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It
has a benign expression. The walls are painted with figures of the incarnations of Buddha
and other saints. Paintings of male and female divinities, saints and demons painted in
brilliant blue and red, on cloth with silk borders are hung on the walls."
Unfortunately there is a certain amount of
allergy on the part of the Buddhist Lamas who are in-charge of this and other monasteries
for a systematic, study by others and this has stood on the way to a proper appraisal of
the magnificence of these treasures in the monasteries.
Buddhism apparently came to the Western Himalayas in the time of Asoka in 3rd
century B.C. as evident from the rock edicts of Kalsi. The great Buddhist saints and
scholar Padmasambhava preached Buddhism in this area in the 9th century. That form of
Buddhism known as Lamaism came down from Met a little later.
The Lamaism in this area has not eschewed the
belief and worship of the malevolent spirits supposed to be dwelling in trees, rocks,
hill-tops, difficult crevices etc. Neither Lamaism nor the more orthodox form of Buddhism
has been able to ' do away with the sacrifice of sheep and goats to appease the evil
Spirits.
The administrators have been in some
difficulties even in the planting of new trees or the lying of new sources of irrigation
or the repairing and re-aligning old waterways because of time-honoured superstitious.
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