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Shri Ashtapad Maha Tirth - II
The archaeological site of Palace of the Medicine Buddhas is named after the mountain upon which it reposes. The extensive structural remains indicate that this residential site was larger than any of the contemporary Buddhist monasteries at Mount Kailash. There are three large all-stone corbelled complexes at palace of the Medicine Buddhas, representing a very important nucleus of early settlement at Mount Kailash. At one time, many dozens of people must have lived and worked at this location.
Fig.9: One of the structures at palace of the Medicine Buddhas (sMan-bla pho-brang). Note the intact rear room and corbel assembly.
Female Yak Horn Retreats is also the name of a Buddhist monastery established below the archaic ruins after 1000 CE. According to the Bon tradition, this site is where the chief god of Zhang Zhung, Ge-khod, first manifested from the sky as a wild yak. That this was indeed an important archaic residential site is confirmed by the existence of seventeen all-stone corbelled residences on the slopes above the Buddhist monastery. These structures are almost unknown and not even local monks are familiar with
Fig. 10: Female yak horn retreats ('Bri-ruPhuk). their history, so well was information
seen here are part of the ruins of the building designated DKI about Tibet's pre-Buddhist cultural past suppressed For more information about the archaic archaeological sites of Mount Kailash, see the following works by the author: 2006–2012. Flight of the KhyungNewsletter.http://www.tibetarchaeology.com 2011a. Antiquities of Zhang Zhung: A Comprehensive Inventory of Pre-Buddhist sites on the Tibetan Upland, Residential Monuments, vol. 1. The Tibetan & Himalayan Library.http://www.thlib.org/bellezza 2008. Zhang Zhung: Foundations of Civilization in Tibet. A Historical and Ethnoarchaeological Study of the Monuments, Rock Art, Texts and Oral Tradition of the Ancient Tibetan Upland. Philosophisch-Historische Klasse Denkschriften, vol. 368. Wien:Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 2002. Antiquities of Upper Tibet: An Inventory of Pre-Buddhist Archaeological sites on the High Plateau, Delhi: Adroit Publishers.
The pre-Buddhist archaeological sites around Mount Kailash
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