MB Civic

Shepherd leads experts to ancient Buddha cave paintings

Maseeh Rahman
Friday May 4, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A shepherd in a remote region of Nepal
near the border with Tibet has been
instrumental in the discovery of an
extraordinary art treasure that lay
hidden from the world for centuries – a
collection of 55 exquisite cave paintings
depicting the life of Buddha.

A partially collapsed cave containing the
12th to 14th century depictions of scenes
from Buddha’s life was unearthed last
month by a team of Italian, US and
Nepalese conservators and archaeologists
in Mustang, a lost kingdom long forbidden
to foreigners in the high Himalayas, 250-
km north-west of Kathmandu.

“Finding the cave was almost like a
miracle,” said Luigi Fieni, a member of the
team that used ice axes to cut its way into
the inaccessible 3,400m-high cave in a
region that for centuries was part of
greater Tibet before being taken over by
Nepal.

Foreigners were only permitted to enter
Mustang in 1992, and Mr Fieni’s team
began work nine years ago, restoring the
spectacular wall paintings in a 15th century
Tibetan monastery.

When they inquired about other art
treasures in the region, a villager
remembered that as a boy he had seen a
cave full of colourful paintings.

“Unlike the murals in the monastery, the
Mustang cave paintings do not reveal a
Tibetan but a strong Indian influence,
including the animals they depict – leopard,
tiger, monkey and deer,” Mr Fieni said. “In
fact, the style evokes the fabulous cave
paintings of Ajanta, which predate the
Mustang caves by several centuries.”

The location of the cave has been kept
secret to deter art smugglers, but the team
call it “the snow leopard cave” as the
animal’s footprints were found inside.

“The cave paintings have been affected by
wind and rain and really need restoration,”
Mr Fieni said. “It’s a long process, and
we’re hoping now to raise funds for the
project.”

The simultaneous discovery of ancient
Tibetan manuscripts in nearby caves has
led to speculation that the caves might
have been a teaching retreat on the lines
of the Buddhist university in Nalanda.

Mustang is of special significance to
Buddhist experts because it is perhaps the
only region where Tibetan culture and
religion have survived over the centuries
virtually untouched by time and modern
Chinese colonisation.

“The Mustang people are Tibetans. They
speak the Tibetan language; their origin is
in the Tibetan culture,” said Lama Guru
Gyaltsen.

The opening up of the region has brought
inevitable challenges to Mustang way of
life. Young men are leaving the tiny
kingdom in search of work, and a
modern road through the capital, Lo
Manthang, is certain to affect the tradition
of rearing horses for transport and
agriculture. Building techniques using mud
are likely to be abandoned in favour of
modern construction methods.