Place · carved boulder · Pakistan
Manthal Buddha Rock, Skardu
A granite boulder on the edge of Skardu carved in about the eighth century with a large seated Buddha surrounded by bodhisattvas and attendant figures, in the Kashmiri manner. It is the clearest surviving Buddhist monument in Baltistan, which was Buddhist and Tibetan-speaking before the fourteenth-century conversion and retained the language afterwards. Inscriptions in Brahmi and Tibetan are cut on the same rock and on others nearby.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 35.269, 75.634
Worth knowing
Baltistan kept its Tibetan language and lost its Tibetan religion, so the carving is read today by people whose speech is closer to the sculptor's than their faith is.
Connections (2)
- In the same set asKargah Buddha, Gilgit
The Manthal rock at Skardu and the Kargah relief at Gilgit are the two substantial Buddhist carvings of the upper Indus, and both are Kashmiri in idiom rather than Gandharan — eighth and seventh century respectively, cut when Kashmir's influence ran north over the passes. They mark a Buddhist Baltistan and Gilgit that the fourteenth-century conversion ended. Baltistan kept the Tibetan language it had then and lost the religion, so the carving is now read by people whose speech is closer to the carver's than their faith is.
- In the same set asShatial & Chilas
The upper Indus between Chilas and Skardu is one continuous carved corridor. At Shatial and Chilas the rocks by the river carry thousands of petroglyphs and inscriptions in Brahmi, Kharoshthi, Sogdian, Bactrian and Chinese, left by traders and pilgrims crossing between Gandhara and the Tarim. Manthal, upstream at Skardu, is the monumental end of the same practice — a full Buddha with attendants on a granite boulder rather than a traveller's scratched stupa. One route, two scales of carving.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Manthal Buddha Rock”. Gilgit-Baltistan department of archaeology records; Karl Jettmar, Rock Carvings and Inscriptions in the Northern Areas of Pakistan.
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