Perilous Pilgrimage

In a hundred ages of the gods, I could not tell thee of the glories of the Himalayas.

--The Puranas, Scriptures of Ancient India

The dizzying glories of the Himalayan peaks and gorges have long been celebrated, but few outsiders realized that, tucked away in monasteries and temples, the Himalayas harbored other glories--those of a strangely distinctive art. Scholars knew that Himalayan art was an offshoot of the Indian tradition, centered on the Buddhist and Hindu pantheon of deities. But what they knew was mostly by repute, since few had the physical stamina or the political entree necessary to reach the remote valleys and high plateaus where the monasteries and temples were lodged.

Now, to the delight of armchair travelers and art historians alike, an Indian art expert and career diplomat named Madanjeet Singh has accomplished what other scholars could not. With official and sympathetic help from all the governments concerned, Singh made 35 treks into the remotest regions of the Himalayas. His book, Himalayan Art, has just been published by UNESCO, the first volume in its Art Books series. It contains a photographic record (see color opposite) that for the first time reveals Himalayan painting and sculpture in all its sequestered splendor.

Cloistered Valleys. To his task, Singh brought unique qualifications. His uncle had been court painter to the Maharajah of Kashmir. From his youth, Singh himself had been enchanted by the graceful ancient sculptures of India, photographed them assiduously even as he studied for a diplomatic career. Later, in his diplomatic role, he accompanied the late Jawaharlal Nehru on a visit to Ladakh and there saw paintings and sculptures that few outsiders had ever seen before; and he had comparable luck in Nepal, Bhutan and Sikkim. The divergence from traditional Indian art fascinated him.

Taking a year's leave of absence from his diplomatic post in Madrid, Singh set out to record the art of the whole Himalayan region. Most crucial to his success was a letter from the Dalai Lama --he carried it "like a magic wand." It authorized him to photograph inside Hindu and Buddhist temples, which is ordinarily prohibited. By mule, Jeep, helicopter and on foot, across dizzying rope bridges, up perilous footpaths, he scaled heights that literally took his breath away. Once he narrowly escaped death when he slipped and fell, only to catch a sturdy bush ten feet down the mountainside. An equally unnerving incident occurred when he was forced to descend from a 13,500-ft. pass in a blinding snowstorm at night, while rocks exploded all around from the swift temperature change.

The 7,000 photographs of manuscripts, sculptures and paintings he brought back demonstrate that in the isolation of thousands of cloistered valleys, Himalayan artists developed a magnificence and mystery of their own. "The visual diversity of Himalayan art is incredibly wide," says Singh. "The sculptures are carved in all forms of relief, and in painting the variety of colors is equally rich. But to find the leitmotiv," he adds, "one must look beyond its incidental stylistic, mythological, ritualistic and legendary associations, toward the majestic silvery peaks symbolizing primeval ideals."

Skulls and Symbolism. One of the most striking symbols of the mountains that Singh discovered was the "Lord of the Soil," Shiva. A flaming trident of gold surmounting a silver sculpture of a skull, it stands poised against the blue Himalayan skies atop the famed Kye monastery in India's Spiti Valley. As the all-seeing Divine Yogi of the Himalayas, Shiva is the most commonly portrayed deity, but he appears in many forms. Perhaps Singh's favorite Shiva image was a painted five-headed stone sculpture in a temple at Mandi. "Entering the temple," he recalls, "I vaguely saw what looked like a lump of snow. As I got used to the darkness, the images began to take shape, and gradually the red eyes emerged, like the early rays of the sun. In conveying the atmosphere of the snow-covered peaks and Shiva's identity with them, the artist was triumphantly successful."

Such horrific visages, Singh found, were particularly prevalent in the desolate Lahaul and Spiti valleys, inspired perhaps by the rugged peaks, which assume all manner of threatening features in the changing light of the day. Farther north in glacier-spotted Ladakh, the graceful refinements of neighboring Kashmir were evident. Poking around in one of Ladakh's most ancient shrines one day, Singh stumbled upon an exquisitely poised statue of a goddess whose blue-black features rendered her almost invisible in the darkness. To capture the delicate flowers in each ear and bring out her supple volumes, he placed a ritual oil lamp in her lap.

Gods and Terror. In Nepal, Himalayan art reached a greater sophistication. The emerald valley of Katmandu --set among wild gorges at the foot of Mount Everest--abounded in lively hybrids combining human and animal forms. A spectacularly demonic example, Singh found, was the boar-shaped incarnation of Vishnu smeared with red ocher. The carving of Vishnu as a lion, from a later period, testifies to the ability of Nepalese carvers to twist brittle stone into sinuous shapes.

It is not surprising that the art of people who spend their lives in the shadow of groaning glaciers and descending avalanches proves to be considerably cruder in feeling and execution than its more refined Indian counterpart. Moreover, local artists freely improvised their own versions of the deities. This is especially common in Bhutan, where monasteries reserve a small dark room, called a Goinkhang, to display animal skins and teeth, as well as the remains of sacrificial victims or enemies. In one such gloomy cell, Singh found the fearsome wall painting representing the "Wheel of Existence." Though wholly unsophisticated, it is as terrifying as a Dantean hell with its misshapen witches, demons, monsters and wincing sinners. It is this peculiar penchant for the grotesque--in contrast to the elegance of Indian styles--that gives Himalayan art its unique power.

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