An excerpt from \u2018Old Lhasa: A Biography\u2019, by MA Aldrich.<\/b>
\nTwo sites in Lhasa are linked to the invention of the Tibetan writing system. Outside the east wall of the Jokhang, Songtsen used to meditate next to an auspicious boulder. Later he ordered the construction of a chapel next to it, the Jambhala Lhakhang (Chapel of Jambhala). The chapel has been fully absorbed into the grounds of the surrounding Meru Nyingma Monastery.
The Tibetan script is primarily based on the Devanagari Sanskrit script, with adaptations for Tibetan and its grammar. The king joined his minister in this task by the Jambhala Lhakhang so frequently that his absence from court invited ridicule by lesser lights in the palace for his lack of attention to other duties.
Today the entrance of the Jambhala Lhakhang attests to its antiquity. It is a meter lower than the ground level of the surrounding courtyard. The chapel is designed in a style popular in India during the Gupta dynasty. You descend a few steps to an east-facing sanctum with an ambulatory enclosed by solid mud plaster walls painted red with yellow etchings of guardian protectors. In the niche to the two doorways to the chapel are images of the deities Jambhala and Namt\u00f6s\u00e9 (Vaisravana in Sanskrit). An avatar of Avalokitesvara, Jambhala is the Buddhist deity who bestows good fortune and wealth to those who practice charity and compassion. The other door guardian, Namt\u00f6s\u00e9, is one of the Four Heavenly Kings and the protector of the north entrance to Mount Meru. The boulder revered by Songtsen has been walled up for centuries in a room on the north side of the chapel.
Songtsen meditated in the two connected caves in the side of the mountain; these are open to pilgrims and visitors alike. The caves are celebrated as \u201cpower places,\u201d where a pilgrim might sense the spiritual energy accumulated there over centuries. It is worthwhile to sit peacefully and silently in the cave for a bit. (The monks will be thrilled if you do.) Above the caves is a massive rock formation that resembles a turtle, a symbol of stability. Songsten built a nine-story fortress on the site; it was turned into a monastery in the eighth century. Today what you see is a post-Cultural Revolution reconstruction.
Thonmi translated the Karandhavyuha Sutra, the text that King Lhaththori had received from the sky, and deciphered the significance of the om mani padme hum mantra. He unveiled his alpha-syllabary by carving the Six-Syllable Mantra into the mountain rock face at Pabonka. A subsequently built chapel to the Three Protectors now encloses the carving, which is behind an easily overlooked glass enclosure on the east wall. There are also seventh-century carvings of the Three Protectors on the rock face as well as bas-reliefs of the wrathful Chana Dorje (with two snakes coiled on his forehead), images of Avalokitesvara with an Amitabha Buddha on his crown, and the Maitreya Bodhisattva, all of which are thickly covered with new paint, signs of earnest but misguided reverence. Or so say art historians. Of course, the Six-Syllable Mantra carving by Thonmi is the primary reason to make the effort to visit Pabonka, given its historic significance for the Tibetan people.
Tibetans often purchase thin rectangular pieces of slate on which stone workers have carved the Six-Syllable Mantra. These are placed at open-air sites near temples and monasteries. These \u201cmani stones\u201d are an inexpensive way to earn merit both for the worshipper and the carver. Nicely \u201cauthentic\u201d souvenirs too.
The writing system is massively frustrating for non-Tibetans because it retains archaic spellings that have no relation to modern spoken Tibetan. When precisely transcribed from Tibetan, \u201cChenrezi\u201d (the Tibetan name for Avalokitesvara) becomes sPyang ras gzigs. \u201cSongtsen Gampo\u201d is Srong btsan sgam po. The central province of \u00dc is d\u00dcbs. These anomalies come about because although the pronunciations of many Tibetan words have continued to shift over the ages, the alpha-syllabary used to write the language was last revised in the ninth century. This has led to many Tibetan spellings that are the equivalent of English\u2019s knight, thorough, and colonel, but only more obstinately illogical (to an outsider\u2019s thinking).
The writing system is important in proving ancient Tibet looked primarily to India for its religious and literary inspiration, not China. The implicit rejection of cumbersome Chinese characters and their vertical format overcomes the oft-made assertion that Tibet has \u201calways\u201d been a part of China. The alpha-syllabary also distinguishes Tibetan civilisation from the more culturally supplicant posture of ancient Japan, Korea, and Vietnam (in addition to other adjacent cultures, now vanished, that fell within the orbit of Chinese culture). Even the form of preserving literature emulated the Indian example of palm-leaf texts rather than the bound bamboo sticks of ancient China.
Excerpted with permission from Old Lhasa: A Biography, MA Aldrich, Speaking Tiger Books.<\/p>\n