Tabo

Tabo Monastery stands in the dry Spiti valley of the western Himalayas. Founded in 996 under the patronage of the western Tibetan king and religious teacher Yeshe Ö, it became part of a network of temples linking the far-flung territories of Purang and Guge. Its earthen buildings shelter paintings, clay figures and inscriptions that preserve a remarkable early chapter in Tibetan Buddhist art.

An inscription records the renovation of the main temple forty-six years after its foundation, under Yeshe Ö's grandnephew Jangchub Ö. Its images and painted mandalas combine Indian forms with Tibetan texts and ritual, reflecting the movement of Buddhist teachers and ideas across the mountains. The temple's surviving decoration also reveals a meeting of established monastic Buddhism with the newer tantric traditions taking root in western Tibet. Along the routes of Spiti, Tabo joined royal patronage, religious study and a distinctive artistic culture.