Early West Tibetan Buddhist monuments

Christian Jahoda, Christiane Kalantari

This edited volume with 16 original contributions is devoted to early, 10th-13th-century Buddhist monuments of historical Western Tibet. The results are, on the one hand, based on in-depth interdisciplinary field studies in Ladakh, Spiti, Kinnaur, Tsamda und Purang (today partly on Chinese, partly on Indian territory), and on the other hand on the critical edition and analysis of hitherto unknown or inaccessible historiographical texts, including works by Guge Paita Drakpa Gyaltsen (1415-1486/98), which are dedicated partly to the foundation phase of the West Tibetan kingdom and to the royal monk Yeshe Ö (947-1019), the leading religio-political figure in Western Tibet in the 10th/11th century. Preceded by an outline of macro-historical developments in Western Tibet from the 7th to the 15th century, the studies focus on the archaeology, architecture, art history and foundation phase...