Land of Pure Vision: The Sacred Geography of Tibet and the Himalaya

Fallery Four: Change

79 Opposite: Temple and basketball court, Shangri La, Tibet (Yunnan, China), 2006. Change and dissolution are among the hallmarks of religious thought in Tibet and the Himalaya. From its inception, Tibetan Buddhism has stressed impermanence as essential to spiritual liberation—all attempts to cling to the past will result only in future suffering. The Hindu concept of samsara explains all existence as a continual cycle of birth, life, death, and rebirth. Karmic theory embraces the transmigration of a person’s soul. Even death will not stop change. The Shamanic traditions of the region are founded upon the ideas of altered states of consciousness and the interlocution of reality and the supernatural. It stands to reason, then, that transformation and dissolution should describe the sacred elements of landscapes that feature so prominently in the practice of these faiths. Temples fall apart; glaciers recede and sacred springs go dry; bombed monasteries are renovated along lines of questionable provenance; deity statues slowly succumb to rot, pilferage, or erosion; spiritual technologies undergo innovation; and pilgrims move along newly tarmaced surfaces. Sacred geography in its visible manifestation is a transient concept, and its superimposition on the landscape is subject to new designs. None of this means, though, that religious practice in the region is anything less than what it once might have been. Apart from Tibet, where religious institutions were systematically destroyed by military campaigns and certain practices outlawed among the local populace, the visible changes witnessed at a sacred site tend to be gradual and incremental, occurring alongside the more profane alterations in the landscape, and religious practice is barely affected by them. Urbanization and a spreading megalopolis, for instance, overtake spiritual places in the Kathmandu Valley, threatening to remove them from view, but these sites remain vital for local worship. Pilgrimage destinations in Nepal and India are developed as tourist attractions, so that recreational and spiritual travelers find themselves together at a site with different, not wholly contradictory, purposes. Litter and graffiti may blemish the facades and grounds of temples or monasteries in urban settings, yet do little to deter their spiritual functions. More lamentable, perhaps, are the brazen violations of sacred space that occur when religious artifacts are plundered for commercial sale, or when spiritual monuments are razed to make room for new shopping centers or housing projects, swept away by landscapes, inundated by the rising waters of a hydropower reservoir, or, in the egregious case of Tibet, destroyed as a matter of government policy. This all makes it more difficult for one to see the transcendent power of spiritual places in the landscape. When its visible markers become more obscure, the memory of living in a sacred world loses some tangible evidence and a sense, perhaps, of a geographical immediacy. Gallery Four Change 80 Café at Bodhnath Stupa, Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, 2008. 81 Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet, 2010. 82 Urban hipsters, Kathesimbhu Stupa, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2008. 83 Seven monks, Wara Monastery, Chamdo, Tibet, 2006. 84 Kathmandu Valley, Nepal, 2008. 85 Ranamuktaswore Temple, Kathmandu, Nepal, 2008. 86 Maitreya Buddha, Thikse Gompa, Ladakh, India, 2004. 87 Singh Gompa, Nepal, 2008. 88 Monastic ruins, Tibet, 2010. 89 Temple restoration workers, Derge, Tibet (Sichuan, China), 2006. 90 Nine novice monks, Choglamsar, Ladakh, India, 2004. 91 Monk, Dargye Monastery (Dajin Su), Tibet, 2004. 92 Festival grounds, Damxung, Tibet, 2010. 93 Thulo Syabru, Nepal, 2008. 95 Prayer wheels (spiritual technology), Mustang, Nepal, 2008. 96 Kali shrine, Rishikesh, India, 2004. 97 Burial shrine, Khumbu, Nepal, 2004. 99 Ruins, Pashupatinath Temple, Nepal, 2004. ...