Lotsawa Lhakhang

Ribba is one of the larger villages in Kinnaur. Situated on the eastern bank of the Sutlej, it occupies a broad, fertile site at an average altitude of 2550 metres. The Buddhist community of Ribba is unusually large for the area, and its activities centre on a large, recently decorated structure known as the Lotsawa Lhakhang (ལོ་ཙ་བ་ལྷ་ཁང་), or Translator’s Temple, named after the great translator Rinchen Zangpo (རིན་ཆེན་བཟང་པོ་; 958–1055). The old temple, integrated into the back of the larger new structure that bears its name, was certainly the earliest Buddhist monument in the region, but it burned down in 2006 (Bayerová 2007).

The old Lotsawa Lhakhang consisted merely of a small, nearly cubical building, 4.25 metres wide, with a shallow veranda on all four sides. It was entirely made of wood, and much of the woodcarving on the structure’s exterior can be attributed to the temple's foundation. The facades feature central windows with a trapezoidal superstructure, pairs of birds alternating with lotus blossoms in a top frieze, medallions with seated yakṣa in the upper corners, carved balcony-like projections beneath and flanking the windows, and vases flanked by birds. A door covered the entire front side (described below). Overall, the structure resembled later stone temples of Kashmir, but much of its decoration was unique and reflected the greater flexibility that wood allows. Given that many of these elements are not found in early West Tibetan woodcarving either, I proposed a date no later than the early 10th century for the temple.

When documented in 1993 and 1994, much of the temple's original exterior, including the expansive carved wooden door spanning the entire front, was covered with thick layers of whitewash. While this obscured the carvings and made them difficult to assess, it also protected them over the centuries. The carvings on the building itself were largely original, whereas those on the veranda were copies or replacements. However, even some of those later carvings, in particular the capitals, may still have reflected the original design.

Wooden Door

On the side facing the new temple, a carved wooden doorway covered the entire facade. The door consists of four sets of frames, the outermost being the widest. This frame is common to all sides of the structure and is covered with vegetal scrolls on the uprights, while the lintel features large lotus blossoms interspersed with a geometrical motif.

The second frame features an engaged pillar with three large standing Buddhas alternating with three smaller standing images. They are set within architectural frames with a double roof, birds on the upper roof, and a pinnacle — comparable to the mid-8th-century temple at Martand, Kashmir (Buddha height 27 cm; frame height 61 cm). The Buddhas' garments are stylistically close to those of the mid-9th-century Avantipur sculpture. Frontal garuḍa decorate the capital, and the uppermost decoration is a row of lotus petals and a hanging garland, which form the backdrop for flying deities with offerings.

The third frame from the outside supports the upper figurative band of the lintel. It features the five esoteric Buddhas, with celestial Bodhisattvas seated between them, their legs crossed at the ankles. Only the central Buddha, Vairocana (dharmacakramudrā), is crowned and jewelled. The rightmost Buddha (height 18 cm) has hair falling in thick strands to the shoulders. The Buddhas’ frames use a trilobed arch with double columns and terraced roofs culminating in an amalaka. The Buddhas’ gestures are lost today, and their identification in the gallery assumes their most common relative position to the main Buddha. The rounded pilaster is covered with a vegetal scroll, the details of which are obscured by whitewash.

The innermost frame carries the lower figurative band of the lintel, centred on a severely damaged standing figure within a full śikhara-type tower with at least seven terraces (frame height: 52 cm). Two Buddhas occupy the centre of the sides, and two goddesses stand outside, flanking the composition. Given that a central standing figure is flanked by two standing female figures facing it, the triad most likely depicts Avalokiteśvara flanked by two forms of the goddess Tārā. Between them are kneeling figures performing the gesture of worship ( añjalimudra) towards the central figure. The pilasters feature deeply carved conch shells interspersed with small flowers (each unit 14 cm high), a motif comparable to that on the wooden door of Kojarnath.

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Scholarly Debate

In the article on ‘Early Buddhist Wood Carvings from Himachal Pradesh’, which first brought the site to light, I considered only those woodcarvings that can be attributed without doubt to the foundation itself, setting aside the more or less faithful copies that had replaced the originals. I also attempted to relate the earliest woodcarvings preserved in Kinnaur, Spiti and West Tibet on a stylistic basis and to extrapolate a progressive development for the woodcarvings of the region. This analysis showed that the temple must predate the rise of the West Tibetan kingdom. The suggested date of the early tenth century at the latest represents a midpoint between the stylistic links with Kashmiri art from the eighth century onwards and the comparison with the late tenth-century door at Kojarnath, which it shares some essential features with.

At the 2000 conference of the International Association of Tibetan Studies (IATS) in Leiden, three papers focused on the same site, all of which have since been published. Klimburg-Salter provides a more comprehensive account of the architecture and includes architectural drawings. Her paper also records the local story of the temple’s foundation by Rinchen Zangpo, as reported by Veronika Hein in September 2001. Di Mattia places Ribba within the wider context of western Himalayan art, but in doing so tends to obscure rather than illuminate the monument’s uniqueness, date and historical background. Thakur, too, attempts a more comprehensive approach, but attributes all the temple’s decoration, regardless of its quality and style, to its foundation, a view that is neither supported by evidence nor by stylistic comparisons with other monuments in the region.

It is notable that all three papers cite my study only in relation to my early tenth-century attribution. The three authors propose different attributions: Klimburg-Salter favours a ninth-century date on the basis of the Kashmiri elements in the Ribba woodcarvings, whereas di Mattia (2002: 103) and Thakur (2002: 39–42) prefer to see Ribba as part of the early foundations of the West Tibetan kingdoms in the late 10th century. As these attributions contradict one another and none present convincing arguments for the suggested date, I stand by my original attribution.