Key Information

Photographer

Evan Yorke Nepean

Collection

Evan Yorke Nepean

Date of Photo

August 2nd 1936

Named Person

Abbot of Kargyu Monastery

Region

Chumbi Valley Region > Kargyu

Accession number

2001.35.10.1

Image Dimensions

90 x 58 mm

The Abbot of Kargyu Monastery in the Chumbi Valley. The British Mission party of 1936 briefly visited the gompa and met the Abbot whilst en route to Lhasa in August of that year

Further Information

Photographic Process

Print silver

Date Acquired

Loaned August 2002

Donated by

Judy Goldthorp

Expedition

British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37

Photo also owned by

Lady Nepean

Previous Catologue Number

YN.8

This Image also appears in another collection

2001.35.396.5.3

Other Information

Notes on print/mount - '2-010; 25'. [KC 24/07/2006]

Other Information - Related Images

Other Information - Related Images: Caption for this image in Nepean's album (see Same Image As) - 'Head of the Monastery'. [MS 28/07/2006]

Other Information - Description: August 2nd - "At Kargyu we had an official reception by the Lamas, and drank tea with the Head Lama. There was a wonderful band of half a dozen youngsters (budding Lamas one presumes) with drums, trumpets and gong. We went over the halls and shrines of the Gompa and took photos. The Head Lama or abbot is a most venerable and affable old man with a marvellous headdress of interwoven rope strands, or so it looked like" ['Lhasa Mission, 1936: Diary of Events', part I , written by Brig. Philip Neame] [MS 09/03/2006]

Other Information - Description: "We climbed a rickety wooden stair up and up till we reached the Abbot's room. Here we were presented with blue, instead of the customary white silk scarves of greeting, which were collected again before we left. The Abbot (he has held that office for twenty-seven years) is an aged man wit a benign yet lively face; unlike the other monks we had met he wore a grey robe, and had a great mass of hair tied in a bundle on top of his head. We were told that never during his life had he cut his hair. He wore flat discs of spiral-curved ivory in his ears and rings on his fingers - surely unusual for a monk. He also wore steel rimmed glasses" ['Lhasa: The Holy City', F. Spencer Chapman, London: Chatto & Windus, 1938, pp. 25-6]

For Citation use:
The Tibet Album. "Abbot of Kargyu Monastery" 05 Dec. 2006. The Pitt Rivers Museum. <http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/photo_2001.35.10.1.html>.

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