or a little older. Rin-chen
bzang-po is at any rate credited with having taken an interest in it. The On-pos say that
the image was carved by "the eight great sons of Nyeba," whose figures are shown carved
at the feet of Maitrēya.¹ It is particularly interesting to notice that one of these sons of
Nyeba is shown wearing a round hat with a brim, as is the fashion with On-pos who
probably inherited this costume from the ancient Bon-po priests of Tibet. The name
Nyeba means "friend" (Skr. mitra). In the modern little temple of Wazir bSod-nams
there are fanciful fresco paintings, representing "the eight great sons of Nyeba." They
are of various complexions, one has a blue, another a green face; some are even yellow
black- and brown-faced. Except several repetitions of the Oṁ maṇi padme hūṁ formula
no inscriptions are found on the sculpture.

As regards the other antiquities at Mulbe, viz., a Dard castle, two monasteries, and
several important rock inscriptions, they have been fully treated in my article "The
rock inscriptions at Mulbe."²

From Mulbe we marched to Kargil by way of Shargola, on the 5th October. The
name of the village of Shargola (Shar-'ago-lha) seems to mean "Lord of the first rising"
and to refer to the morning star. This amounts almost to a certainty when we examine
the "Song of the gDung-rten at Shargola." A gDung-rten is a kind of stūpa. The
song begins with the eulogy of an ancient hero, called Agu Drumba, who is the supposed
builder of the monastery as well as of the stūpa, and ends with a direct praise of the
morning star. The morning star is called here nam-langs-kyi-skar-chen-po, "the
great star of the rising heaven." Agu Drumba is probably a personification of the
morning star, as is the case with Agu 'aBu-dmar-lam-bstan of the Kesar Saga.³
The morning star is the herald of the sun, and therefore its personification would