The monastery of Tagong (Lhagang in Tibetan) plays a significant role in Tibetan history for four reasons.
One is its foundation. The monastery was founded by the Chinese princess Wencheng in 641, when Songtsen Gampo, the unifier of Tibetan kingdoms and tribes and the founder of the Tibetan Empire, asked her uncle, Emperor Taizong of China, for her hand. On the long journey from Xian to Lhasa, the princess and her entourage rested here after crossing the Zheduo Pass and descending to the Tibetan Plateau. Here they built a temporary chapel for the holy statue they had brought with them, depicting Jowo Shakyamuni, that is, the Buddha at the age of 12, which the Tang emperor sent to his Tibetan colleague as a kind of subtle warning about the religion followed by civilized peoples. Until then, the religion of the Tibetan tribes was the shamanism and magic brought from the north and called Bon. Songtsen Gampo wanted to replace this with the new world religion recognized by his neighbors.
However, when the princess and her entourage were about to depart, the Buddha expressed his will to remain there. So they made a copy of it, and from then on the story runs on two lines. According to the locals, the original statue remained there. According to the people of Lhasa, however, the copy remained and of course the original went on to the temple of the Jokhang Monastery in Lhasa. Either way, Tagong is definitely the first Buddhist emple on Tibetan soil. But its monastery was the last of the 108 Buddhist monasteries founded by Songtsen Gampo after the arrival of his Chinese bride.
You could ask: why did Songtsen Gampo found so many monasteries? The answer of the Tibetan tradition is that the Chinese scholars brought by Princess Wencheng determined that Tibet laid exactly on the female demon Brag-srin-mo, who had to be bound by a multitude of monasteries built on her sensitive points, just as many as the beads of the mala, the Buddhist prayer bead.
The Brag-srin-mo demon and the Tibetan monasteries built on her. A 19th-century copy in the Rubin Museum of Art in New York, after the original preserved in the Tibet Museum in Lhasa. Source here, where you can also click on the individual monasteries for more information
Princess Weicheng’s ashes were brought back to the upper relic room of Tagong Monastery. The Chinese state propaganda retroactively made the Chinese princess into the civilizer of the barbaric Tibetans
However, Songtsen Gampo’s work, like new empires in general, was tested by time. In 842, the line of his dynasty failed, and the former kings and chieftains demanded their independence back. And the Bon shamans connected to them also wanted their religious monopoly back. The persecution of Buddhism began, and it produced enough martyrs to fill the stupas and temples with their relics from the 11th century on, when the lords of the provinces recognized the word of the time, and Buddhism started to flourish again.
And here’s the second reason. During the period of political disintegration and religious strife, only two peripheral regions remained firmly Buddhist: Ladakh in the west and Kham in the east of Tibet – probably not independent of the already solid Buddhism of the countries bordering them. In the 11th century, these places, among them Tagong Monastery, became the starting points for the reorganization of Tibetan Buddhism.
The third reason is that in the middle of the 11th century, four schools were formed within Tibetan monasticism, and the strongest of them at that time, the learned Sakya order, received Lhagang as its main monastery. The Sakya became the favorite order of the 13th-century Mongol conquerors. The Mongol conquest of Tibet happened in a bloodless way, by the Mongol Great Khan Kothen inviting the head of the Sakya order, the famous Sakya Pandita, as his court priest in 1244, and then appointing him the Mongol viceroy of Tibet. The provincial lord wisely understood the situation and accepted the lama’s political authority. And when later Kublai Khan – Marco Polo’s host – became emperor of China, founding the Yuan dynasty, he also invited the then head of the Sakya order, Phagpa, the nephew of Sakya Pandita, as his court priest.
It was then that the so-called “priest-patron” theory emerged, which for the Tibetan elite interpreted the country’s relationship with China. According to this, Tibet was not a vassal of China – whether this latter was ruled by the Mongols or later by the Chinese or Manchus –, but it stood as a religious advisor next to the Chinese ruler. In this way, the country is independent from China. This theory was also cited in 1913, at the declaration of Tibet’s independence. In the Chinese view, however, Tibet has been a subordinate part of China since Kublai Khan, only the Ming and Qing dynasties, following the Khan’s Yuan dynasty, had too many other problems to assert their authority in practice. The two interpretations finally clashed in arms in 1950, and the Chinese won, which many Tibetans still do not accept.
