This book is about the Mardzong manuscripts, a collection found in the Caves of Upper Mustang near Lo Monthang in Nepal. These manuscripts are an extraordinary archaeological find, like the more archaic caches of Silk Road manuscripts from Central Asia, but they are still unknown. They are an information-dense repository of artefacts, history, and ideas spanning half a millennium. The collection was discovered in 2008 by a group of climbers led by writer and Himalaya expert Broughton Coburn and mountaineer Peter Athans in a cave complex called Mardzong, southeast of Lo Monthang, in Nepal’s Mustang District (Figs 0.1 and 0.2).1
The location of both 1) the Mardzong cave complex at the elevation 3877 m above sea level—the site where the manuscript collection was discovered—and 2) the Choede Monastery Antique Museum in Lo Monthang, where the Mardzong manuscripts collection is preserved now, on the map of Mustang (Lo) in Nepal
Map by Dorota Maya Helman, courtesy of the Mardzong Manuscripts Project
The Mardzong hill and its surroundings—the site of manuscripts found in 2008. Elevation 3493 m above sea level
Photograph by Agnieszka Helman-Ważny (2016)
The find site resembles a scene from Star Wars, isolated as it is among the many caves hewn from a cliff facing the Upper Kali Gandaki River. The site is now entirely abandoned, the wind alone howling through the valley. It is located a half-hour horse-ride from Lo Monthang, the capital of the former kingdom of Mustang (Lo). Such an unusual number of sandstone sky-caves are a typical feature of the Mustang landscape. Most caves are now deserted, but in the past they were commonly used for housing, shrines and monasteries.2 Even today some of the other Mustang caves have been converted into modern dwellings and monasteries. The cave complex inside the Mardzong hill is thus likely to have been a settlement that was abandoned (Fig. 0.3). Our collection of manuscripts was found in one of the most beautiful so-called “cathedral” caves next to one decorated with paintings, where loose folios were scattered all around the open space of the cave. The place is now considered by local people, however, to be haunted, which is somehow reflected in the mood of its surroundings. The people of Mustang believe that it was the scene of a black magic battle between two powerful lamas. This may be one of the reasons for suspecting that texts hidden there were treated as if they might be a source of recondite knowledge.
The Mardzong cave complex
Photograph by Agnieszka Helman-Ważny (2017)
That many miniatures have been cut out of book leaves, however, indicates that the collection had already been discovered before 2008. Local people would probably have long known that these caves hid a collection of old manuscripts, remarkable wall paintings and archaeological artefacts. Bearing all this in mind, the circumstances in which the cave complex was abandoned, and when this might have happened are unknown. The circumstances of its re-discovery by Westerners are also unclear. We learn from the film Lost Caves of Mustang by Liesl Clark and Peter Athans that they were informed about “sky-caves” by a local goatherd, and they were the first team since Mustang was opened to foreigners in 1991 to be granted an official 30-day permit to explore the “sky caves” of Upper Mustang. From that exploration they report many artefacts, such as paintings and manuscripts in other caves too. All wall paintings were executed in a similar style and dominated by the colours white, red and black (black used as contour). Unfortunately, they also reported many signs of looting in all these seemingly inaccessible places.
Whether the cave complex was a rock-hewn monastery, a shelter or a “burial site” for a number of libraries, apparently from settlements around Lo Monthang that were abandoned remains a mystery. The discovery team suggests that the Mustang caves may be a part of the “hidden valleys” of the Himalayas (which often contained so-called hidden treasure texts), thought to represent the Buddhist spiritual paradise known as Shambhala. These hidden valleys are believed to have been created at times of struggle, when Buddhism was threatened. Nagru Geshe Gelek Jinpa believes that manuscripts found in the Mardzong caves could originate from the ancient monastery of Bonkhor, the ruins of which are located near Lo Monthang (Fig. 0.4).3 This idea is supported by a dedication folio found in the collection, which states explicitly that some of the manuscripts (including the Khams chen and the Klu ’bum) were produced there (see chapter 10).
