File:Beyond the Pir Panjal; life among the mountains and valleys of Kashmir (1912) (14594022757).jpg

Alchi Monastery, Lotsava Lhakhang, A temple dedicated to the Great Translator, Lotsava Rinchen Sangpo, mural painting of Rinchen Zangpo and Sakyamuni Buddha statue
Identifier: beyondpirpanjal00neve (find matches)
Title: Beyond the Pir Panjal; life among the mountains and valleys of Kashmir
Year: 1912 (1910s)
Authors: Neve, Ernest Frederic, 1861-
Subjects: Kashmir Missions, Medical Mountaineering
Publisher: London T.F. Unwin
Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

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large building. It isunusually clean and well kept and much more modern thanmost, being hardly a century old. This monastery has abetter moral reputation than most. Retracing our steps to the mouth of the gorge, a marchof 14 miles through a very desolate part of the IndusValley, brings us to Saspool. This is a large village withabout 3 square miles of cultivated land, irrigated by alarge stream, in which there are numbers of small snow trout.A few hundred yards above the village are the ruins of anextensive monastery, which was probably destroyed in theBalti War of the latter half of the sixteenth century. On the walls of numerous caves which remain there arestill frescoes in a wonderful condition of preservation, andwe found several clay medallions stamped with the image ofBuddha. These are said to have been prepared from theashes of cremated Lamas or Buddhist priests, and they areprepared by adding a little clay and stamping themwith a large seal. A chance traveller once called them
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THE UPPER INDUS VALLEY 189 potted Lamas, a suggestive, if somewhat irreverent,name. Opposite Saspool, on the opposite side of the river,there is a village called Alchi, about 3 miles away, whichcontains the oldest monastery in Ladakh, one of the originalKashmiri Buddhist Lamaserais. This monastery at Alchi is noteworthy because it is oneof four which were built by Kashmiri monks, the most famousof whom was Lotsava Rinchen bzangpo, who is said to havelived in the year 954 a.d. In one of the rooms of the templethere, I was able to obtain a good photograph of an ancientwall painting, representing this monk (Plate 36). Thecharacteristic feature of these ancient Kashmiri monasteriesis the employment of richly carved wood. At Alchi, in frontof the temple, there is a verandah with substantial woodenpillars surmounted by beautifully carved capitals on whichthere is a cornice similarly ornamented. Above this aresmaller pillars and arches with trefoil design and images ofBuddha and Buddhist sai

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