After getting entrance into the main enclosure we started looking round. It was a virtual sea of humanity. People from all over Ladakh had come to witness the event. It was like a huge festival. There were dozens of eating shops under round tents. Ladakhis use parachutes as tents. These are available from Nubra valley where troops on Siachen are para-dropped supplies.

One sees these parachute enclosures in many hotels and guest houses also. They put these in their lawns. It’s a nice way of sitting out for food and snacks. There were all kinds of people in very colourful dresses. The most impressive sight was hundreds of lamas sitting in a special enclosure in their red robes. It was a very solemn and spiritual gathering. There was seriousness in the air. His Holiness was sitting on a pedestal in a specially constructed pagoda shaped enclosure in front of the lamas. On the right side was a special VIP enclosure which was reserved for prominent citizens, top officials, and others. We also took seats in the enclosure for some time. All the VIPs on arrival would first go to His Holiness and bow before him. I saw the Rani (Queen) of Ladakh and many other important people. This enclosure was near the banks of Indus River. It had been raining in the night and it was very cloudy. Slight drizzle was still going on. The ceremony was expected to go on for two days and on the third day His Holiness would be blessing the people individually. We did not want to sit in the enclosure. We had enough cameras to take some good pictures. It was a rare occasion where we could take at one place rare photographs of people from all over Ladakh. So we started circulating among the crowd and took plenty of pictures. An interesting character we witnessed was a lama dressed in red robes waving a large piece of cloth towards the sky. He was supposed to be pushing away the clouds. He would sometimes blow towards the sky and then wave his cloth like a flag as if he was pushing the clouds. We watched his interesting manoeuvres for sometime but strangely after an hour or so the sky cleared and it was bright and sunny. His traditional mantra had worked after all!

Next day we went along to get blessings of His Holiness. There was a mile long queue but we were lucky to get into the VIP line. His Holiness blessed us with a pat on the head and a smile. There were a large number of foreign tourists also standing in the line. After this we resumed our visit to various monasteries. We started with the nearer ones. These include the Sankar Gompa, the Spituk Gompa, and Phyang Gompa. Phyang and Spituk have a commanding location. The Spituk Gompa overlooks the Leh Airport. All the three Gompas have similar type of wall paintings but nothing compared to Alchi. Spituk has Kali Goddess statues also. The face of Kali is covered with a cloth to prevent her from causing some calamity. Due to the continuous flying of jet aircraft the Gompa walls and the huge rock on which it is perched had developed cracks. Later on these cracks became so pronounced that the main prayer hall of the monastery had to be closed. As Director General Tourism I got a central scheme sanctioned to build a new prayer hall at the bottom of monastery. This was very nicely built by the lamas themselves. Phyang Gopma too is on a commanding hill giving a fantastic view of the Indus valley. Again the wall paintings here are on the same pattern as in other monasteries. The other monasteries we were planning to visit were Hemis, Takhtok, Shey, and Thiksey. We started from Hemis which is the largest Monastery and houses about 500 lamas. It is situated in a side valley and because of this it has remained safe. There are a large number of statues here. They have also many Tankhas and the largest one is exhibited every ten years on the occasion of Hemis Festival. This is the largest Tankha (canvass painting) in existence. The statues and chorten in Hemis apart from being of pure Gold are studded with huge precious stones. Hemis also houses a large number of manuscripts and scrolls on Buddhist teachings. It is also reported to be having the famous Jesus scroll mentioned by Nicolas Notovitch. Higher up in the mountains there is a meditation chamber. It is reported that in earlier times the lamas used to meditate in this place and they would also levitate! There are stories that the lamas could fly from here to Takhtok monastery! The most famous event in the monastery is the festival held every year. It is the greatest attraction for foreign tourists because of the mask dances symbolising the victory of good over evil!

After Hemis we visited Shey monastery. It is in fact, the palace of the King of Ladakh. The monastery has a huge two storey copper statue of Lord Buddha gilded with Gold. It is the most impressive statue of Buddha anywhere in Ladakh. Finally, we came to Thiksey monastery. This monastery has the most dramatic location on a hill. From a distance it resembles Potola Palace of Lahasa. The head lama of the monastery Khonpo Rinpoche is very well known personality. He was very happy to know that we were taking measures for preservation of Ladakh heritage especially the upkeep of the monasteries. He directed a lama to accompany us and show all the chambers. In one of the chambers in the lower part of the monastery we found excellent frescoes almost like Alchi and these had been done in Gold. We took some photographs of these. This was the only impressive chamber in the all the monasteries we had seen so far. However, this chamber is not accessible to normal visitors to the monastery.
By now we had completed our assignment. After staying for a day more, we returned to Srinagar. It had been a journey of discovery of the rich Buddhist heritage of Ladakh. It took a few days to get the slides processed and in the end we had 2,000 very good slides of the Alchi and other wall paintings etc. We gave these to the Cultural Academy for preservation. I do not know what they did with the slides? I am not sure whether these exist as few years back there was a massive blaze in which the Academy office near Lal Mandi was totally gutted. Most probably, the slides which had been stored there were also destroyed. If that has happened then it is a great tragedy as we had worked hard to preserve the frescoes on the slides! In Srinagar, we contacted the various Government functionaries and also approached the Director General Archeological Survey of India for taking measures to preserve the frescoes by improving the roof etc of the monastery. A project was taken up by them in this behalf. These frescoes were subsequently extensively photographed and have appeared in many books.

(Concluded)