The Tabo Monastery of Spiti Region of Himachal Pradesh is called the Ajanta of the Himalayas and was built about the same time as the caves way down in the Deccan traps in Maharashtra were being excavated. Its sobriquet of Ajanta of the Himalayas is due to the innumerable paintings and some sculptures of Bodhisattvas that adorn its walls. This monastery was was founded in 996 ce by Lama Yeshe also known as Mahaguru Ratnabhadra.
On the mountains above the monastery are many caves, which are still being used as meditating niches by the monks, who dwell in this seat of learning. This was my third visit to the monastery, the first time I did not enter inside due to its unimposing facade and an in-explainable stupidity on my part of not researching about this treasure house. The second time when I went in prepared, armed with a professional camera, the authorities requested all camera wielding visitors to refrain from photographing its masterpieces, go figure. However along with the outer environment of the place I am putting up some pics of some of its paintings and sculptures that I scanned from a book about the Tabo, purchased from the site.
'The Tabo Gompa, or Buddhist monastery, is second in importance only to the Tholing Gompa in Tibet in the entire Himalayan region. It was developed as an advanced centre for learning by the great teacher and translator Lotsawa Rinchen Tsang Po, the king of western Himalayan Kingdom of Guge, also known as Lha Lama Yeshe O'd or Mahaguru Ratnabhadra. The Chos-Khor at Tabo remained one of the most important Buddhist establishments during the time of Lotsawa after the Chos-Khor at Tholing, the capital town of Guge. It is known that the Chos-Khor at Tabo commanded great importance, and hosted for a considerable period, many great scholars and translators in the Buddhist history studies. To date, it is the preserver of the Buddhist Legacy and is one of the most important Gompa of the entire Tibetan Buddhist world.' (http://www.aarogya.com/tabo/monastery.html)
The small village of Tabo has many hotels for weary travellers and generally tourists do stop over here for the night before the final leg of their journey to Kaza, which is only 55 kms away.
