Tabo Monastery

In the insurmountable heights of Spiti, lies the Buddhist gompa, monastery of Tabo. It was the Tibetan year of the Fire Ape and the founder was the great teacher Rinchensang Po, also known as Mahaguru Ratnabhadra. With its exquisite murals and stucco images, Tabo is often called 'The Ajanta of the Himalayas'. Tabo is located at a height of 3050 metres in the magnificently isolated Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh. With breathtaking murals and stucco images, Tabo is often called 'The Ajanta of the Himalayas'. And here is the art that above all, is born of religion and deep faith. A small community of sixty monks resides here. The monastery has clay statues of the Buddha painted in the Kashmiri style. The main temple, Tsug Lhakang was at the centre of the whole complex. The centre of this temple was also the center of the compound along the east-west axis, having its major statue, Saravid Vairochana, placed in the central spot not only of its surrounding 32 statues in a perfect three-dimensional mandala around him - and therefore of the temple - but also of the whole complex.