From the archive record
The mud-brick fortress of Basgo Gompa is perched high in the hills of Ladakh, between the Himalaya and Karakoram mountain ranges in northern India. The citadel and the three temples located within its rammed earth walls were built by Tibetan king Grags-pa-‘bum and his descendants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries A.D. The Chamchung, Chamba Lakhang, and Serzang temples, located on a man-made mound in the center of the complex, are dedicated to the Maitreya Buddha—the fifth incarnation of Sakyamuni. The temple façades are brightly painted and their interior walls are covered with murals depicting vignettes from the life of Buddha and portraits of the temples’ benefactors. The largest of the three structures holds a 14-meter-high, gilded statue of the Maitreya Buddha. The surrounding