September 22nd Lamayuru Monastery – Part One
Seeing Lamayuru Monastery today was a rich experience. The hilltop monastery complex is a delightful warren of small passageways that give way to open views. It includes the functional old, the relatively new, and then the crumbling ruins. Walking through it really imparts the feeling of a medieval village in its different stages of development and abandon.
It’s an intimate temple. Upon entering, one faces the splendid and well-preserved altar which by now, dear reader following this blog, you will recognize as belonging to the rare Indo-Tibetan 11th century period of sacred art.
As at Lhalung and Tabo Monasteries, the temple features Vairocana and the Dhyani (Supreme) Buddhas Amitabha, Akshobhya, Amoghasiddha, and Ratnasambhava. These are polychromed clay sculptures seated on lotus thrones inside stylized alcoves. Here at Lamayuru, Vairocana is also seated atop lions which is how the temple derives its name. Senge means lion in Tibetan. He is surrounded by animals, scrollwork, and surmounted by a prominent protective Garuda, the powerful Hindu mythical bird.
Experience the interior of Lamayuru Monastery’s Senge Lhakhang by watching this exclusive video walk-through here.
[vimeo 137311083 w=600 h=337]
In stark contrast to the fine state of the sculptures, the wall murals are in a very deteriorated condition, faded and water-damaged. In fact, facing the altar, the whole right side wall is altogether undecipherable, almost completely devoid of the original imagery. Looks blackened and/or delaminated down to the mud bricks. It’s incredible that after over one thousand years of time, anything can remain at all, really. Time has really ravaged this wall. I wish it were different!
The left hand wall can still be glimpsed. If only some effective and accurate conservation could be done to preserve these historically significant, rare examples of Indo-Tibetan Buddhism and the Second Transmission of Buddhism from India to Tibet!
While it’s difficult to see details of the above wall painting, it is certainly a Vajradhatu Mandala and as such, its structure is usually this:
At center is Vairocana with the 4 Dhyani Buddhas (Amitabha, Akshobhya, Ratnasambhava, Amoghasiddha) positioned around him in the cardinal directions, each encircled by 4 bodhisattvas. There are an additional 12 deities–4 guardians, 4 outer offering goddesses, and 4 inner offering goddesses. In all, the basic set of Vajradhatu mandala deities is 33 or 37. Vajrayana mandalas and the deities that reside within them are essentially symbols of the qualities of consciousness to develop on one’s spiritual path. They are mnemonic devices to aid a practitioner towards enlightenment.
Variations in Vajradhatu mandalas are seen in different monasteries with the addition of up to 60 other divinities–such as the 16 arhats or 12 pratyekabuddhas, among others. These are often depicted on the outer sections as additional circles or squares in the same mandala composition, or in altogether separate small mandalas.
It is important to note that such symbolic plenitude expresses manifestations of the same fundamental principles. Buddhism did inherit the Hindu understanding of many-paths-to-the-same-truth. These additional divinities also have their basis in written scripture or canonical commentaries.
Adjoining the main temple room is a gonkhang, chapel dedicated to protector deities.
Lamayuru grounds in this older section near the Senge Lhakhang is characterized by these passageways that are alternately nestled and enclosed, then open and expansive.
Among the stone ruins, amidst the Himalayan landscape, I tried to imagine the charming bygone era of great vitality during the reign of Western Tibet’s Guge kings Yeshe O’d and Changjup O’d whose vision reformed and ignited the spread of Vajrayana Buddhism from India to Tibet in the 10th to 12th centuries. How it must have been in this remote Himalayan landscape a thousand years ago, when these walls and buildings were new, its monastic and lay inhabitants filled with rejuvenated fervor and scholarship!
All photos © 2013, Eva Lee.