Magic Tirthapuri and the Lost City of Tsaparang

 

Map 6, From lunch under Kailas to Camp 5 at Thirtapuri, and next day across the two high passes to Thöling. On the following day to Tsaparang and back to Camp 6 in the Sutlej Canyon. On the next day we crossed the high passes again and stayed in Camp 7 just before the "bulge" to reach Darchen on the following afternoon.

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Behind Menzi, as we drove south towards Tirthapuri (its Sanskrit name), the country became very beautiful in the late afternoon light. The river is the young Sutlej flowing towards Tirthapuri.  

 

Tirthapuri

 Tirthapuri is the rungjung— "naturally sacred" place per excellence. Sacred to Yeshe Tsögyel, the Sky Dancer, the consort of Padmasambhava and fierce reincarnation of Vajrayogini. Its red, volcanic outcroppings have great power, but its greatest secret are the hot springs.  

Tirthapuri hot springs, a steaming, sulfuric collection of springs and pools on a salt incrusted hill above the Sutlej.  

 

 The colors, reflections, and steam clouds shimmer beautifully in the evening sun:

  

 

 On my return from the springs I discovered a family of Chang Tang nomads with three yaks and a horse for the gentleman. The women sat up their tent near the river.  

 Our tent village. Barbara and the young had gone on a tour of the little gompa on top of the hill. I fell asleep in my tent...

 ...and was awakened by tinkling bells and giggles. When I opened my eyes I had these apparition of four girls in their sunday best.... They came back again later at night to spy on the foreigners having dinner. Cornelius was able to catch the youngest on the left and interrogate her in Chinese and a sprinkling of Tibetan. They were on a four-weeks pilgrimage before the winter came.

Next morning we were awoken by the girls circulating the gompa by prostrating themselves all the way....

 

 Crossing the High Passes to Thöling

 In the old times one had to follow the ancient caravan route through the wild Sutlej Canyon to Thöling, a trip that took Sven Hedin and Tucci three weeks — if one did not get lost. In the sixties the Chinese blasted a "New Road" across the mountains, which we now took. Unimproved and often very exposed, it precariously climbs a steep mountainside above Chinese Radar and military communications camp. The top is a desolate jumble of ancient volcanic craters, small lakes and boulders. It began to snow. 

 Jeroen shivering in the sudden cold. Behind him one of the volcanic plugs surrounded by its crater.

 

 Another crater. We are nearing the first of two passes....

 A small lhato — cairn marks the first pass: 5200 m! Amazing that our Toyotas are so well tuned that they take this without stuttering. — The drivers tinker with the engines every night. The second higher pass follows soon it is right below the snowline, but looks entirely uninteresting, a shallow hump. 

A "pee-stop" on the far side of the pass. Our need for privacy has dissolved in thin air. A broad view now opens across the Sutlej canyon. For two hours we travel west crossing one run-off canyon after the other.  

 Suddenly, the truck veers off the road and heads straight for the canyon's edge. We grab our seats. Pardu laughs —now comes the shortcut...  

... and we finally get a view of the lower part of the Sutlej Canyon, a wild jumble of eroded mountains the extent of which is larger than the Grand Canyon — and deeper: 3000 m from the pass.  

We continue on a barely visible spur across a rock-strewn mesa, until we find ourselves stuck on a track cut into the soft soil. The truck had made a wrong turn and nearly gone over the edge at a place where the road had been washed away.

 It takes a while for the truck to back-out and follow a sharp hair-pin where a prison crew digs with hands and shovels.  

 

Wild formations rise in the afternoon light, castles and pagodas, and watchtowers. At the bottom we scramble along in a narrow brook bed carefully avoiding the biggest boulders. Not a good place to be in case of a flash flood.  -  Dead tired we arrive in Thöling after nightfall. The tourist guesthouse is full. Pujung finally finds us accommodations in the military barracks were we sait and waited at 10 o'clock while Bakhi scrambled up dinner for us. He had not been able to find a restaurant for us.... 

