Remarks on the Practice of Installing Lhathos of Territorial Guardians inside Buddhist Temples in the Western Himalayas

Gerald Kozicz

Published: 2017-12-31

Vol. 37 (2016)

Remarks on the Practice of Installing Lhathos of Territorial Guardians inside Buddhist Temples in the Western Himalayas

Gerald Kozicz

Abstract

A crucial factor for the successful establishment of Buddhism among Tibetan and Himalayan societies from the 10th century onwards was the integration of pre-Buddhist local myths into the art and architecture of the new doctrine. Depictions of territorial spiritual forces were incorporated into the Buddhist theological and iconographic systems, while lhathos, archaic chairns that were considered as seats of local guardians, became part of the specific architecture in the whole Himalayan landscape. The following article presents a few case-studies to describe the beginning of this phenomenon and discuss further developments. The specific interest is on the physical transfer of lhathos into orthodox Buddhist temples
and their installation in eminent positions inside assembly halls or even inside main niches of a sanctum.

Keywords:

Lhatho, Buddhism, Ladakh, Tibet, sacral architecture, Shang-Shung tradition, Rinchen Zangpo, Dorje Chenmo, deities

Vajradhatumandala with the lhatho at the bottom to the right of Mahavairocana (photo: G. Kozicz).

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Kozicz, G. (2017). Remarks on the Practice of Installing Lhathos of Territorial Guardians inside Buddhist Temples in the Western Himalayas. Ethnologia Polona, 37, 9–30. Retrieved from https://journals.iaepan.pl/ethp/article/view/64

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Gerald Kozicz

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1107-8615

Affiliation:

Institute for Architecture and Media - Technical University of Graz, Austria

Bio Statement (e.g., department and rank)

Dipl.-Ing. Dr.techn. at the Graz University of Technology, Institute of Architecture and Media.