Place · rock-carved Maitreya statue · India
Mulbekh Maitreya
Also known as Mulbekh, Mulbek Chamba, Maitreya Mulbekh
A nine-metre Maitreya carved in relief on a free-standing rock beside the Srinagar to Leh road, in a style that is Kashmiri rather than Tibetan and is usually dated to the eighth century — when this was the Buddhist frontier between Kashmir and the Tibetan plateau, before either Islam or Tibetan Buddhism arrived.
- Function
- Archaeology & heritage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 34.400, 76.340
Worth knowing
A Kharosthi inscription on the rock puts writing on it earlier still. Mulbekh village is on the line where Buddhist and Muslim Ladakh meet, with a mosque and a gompa in sight of one another, and the Maitreya — the Buddha still to come — stands at a crossroads where several futures were possible.
Connections (2)
- Architectural modelAlchi Monastery, Ladakh
The nine-metre Maitreya carved on a free-standing rock at Mulbekh and the Alchi murals are both Kashmiri work on the Ladakh side of the passes, four centuries apart, and together they mark the period when this was Kashmir's Buddhist frontier rather than Tibet's. A Kharosthi inscription on the Mulbekh rock puts writing on it earlier still.
- Architectural modelMārtānd Sun Temple
The Mulbekh Maitreya and the Alchi murals are Kashmiri work on the Ladakh side of the passes, and Martand is what Kashmir itself built in the same centuries. Between them they mark the period when Ladakh was Kashmir's Buddhist frontier rather than Tibet's — before the Gelug arrived from the east and before Islam arrived in the valley from the west.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Mulbekh Monastery”. Archaeological Survey of India, Leh circle records; Rob Linrothe and Deborah Klimburg-Salter on western Himalayan Kashmiri-style sculpture.
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