Description

Alchi: Ladakh's Hidden Buddhist Sanctuary
Roger Goepper
Photographs by Jaroslav Poncar
On the south bank of the Indus in Ladakh, facing a great trade and invasion route to the north, lies Alchi, a complex of religious buildings with some of the most magnificent Buddhist wall paintings and sculpture to have remained intact for the past 800 years. This book presents an illustrated survey in minutest detail of the Sumtsek, the most impressive of the temples. The wall paintings, beautifully photographed and reproduced in 300 color plates, are in a sophisticated Tibeto-Kashmiri style that is known to exist only in a handful of other temples in Ladakh and western Tibet. Besides the profoundly esoteric Buddhist character of the murals, which culminate in the splendid mandalas of the upper storeys, there are tantalizing representations of kings and queens, princes and princesses.