The ruins of Bonkhor located near Lo Monthang
Photograph courtesy of Charles Ramble
The custom of abandoning old and damaged texts in stupas, shrines and possibly caves is known all across Tibet. There are many caves in this part of the Himalayas with scriptures and objects of religious cults, since people believe that having a damaged figure or book in their home gives rise to bad karma. Under normal circumstances Tibetans refrain from destroying religious texts, placing them on the floor or otherwise treating them with disrespect. If something is broken, people thus prefer to place it in another location rather than in their homes. It is therefore possible that the kings or nobility of Mustang abandoned the Bon and Buddhist sacred texts in the Mardzong caves out of respect, as an alternative to destroying them. This is one of our main hypotheses for the reason why this collection was deposited in the cave, if those books were seriously damaged before being stored in one of the Mardzong caves. The condition of the manuscripts, however, suggest rather that they were not severely worn out. Most of the signs of serious damage, such as bird droppings and the sandy dust covering the folios, gaps in frontispieces caused by miniatures being cut out, possibly by looters, may date from more recent times, during the period when the books were stored in the crumbling cave (Figs 0.5 and 0.6). The missing miniatures from illuminated book leaves may, however, not necessarily be an effect of looting by people who wanted to sell them on the art market. Fidel Devkota reports that during his research in Dhe village, east of the Kali Gandaki, many villagers vividly recalled their childhoods, when they used to play with the manuscripts in a local cave called Ludakphu and in doing so destroyed them, especially folios with colourful lettering and images. Devkota reports that decades later villagers showed some of the folios from Ludakphu to gYung drung rgyal mtshan (the reincarnation of the Tibetan lama bsTan pa rgyal mtshan, now resident in Lubrak) who immediately identified them as belonging to a text related to Yungdrung Bon (gYung drung Bon), and took with him a small piece that is still kept safely in his protective amulet.4 As a result of such practices, we see the remaining mutilated pages. We cannot exclude the possibility that the same thing may have happened to the Mardzong collection. In some folios of the Mardzong manuscripts we also find careful repairs of paper tears (Figs 0.7 and 0.8).
Visible damage on the Mardzong books leaves: folio fragment covered by bird droppings on the left, and an empty space left by a miniature cut out by looters on the right
Photographs by Agnieszka Helman-Ważny (2017)
The repairs of paper tears in the Mardzong folios
Photographs by Agnieszka Helman-Ważny (2017)
These small signs of care, the sewn tears in the paper, cavities filled with pieces of paper from elsewhere, suggest rather that those books were painstakingly cared for, rather than being a possible source of bad karma. It is indeed a lesson in impermanence to think about the cache of loose paper folios stored for centuries in the crumbling cave, slowly but inevitably disintegrating in spite of Mustang’s dry climate. Besides the activity of birds, looters, and the crumbling cave, many folios were found at the site, blown out of the cave by the wind.5 All this may also suggest that the Mardzong collection was not stored in the remote cave as a respectful alternative to abandoning the books centuries ago, when they must still have been in good condition. At least that might not be the only reason. It is also possible that there were other reasons, for example that during the oppression of Bon people hid texts that might otherwise have been destroyed by Buddhists who wanted to subjugate them since most of the preserved material belongs to the Bon tradition. This does not, however, explain the presence of fragments of Buddhist works among the Mardzong volumes. At this point we therefore have to accept that we do not know the reason why these particular books found themselves inside the Mardzong hill.
The discovery of the Mardzong cave complex was well publicised and documented by various film crews, but the subsequent fate of the Mardzong collection became unclear. Very little was done in terms of scholarly identification of these books after their discovery. Unfortunately, no professional preservation measures were undertaken to protect them. The preliminary identification of the content of some volumes was undertaken by Charles Ramble, a member of the team that removed these manuscripts from the Mardzong cave in 2009. At that time, he estimated the collection at 25 000 manuscript folios originating from around 100 texts. Angela M. H. Schuster in the Britannica Book of the Year 2010, while reporting the archaeological discovery of the manuscript cache, more cautiously estimated their number at “more than 8 000 folios belonging to some 30 religious tracts.”6 In reality, the result of our project count shows that there are 5 095 folios preserved in Choede monastery. This shows that the folios were not counted when discovered, or at the time they were moved out of the cave. Nobody therefore really knew what the collection contained or what its volume was. Both the pressure of time and the volume of material were responsible for such a situation.
As we see in the National Geographic film “Secrets of Shangri-La,” the texts were gathered into bundles by the climbers and lowered to the ground by rope. At the foot of the Mardzong hill a couple of monks gave them a preliminary dusting by the simple expedient of beating stacks of folios against rocks (Fig. 0.9). It was a rough way of cleaning the old manuscripts when it would have been very helpful to have shown a basic grasp of conservation measures. The monks then passed the bundles of folios on to a group inside a tent who removed some of the remaining feathers and dust with brushes, and sorted the material for the next step (Fig. 0.10). The superficially cleaned folios were then wrapped, as is customarily the case with Tibetan books, in new blue cotton cloth purchased by the discovery team from a shop in Lo Monthang. A rough arrangement of folios into volumes was then attempted, and all the unidentified miscellaneous material was gathered into a single pile and similarly wrapped up.7 The entire collection was finally packed in some twenty-five large bundles, and then transported up the hill to the Choede (Glo bo chos sde) monastery. As far as possible, the folios of all unidentified texts (excluding canonical volumes, judged after a cursory examination of the contents) were photographed by three people with cameras of varying quality. Due to the pressure of time the folios were not organised into orderly volumes, but a basic photographic record was kept of a large part of the material that was not immediately identifiable.