 

 

Tsaparang 

Tsaparang is one of the "Lost Cities" of Central Asia. Although its existence had been well known from the diaries of Andrade a Portuguese missionary who had spent several years there in the 1620s, it was only discovered in 1933/34 By Tucci. Sven Hedin had stayed in the village of the same name on the Sutlej, but the locals had not revealed the old citadel in a side canyon.. The unique old temples, the only buildings of the city that had survived its destruction in the outgoing 17^th century, had been badly ransacked during the Cultural Revolution. Looking for treasures they had destroyed most clay sculptures — but the 15^th-century murals have survived....

.. all the greater was the surprise to find this view of the site. The temples had been stabilized and roofed and an entrance gate had been installed. — We are charged $60 person by the bönpo, and a fine of $32.50 for not having come via Ali. Where the fine went remained a mystery, quite possibly into his own pocket.  

 Barbara, Monique, Jeroen and Pujung on the way up. The higher building is the Red Temple to the right the White Temple. Photographing inside the buildings was strictly forbidden, the guardian with the keys followed our every move. There exist black and white photographs by Tucci (informative but very poor reproductions) and by the wife of the German Buddhist Angarika Govinda (mostly sculptures). 

In 1985 Frits Staal from Berkeley and Adelaide de Menil visited Tsaparang and published a few of Adelaide’s photographs in Natural History Vol 95, No. 7, July 1986. I copied three from the White Temple.

The badly damaged sculpture of the protector Hayagriva.

Mahakala on the wall behind Hayagriva

The temple is dedicated to Vairocana, remnants of one of the Vairocana sculptures and the murals next to him (15^th century).

Part of a freeze above the entrance to the White Temple exhibiting a different style of painting. Staal thinks it is influenced by Central Asian or Iranian painting.

 The view over the Sutlej from the porch of the Yidam temple.

 The citadel and the path, a climb of only 180 m (at an altitide of only 3200 m). It was an excruciating labor that took me almost an hour and convinced me that I was in no condition to walk the Kailas circumambulation route....  

 The view of the Sutlej valley from the top. In the near distance, framed by the crack on can see another temple complex across the valley, which is of no particular interest.

The object of my dreams was this small Demchog Temple on top of the citadel. Demchog (Chakrasamvara) is a fierce manifestation of Manjushri popular in Western Tibet (14^th to 17^th century). The temple is completely dark inside with huge murals of Mandalas and Tantric Yab-Yum images on its walls. It was used for initiation rites and for that reason its imagery is highly esoteric. The following color photos were taken by Aschoff, a German physician, and H. Wyer, after the Cultural Revolution and before the present restauration. I scanned four photographs of the frescoes (each about 2 meters high) from H. Weyer and J. C. Aschoff: "Tsaparang, Tibets Grosses Geheimnis," Eulen Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau, 1987 (out of print).

Demchog Temple, Buddha Vairocana with a Bodhisattva crown

Demchog Temple, Heruka with the Wisdom-Dakini in Yab-Yum

Demchog Temple, Buddha Ratnasambhava with a Bodhisattva crown.

Demchog Temple, according to Aschhoff a Canda-maha-rosana(?), the Supreme Addhi-Buddha in a terrifying manifestation. I very much doubt that (note the magic wand) and would argue it is a Mahakala (because of the crown).  For a while I tried to sit among these overpowering images and adapt my eyes to the darkness, but was stirred out of my meditation by a horde of Chinese soldiers who tramped through the tiny place and one after the other stumbled over my crossed legs....

Meanwhile in the vestibule Cornelius recorded the guardian singing a sutra to impress the Chinese. The character in the corner was their officer. Furious, I made an ass of myself by berating him when he kicked an empty soda-pop can into the ruins.... Glowering at my long nose he said nothing and walked off with his troops.

Our Return through Thöling 

 Thöling (on the ledge above the Sutlej) swept by a dust storm.  

 A dust devil following us on our way to the Sutlej bridge.

 Rain over the canyon we had come down in and would have to climb next..

The lower end of the Shortcut.... Not wanting to drive up the shortcut Agha had raced ahead and forced everyone to follow him to a meadow hidden in a side canyon.

Camp 6. A wonderful, quiet place sheltered from the wind. Next morning we drove the long route back across the two high passes to Darchen and the Kailas korlam.