India - Ladakh : Alchi monastery is steeped in Buddhist history

 

Alchi monastery or Alchi Gompa lies at a distance of about 40 odd miles from Leh, the capital of Ladakh, a northern region in India. The monastery is at an altitude of ten thousand feet, and is ancient, dating back to the 10th century. The monastery was built by Rinchen Zangpo, an ancient Buddhist scholar, during his efforts to spread Buddhism in the Ladakh region. It is known that he helped build some 108 monasteries in total. Only a few of them survive today, and Alchi is considered to be one of the best preserved among them. The gompa and the associated temples and villages are steeped in history.

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To approach Alchi, which is on the south bank of Indus river, one has to cross over Indus from the Leh-Srinagar highway, which mostly runs on the north bank of the river. The bridge is beautifully decorated with prayer flags, and gives a sense of entering a spiritual area.

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The first view of the village of Alchi is idyllic. It was August, and grains were getting ready for harvesting. The trees had green leaves, which brought in much needed color in the otherwise bare landscape of the mountains of Zanskar range rising behind the village.

Of course, you enter the Alchi complex through the gift shop. There were beautiful hand-crafted Buddha statues, prayer wheels and other knick-knacks in the shops. We picked up couple of prayer wheels.

There are a few temples in the Alchi complex, and a whole lot of stupas or chortens. The earliest recorded Chortens are from early 13th century. These chortens are decorated gateways known locally as 'Kakani Chorten' that are considered unique to Alchi. 

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A very prominent temple in Alchi complex is the Sumsteg (or Sumrtsek, or Sumtsek), which means 'three storied building'. Its a beautiful temple, and holds a pride of place in the complex.

Interestingly, the door to the Sumsteg is really low, perhaps slightly more than 4 feet high. This is something we found in most other old Ladakh gompas. Apparently it is related to the fact that a low door causes you to bend while entering, thereby showing respect to the gods inside.

The temple complex is very pretty and spotlessly clean. It appears that it is whitewashed frequently. We found a set of very old prayer wheels. These were not made with the usual brass, but with wood and hide. These unusual prayer wheels pointed to the age of the monastery.

 

More modern prayer wheels were everywhere, and whenever any monk passed by, he or she turned the wheels. I learned that Inside each prayer wheel cylinder is a tightly wound roll of printed mantras. Mantras are short Buddhist invocations of several syllables. Each of the about thousand plus paper sheets within each cylinder is printed with about twenty odd thousand of these mantras. Each cylinder contains twenty million plus printed mantras! Buddhist prayer wheels are used as an aid to meditation and as a means of accumulating wisdom, good karma, and means of putting bad karma aside. 

The main mantra used in chanting, om mani padme hung, has six syllables, and means that only through a path of method and wisdom you can transform your impure body, speech and mind into the pure body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.

Alchi is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people. The lady was sitting on the window sill of her restaurant, and smiled a beautiful radiant smile as we passed by. We should have had stopped at her restaurant, but it was getting late, and our driver Tsiring said we should visit Likir monastery before it gets dark.

Another time, perhaps.