Today, in Lhagang Monastery, a statue of Phagpa, the fifth Sakya lama who made an alliance with Kublai, sits to the left of the big Buddha in the central temple, and his ashes are kept in the relic room upstairs. Pilgrims greet both with great respect.
And finally, the fourth reason is that in the border regions of Tibet, predominantly inhabited by nomads, in Kham and Ando provinces, the monasteries have been the main territorial and social organizing factors. The nomads gathered around them, they received spiritual support here, they pitched their tents here for shorter or longer periods, they set up markets, offered accommodation to pilgrims, and finally they built their first wooden houses here. In the 19th century, the first cities of Kham were formed around the monasteries (not counting the merchant town Kangding, the starting point of the tea and horse caravans, and the military town Barkam, the center of the Chinese imperial administration). Such was Tagong, about which anthropologist Nicola Schneider wrote, to what extent it organizes the life and settlement structure of the surrounding nomads.
Just an illustration of how monasteries organize the social life of nomads. In the temple of the arhats in Garzê, the morning ritual may have some family aspect, because many nomads came to it. From dawn, they linger under the temple, having tea, cooking and spending the whole day there.
The monastery once stood alone on the plateau, with one of the four holy mountains of the Kham Tibetans in the background, the Yala, or White Yak Mountain. Even in the 1930s, it was surrounded only by the tents of the nomads. Today, the tents have become small wooden houses, and a spacious square and a pretty single street village have emerged in front of the monastery gate. The street has everything that pilgrims and Chinese tourists may need: restaurants, barber shops, and clothes rental shops where young Chinese tourists can put on fantasy dress created as ethnic costumes, have matching makeup and hair done, and take selfies in front of the colorful monastery scenery. Of course, these clothes contrast sharply with the real ethnic costume, which is still worn by the majority of the locals and the nomads coming to the monastery. It’s as if the poor local nomads have been invaded by some wealthy barbarian tribe, which obviously comes from a cold region, as they wear furs in large numbers.
The traveler coming to the village from the east first sees the rear of the monastery, which is surrounded by a gallery of large prayer wheels. Pilgrims circle the monastery several times, by rolling the prayer wheels, before entering through the great western gate.
The spacious courtyard is surrounded by colorfully painted wooden façades: by the two monastery wings on either side, and opposite the triple temple. The naive art and rusticity of the façades is touching. Colorful figures walk up and down in the courtyard: young lamas in red robes, hard-featured pilgrims and nomads in various ethnic costumes. The latter come with large families, or at least with their consorts and small children.
They visit the temples in order of holiness. First, they go to the right side, where the famous statue of Jowo Shakyamuni stands, and they put a white cloth available in the courtyard around his neck. Here they bessech him at length for their troubles, and then proceed to the great temple in the middle, where a great statue of the Buddha is enthroned, with the statues of the Sakya lamas – the present one and some famous past ones – around him. Finally, they go to the third temple on the left, where the thousand-armed Avalokiteshvara or Guanyin in Chinese, the female principle of the Buddha and the embodiment of mercy, stands.
The most intense elements of the sanctuaries are the frescoes running around the walls with traditional Tibetan iconography, gods, mandalas and bodhisattvas. Arriving from Kangding, one encounters a Tibetan fresco cycle here for the first time, and is captivated by the intensity of the colors and the warm radiation of the paintings that permeates the entire temple.
In the 19th and 20th centuries, Tibet was almost completely closed to Western travelers. The first ones reached Tagong Monastery only in the early 20th century, just in time to report on the world that existed here before the 1950s, the Tibetan uprising and the Cultural Revolution, the occupation of Tibet and the destruction of traditional structures.
