2001.35.104.1 (Film negative)
Raw Image
Evan Yorke Nepean
Evan Yorke Nepean
September - December 1936
Lhasa > Kundeling > Kesar Lhakhang
2001.35.104.1
90 x 58 mm
Print silver
Loaned August 2002
Judy Goldthorp
British Diplomatic Mission to Lhasa 1936-37
Lady Nepean
2001.35.396.22.3
Other Information - Related Images: Caption for this image in Nepean's album (see Same Image As) - 'Figures'. [MS 30/07/2006]
Other Information - Dates: This photograph may have been taken on December 10th 1936 when all the Mission staff visited Kundeling Monastery for the Disease Chasing Ceremony and to take tea with the Abbot [see Lhasa Mission Diary for this date]. Hugh Richardson also comments in his personal letters that the staff members also visited Kesar Temple on this day [see Bodleian Library, Hugh Richardson Archive MS Or. Richardson 3 folio 49 for description [MS 30/07/2006]
Other Information - Description: "On the summit of a little rocky spur behind Gundeling lies a curious building with a ridged European roof. This is the Chinese temple dedicated to Kesar, a Tibetan King who lived in the third or fourth century - that is before the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet. This almost fabulous King forms the subject of the most famous Tibetan epic, which can be recited by some nomads for days on end without repetition. In character this temple is quite unlike any other that we saw. In a large open building facing the west were two images of horses, made of wood and brightly painted; they were several times as large as Tibetan ponies. In the temple itself were many life-sized armoured figures standing up and holding weapons instead of in the conventional attitudes" ['Lhasa: The Holy City', F. Spencer Chapman, London: Chatto & Windus, 1938, pp. 205-6] [MS 08/04/2006]
For Citation use:
The Tibet Album.
"Figures in Kesar Lakhang?"
05 Dec. 2006. The Pitt Rivers Museum.
<http://tibet.prm.ox.ac.uk/photo_2001.35.104.1.html>.
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