Date
Wednesday 7 February 2024
Details
The northern borderlands of Nepal are home to a dozen or so culturally Tibetan enclaves. One of these is the former kingdom of Mustang, also called Lo, which was founded in the fourteenth century.
Mustang was absorbed into the emerging nation of Nepal in the eighteenth century, but thanks to good relations with the new Gorka rulers in Kathmandu it was allowed to retain its own king as well as a measure of political autonomy. The royalty and aristocracy of Mustang were devout Buddhists who sponsored the building and decoration of magnificent temples, monasteries and convents, most of which have survived to this day. Beneath this conspicuous and thriving Tibetan Buddhist culture, however, are traces of far more ancient belief systems. Mustang is home to the oldest surviving community of the ancient Bön religion anywhere in the Himalayas, preserving rituals that long predate the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet; and going back even further, to the beginning of the first millennium BCE, are hundreds of spectacular labyrinthine cave complexes that were once home to a mysterious troglodyte civilisation.
Beginning with an overview of some of the region’s most outstanding examples of art and architecture, Professor Charles Ramble took attendees on a journey through some of the lesser-known pathways in the cultural legacy of this extraordinary mountain kingdom.
This event was recorded and is available for viewing via My Oxford Online +.