One of them was André Gibaut, who set out in 1940 with Louis Liotard to find the Nolo-Seta nomads living in Northern Kham. The news of the German occupation of France reached them in China, and Gibaut, the sole survivor of the expedition – Liotard was killed by Nolo-Seta bandits – returned to London, where he published his travelogue in English under the title Tibetan venture (1947). In it, he writes about their journey from Kangding – Tachienlou in Chinese at the time – to Tagong and their visit to the monastery:
“It was in marvellous sunshine that we made our entry into Tibet, two days after leaving Tatsienlou. At an altitude of 14,000 feet the reflection of the sun on the snowfields of the pass was unbearable, even through my black spectacles. Lovely flowers, heralding the approach of summer, were already springing up through the carpet of snow. The dog of the caravan, tired after the climb, refreshed herself by rolling in ecstasy over the stainless white sheet and greedily gobbling down the white crystals.
For several days caravans had been waiting at various points for this rift in the clouds before crossing the Tcheto pass. Now they all rushed together towards the pass, blocking it with their yaks, mules and horses, while their riders joined one against the other, exchanging a cheerful hullabaloo of jokes and oaths. And all the while vultures circled round high up in the sky, watching for the death of one of these creatures, man or beast, so that they might swoop down and tear it to pieces, leaving no trace but a bleached skeleton such as those we see strewn about us on the ground.
In the midst of this picturesque crowd, ploughing through it like a speed-boat through a fleet of fishing-vessels, appears unexpectedly the caravan of the Grand Lama of the monastery of Gata. It outstrips us just as we are reaching the ridge. The prelate has scorned to make the ascent on horseback. Hoisted on the shoulders of eight strong carrriers, he remains inside his chair entirely enclosed by black curtains which resembles an enormous bier, only emerging for a moment to throw, with a pontifical gesture, a stone plucked from the ground upon the enormous pile of small stones and rocks which pious travellers have erected bit by bit on the pass. Then one of his dignitaries, dressed in yelllow, with a gilt tiara on his head, dismounts from his wonderfully-caparisoned horse to burn incense and to place on top of the pile a prayer-banner, which nature’s inclemencies will slowly transform into a piece of shredded cloth similar to those which now lie flaping in the breeze, left there by other caravans.
We, for our part, from the top of the pass, see Tibet lying before us. The landscape is suddenly transformed. The outline of the slopes reaches out in harmonious curves, unbroken by any sharp ridges or crude formations, and sinks gradually downwards into the depths of the wide valleys; peaceful undulations of an ancient country moulded by the passing of the years. And, entering this district for the first time and recognizing it without ever having seen it (our studies having made us so familiar with its character), we shout aloud with joy. Below the snowfields the grass of the pasture-lands and of the whole landscape is withered by the cold into a uniform brown colour. Against this chestnut-coloured carpet the herdsmen’s tents look like spiders, and the cattle like worms which have eaten into it. One can understand how the ancients believed that Tibet sheltered among its mountains fantastic animals unknown in any other country.
Tagong Plateau seen from Zheduo Pass today, and below the pictures of the travel to Tagong Monastery
When we reach the bottom of the valley we meet our first herdsman. He is a handsome youth with a copper-coloured skin, his sheep-skin coat rolled down to his waist, preferring to expose his torso because it was so warm. The thermometer stood at 41 degrees Fahrenheit [5 °C].
In spite of the rain our journey from Tcheto to Lhagong was delightful, just like a camping expedition. The valleys along which we travelled were wide and fertile, studded here and there with prosperous villages or single houses, topped occasionally by dzongs, those typically Tibetan castles, large and imposing, lodged firmly on the shoulders of the hills, flanked often by high, half-ruined watch-towers. These watch-towers, relics of a former age, and perhaps of an ancient civilization, have a star-shaped outline which astounds the traveller by the intricacy of its design. Beside the villages were well-cultivated fields of barley, surrounded by low walls, with here and there clusters of birch-trees and willows. We met several herds of yaks, sheep and horses browsing at liberty along the mountain slopes. A truly happy, gentle landscape, which summer was already beginning to adorn. Buttercups were already blooming in the grasslands, and violets and forget-me-nots gave the finishing postcard touch to this otherwise bleakish prospect.
