Last week in Ladakh I went panting from one Buddhist monastery to another. Culturally, racially and historically, Ladakh is Tibetan, and the type of Buddhism practised there is Tibetan Buddhism. With a knowledgable local guide we visited the great Ladakhi monasteries at Basgo, Likir, Thikse, Alchi and Lamayuru. At each one we climbed the steps, took off our shoes and paid our respects in the inner temples. Once our eyes had become accustomed to the dark, we examined the carved, gaudily painted statues of Buddhas, deities, personifications, guardian spirits, Bodhisattvas and whatnot that we found within.
The guide conscientiously explained these representations’ various functions and positions within the Buddhist cosmology. It was all very fascinating and I tried hard to commit the essentials to memory. But the complicated iconography strained my powers of comprehension to the limit. The thin air didn’t help, and every day I was distracted, perhaps for the same reason, by the insistent promptings of chronic flatulence.
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