Native scholarship: Beyond gentle laments
The Thakalis, Bon dKar and Lamaist Monasteries along the Kali Gandaki
Ratan Kumar Rai
Book Faith India,
Delhi
1994, NRs 950ISBN
81 7303 021 9
The Kali Gandaki Valley, for long one of Nepal´s principal trade links with Tibet, has in recent times become the country´s most popular trekking route. As travellers ascend from the gorges below Ghasa and enter the more rarefied air of the Thak Khola, they encounter the first signs of Tibetan cultural influence: temples, monas¬teries, stupas and gateways painted with Buddhist motifs, through which they pass on entering and leaving villages. Many traders and trekkers alike will undoubtedly have wondered about these decaying structures: the identity of the divinities and mandalas adorning these crumbling walls, and that of the people who built and painted them. Ratan Kumar Rai´s Along the Kali Gandaki is the most substantial attempt to date to address these questions. It is, in a sense, a natural sequel to his earlier book of pen-and-ink drawings.