When it was fine, camping was a delight. You only need dip a line into the river to find a trout hanging on the end. This was the origin of an odd incident which occurred close to the little monastery of Posang.
Not Posang, but a similar small village monastery in Xiamalong, ong the road from Kangding to Tagong
We had already caught three fish and were preparing to bait our hook once more when three horsemen came riding towards us at the gallop. With many apologies but also with insistence they told us that we had caught enough fish for our meal and that there was therefore no object in our continuing to dip our lines. Fish are held sacred in Tibet, and this doctrine has given all Tibetans, even nonconformists, an extraordinary distaste for this dish. Apparently in some Chinese-inhabited districts the more cunning of these take to fishing, selling their catches to pious Tibetans who buy them in order to acquire virtue by returning them to the water. Nothing could more aptly describe the difference in mentality of the two races.
We met with no serious difficulties up till the last stage of the journey. The valley had become a narrow gorge, the river a torrent, and our mules had to force a passage through a jumble of granite rocks. Every now and then we had to unload one of the animals to enable it to clear the obstacles.
Finally, at a height of 13,100 feet [3990 m], we reached the plateau where the Lichou takes its source, a vast brown plain fringed with mountains, in the centre of which stands the monastery of Lhagong, the only human construction in this vast panorama. The Lichou was nothing but a broad, lazily-meandering stream which traced wanton patterns across the marshy plain. In past ages it had apparently changed its bed at will, because there were banks everywhere indicating where it had previously flowed. Yet even up here it was fairly deep, and our horses in crossing it sank breast-high into the flood. Not a single tree, not even a shrub was to be seen in the vast expanse which lay before us. We had come into another world; we had reached the roof of our own world.
With proper decorum, in the ritualistic direction, that is to say clockwise, we made a complete circle with our caravan round the monastery before halting in front of the big gate. In this manner the lamas, who were disconcerted by our sudden appearance, were given to understand that we respected their customs.
We have made the customary exchange of visits with the “Lama chimbo”, the Great Lama. He came into our room this afternoon, accompanied by his steward, to offer us a khata and a bottle of milk. He is a fine-looking man of fifty-three, tall in stature, rather dirty but with pleasing manners.
His monastery, which is of the sect of Satias [Sakya], is a typical pastoral temple. It juts up isolated in the plain, without any attendant village, and its devotees inhabit the hundreds of scattered tents which dot the lazy swell of the hills like black-headed pins.
Facing the gate the main chortain rises white and bulbed. Above the house-tops jut the horns of the superimposed roofs of the great temple, with their little bronze bells tinkling in the breeze, and their beribboned poles topped by copper balls outlined against the sky. Under a wooden penthouse or cloister are a hundred or more prayer-mills cogged one against the other, with the same monotonous inscription painted in large Tibetan lettering on their cloth sails: “Om mani padme houm, om mani padme houm…” In this cloister there is a constant coming and going of lamas and faithful who keep mechanically turning the wheels, which are of varying dimension and design, and then circle round the large chortain before finally entering the monastery.
The doors into the various sanctuaries are at the back of the inner court. They are covered over with wide black draperies edged with white like the draperies used at public funerals. (It should be explained that in Tibet, as in China, black is not the colour of mourning. In China white is the colour which symbolizes death.) Prayer-banners also cover them, hung there by pilgrims; these prayer-banners are gradually transformed by the passage of time into filthy colourless rags.
The court and its façades may give an impression of dirt and decrepitude, of some inspiration for ever unrealized, but by contrast the interiors of the sanctuaries are quite clean. On an altar which stretches the whole length of the temple, one sees, rising up in relief against the rear wall, in the pale light of the butter lamps, huge statues of gods and goddesses, richly painted and dressed in silk and brocade like the Spanish madonnas. The architect has not troubled to arrange them to advantage. One god, for instance, twelve feet in height, is imprisoned in a crevice hardly six feet wide. You have to approach right up to his feet and gaze up at his fore-shortened figure from below.