Monks giving the manuscripts folios a preliminary dusting by beating stacks of folios against rocks
Photograph by Charles Ramble (2008)
The second stage of cleaning and preliminary sorting of the folios before wrapping them in bundles
Photograph by Charles Ramble (2008)
The photographs taken with the three cameras were later pooled and organised by Kemi Gurung, a member of our project team. He sorted the images into folders corresponding to different works. In all cases the texts were incomplete, and not all folios were photographed. Charles Ramble reported that a list of all the illuminations found was made and given to Mohan Singh Lama of the Department of Archaeology in Kathmandu.8 The documentation of the manuscript folios done at that time, albeit incomplete, was crucial, especially in light of what has subsequently happened with the collection.
According to the official resolution of the local authorities, the collection was the property of the people of Lo Monthang and was now under the curatorship of Choede Monastery, where it was deposited for safe keeping. Bundles of manuscript folios are now kept in a small “antique museum” within the complex of Choede monastery, which itself is a sort of room filled with historical objects as advertised on its notice by the Student Welfare Committee (Monastic School) (Figs 0.11, 0.12 and 0.13). The room is small and poorly lit, with a basic shelf construction added in 2017. A few books, masks, interiors of prayer wheels, wooden blocks and figures are exhibited in a rather random order. At the front doors we read that the museum contains “a collection of sacred Things from Mustang & Tibet.” The whole Mardzong collection, in bundles wrapped in blue cotton, is stored on the windowsill against the wall on the window side, on the left when one enters the room. It was, however, impossible to obtain any information about these books, or about other objects, at the place where they are stored.
Left: The complex of Choede monastery. Right: The inner courtyard of the Choede monastery
Photographs by Agnieszka Helman-Ważny (2017)
Interior of the Choede monastery Antique Museum with the Mardzong volumes stored on the left
Photograph by Agnieszka Helman-Ważny (2017)
At the beginning the official status of the collection was uncertain. The site on which the hill and the Mardzong cave stand is under the jurisdiction of several different social groups in Lo Monthang, and access to the material had been complicated by discussions between the corresponding committees from the moment of discovery in 2008. A conflict which began when foreigners wanted to move the manuscript folios out of the cave may have been somehow related to the subsequent fate of the collection, but there is no certainty about this. Despite the fact that the local youth group, headed by a young man, the owner of an art and antique gallery in Lo Monthang, vehemently objected to moving the collection out of the cave complex in 2008, in the end the various committees of the town agreed that the best course of action would be to remove all the material from the caves, and to store it in the main monastery in the nearby town of Lo Monthang, Lo Choede, a proposal to which the management of the Choede consented. From the point of view of preservation it was the most reasonable course of action.
Our project team re-visited the collection a couple of times between 2015 and 2018. The earthquake in 2015 made our work enormously challenging at the beginning. Luckily, Lo Mothang was far enough from the epicentre of the earthquake, and buildings there suffered only minor damage. The general chaos and the time needed to restore the roads and the connection between Kathmandu and Upper Mustang, however, made the situation difficult in the region as a whole, since people first of all had to secure their living conditions. For this reason it was a bad time for scholarly research and we postponed our inventory work until 2016. During this fieldwork we realized that a part of the collection that was supposed to be in Choede monastery was missing. We do not know what happened to those volumes, and for this reason some of the data collated here so far provide no real answers. I trust, however, that those facts, together with thorough documentation of everything that is left, may help to ascertain what happened and possibly even to locate the missing part. When we gather smaller puzzles together, they sometimes reveal a picture even if they are not yet all in place. We still sincerely hope that the missing part of the collection has simply been misplaced, and will soon be found lying forgotten somewhere in the monastery.
The expedition is documented in the National Geographic film “Secrets of Shangri-La” and information about the discovery is published in the Britannica Book of the Year 2010.
For the archaeology of caves, the settlement process and the formation of states in Mustang see Pohle and Haffner 2001.
He is a monk from the Triten Norbutse monastery who was also present when the manuscripts were taken out of cave. For an account of his trip see Nagru Geshe Gelek Jinpa 2013, 39.
Devkota forthcoming.
See chapter 6.
Schuster 2010, 204.
Ramble, personal communication, May 17, 2017.
Ramble, personal communication, May 17, 2017.