Softened by the half-light, the multi-colourings of these temples shed a warm, comfortable glow. Every inch of space is decorated; the rafters, the wooden pillars, the doors and even the shelves along which are ranged the articles of worship. Surrounded on all sides by these warm lively tints which clash one with the other only to melt again into a harmonious whole, we begin to regret the soberness of our own tastes and our tendency to monotony. The riot of colour reaches its climax on the cloth-draped walls ornamented with frescoes.
Strange paintings these, in which neither people, animals, plants nor landscape are native to Tibet! And yet the artists who painted them have never left these districts. I have actually seen them at work here, in a cold, gloomy attic overlooking the monastery courtyard. Through the centuries they have continued their tireless task of painting Hindu personages or Chinese flowers. Apparently it has never occurred to them to copy the surrounding landscape. But what they have added of specifically Tibetan to these inspirations from abroad suffices to give their paintings a rather morbid flavour and originality. It is a kind of mixture of the sadistic and the macabre, which testifies to a subtlety and tortuosity of mind astounding in people who lead such simple lives. Some of these paintings are portrayals of lust: frightful deities riding rough-shod over the naked bodies of men and women, whose agonized attitudes seem intended to inspire sensuality rather than terror. Occasionally one sees the act of copulation nakedly portrayed, with gods twining their many arms cruelly and passionately around their Çakti, their female counterparts, whose outlines are lengthened lewdly and out of all proportion, their bodies bent backwards, their legs folded under their straddled thighs, their waists gripped by clenched hands with pointed nails which dig deep into their flesh.
Frescoes in the Avalokiteshvara temple of Tagong Monastery. Due to their erotic content, they are now covered by a curtain. The first one: the union of the god Heyaira and his wife, the goddess Nairatmya
The union of the god Samvara and goddess Vajravarahi
The god Vajrakila
It must be admitted that the enthroned Buddhas squatting Indian-fashion on lotus blossoms on the main altar have no such horrific appearance, and seem to float serenely above the skies in which the genii and demons, who hold a less important rank in the absurd Lama pantheon, roll around in the grip of their passions and follies. Their majestic calm, their Olympian serenity harmonizes with the peaceful landscape which surrounds them, and they have even something physically in common with this landscape, whose well co-ordinated curves seem to obey the law of natural phenomena, which tends always towards balance and stability.
As I come out of the monastery I cannot help noticing with surprise the tents of the herdsmen encamped around. So these wretched people have amassed fortunes to build, on this plateau, this gorgeous sanctuary, which harbours hundreds of works of art, without ever thinking of building houses for themselves. It does not appear to worry them, and they seem happy to be privileged to spend a few days in the shelter of this monument, which is the centre of their little universe. It is the hour when the herds assemble, and when the plain becomes more lively: the young men start races on horseback, and riders return at the gallop, with their forked gunds slung across their backs, swaggering a little as horsemen always do.
Then, with the twilight, sounds of the loud, sad call of the copper trumpets of Lamaism, great horns which extend to nine feet in length, and a lama comes and seats himself at the foot of the great chortain. A few of the faithful bow down before him, their heads to the ground. He touches them on the forehead and then offers them a little sour milk in a spoon. I stop in front of him. He hesitates a moment and then holds out to me the ritual offering. I bend down and put my lips to it. The good man appears enchanted.”
Another traveler, Peter Goullart (Пётр Гуляр), a Russian-born adventurer and writer, also passed through this region in 1939-1940. He wrote about his experiences in Land of the Lamas. Adventures in Secret Tibet (1959). He stopped at Tagong Monastery on his way back through Kham. He also tells about the frescoes, not in the condescending and ethnocentric style of the French researcher, but paying attention to the material details. This is how he can also explain the ban on eating fish. But he is also not immune to condescension: he does not fail to touch on one of his constant topics, the backwardness of Chinese medicine, and how he surpassed the local healers and shamans with his medical intervention.
“Again we went up the Cheto Pass but, crossing it, we turned this time to the right, where a series of low hills delineated a very wide, flat valley. Gangs of Chinese and Tibetan labourers were busily levelling an air strip, the future airport of Tachienlu [Kangding].
A few miles farther we crossed a broad, shallow river and encamped by the stream behind a grim and gloomy lamasery, Hlakon gompa. It was late in the afternoon and, obeying the old tradition, we did not attempt to enter it until next morning. The lamas in it were not particularly friendly because they knew at once ours was a missionary party, their competitors, but they let me wander with Tuden all over the place, afterwards treating us to butter tea and tsamba. I spent a long time watching their preparation of oil paints and the process of painting the tankas, famed Tibetan icons, at a special studio set aside for the purpose. This lamasery was noted for its religious art. To obtain each particular pigment semi-precious stones of that colour – lapis lazuli for deep blue, turquoise for sky-blue, coral for scarlet and malachite for green – were pounded into tiny fragments in stone mortars with a smooth, stone pistil, afterwards a little oil was added and a slow grinding ensued, day after day, week after week, until an absolute smoothness and purity of the desired colour was achieved. It was strange to see how the colour of each stone progressively changed from one hue into another as this merciless, meticulous grinding proceeded until the final, true tint had been fixed. No wonder that such expensive colours prepared with such infinite diligence and devotion had survived centuries in their pristine freshness and beauty. Finger-tips were used by trained young lamas, chosen for their artistic skill, in outlining the deities and saints, the paint being rubbed hard and evenly into the canvas.
We stayed near the lamasery for about three days, but it was very uncomfortable because the meadow on which our tent had been pitched as infested with big horseflies whose bites were extremely painful and irritating. Regularly every afternoon a bell was rung at the lamasery and a flock of vultures gathered to be fed. They were huge, loathsome birds, but very intelligent after their own manner. They seemed to know when a funeral was to take place and eagerly watched the proceedings suspended motionless in the blue vault of the sky. When the last rites had been pronounced by a mumbling lama the corpse was taken aside and chopped up by special assistants. A bell was rung again by the lamas, there was a whoosh of powerful wings and in a moment nithing remained of the dead body. The Tibetans believed in three modes of burial, determined by the deceased’s horoscope; in the air, in water or in fire. If the burial was to be in water, the corpse was also chopped up and thrown to the fishes. For this reason the Tibetans disliked eating fish although they were plentiful in lakes and rivers.
Scenes of the “burial in the sky” in front of the pagoda of Kathok Monastery, dedicated to the otherworldly gods and decorated with symbols of death inside and out
Our delay in leaving Hlakon was due to the arrival of a group of wealthy Tibetans who had pitched their tents farther up the valley. The two brothers who leaded the family were well known to my missionary companion and he told me that they were of princely blood and quite influential among their tribe. They were certainly well dressed men with huge gold and turquoise ear-rings and their tents were lavishly decorated inside with precious rugs and exquisite copperware encrusted with semi-precious stones. They brought some of their womenfolk for medical treatment, one having a diseased breast and the other suffering from a case of bad cold, they said. Even a cursory examination revealed that it was a case of the affliction which invarably accompanied all love adventures in Tibet. So prevalent were venereal diseases in that country that, as one of the measures for protection against infection, each person carried his own bowl. It was for this reason that Tibet had a declining rate of population; the number of surviving children in families was small, and not to be compared with the prolific Chinese. The problem of treating the woman with injections was a difficult one as so many villagers and their children crowded around us. Everyone tried to lift a flap of the tent to have a look, being quite sure that something extremely wicked and delicious was going on inside the tent.”
Not far above Tagong, a viewpoint overlooking the holy Yala, i.e. White Yak Mountain, was established next to the road. The local nomads use it to offer nicely equipped horses to Chinese tourists for guided rides, or at least for photography. From below, a Tibetan shepherdess and her daughter are driving a large herd of yaks up the hill, across the road. The yaks are stumbling, pushing each other up, and the cars and motorcycles trying to break through the gaps between them.
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