Wanla

Wanla is a village in Lower Ladakh located at the confluence of two streams in a side valley between Khaltse and Lamayuru. The village houses are sited on the slopes around a prominent rock hill that once boasted an impressive castle but is today dominated by the lofty structure of the three-storeyed Wanla temple. Of the castle, which was founded by the Ladakhi King Lhachen Ngaklug (lha chen ngag lug) in a tiger year of the 12th century, only ruins remain. According an inscription, the Wanla temple was erected at the centre of the castle by a certain Bhakdarskyap (’bhag dar skyab), the eldest son of a minister of an unnamed government. This occurred most probably in the late 13th or early 14th century, an otherwise obscure period of Ladakh’s history.

The Wanla temple contains three niches with large standing clay sculptures at the back (south) and the sides; an approximately 5 m high main image of an eleven-headed Avalokiteshvara flanked by 3.4 m high figures of Maitreya and Śākyamuni in the side niches. Today the Wanla Temple is named Chuchikzhal (bcu gcig zhal, eleven-headed) after its main image, while in the inscription it is referred to as Tashi Sumtsek (bkra shis gsum brtsegs, Auspicious Three-storeyed). All the walls are covered with largely original murals. These paintings are among the earliest specimens of a Central Tibet-derived local style evidenced at several places in Ladakh (cf. the paintings of the Alchi Shangrong chörten). The bases and capitals of the pillars, the brackets, as well as the veranda and the door are decorated with original woodcarvings.

Literature

• Neuwirth, Holger, and Carmen Auer. 2015. The Three Storied Temple of Wanla. Graz: Verlag der Technischen Universität Graz.
• Heusgen, Wolfgang. 2010. “The Wanla Temple in Ladakh. 10 years of structural investigation and renovation.” In Heritage Conservation and Research in India. 60 years of Indo-Austrian collaboration, edited by Gabriela Krist, and Tatjana Bayerová, 73–78. Wien, Weimar: Böhlau.
• Tropper, Kurt. 2007. “The historical inscription in the gSum brtsegs temple at Wanla, Ladakh.” In Text, Image and Song in Transdisciplinary Dialogue. PIATS 2003: Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the Tenth Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Oxford 2003, Volume 10/7, edited by Deborah Klimburg-Salter, Kurt Tropper, and Christian Jahoda, 104–50. Leiden, Boston: Brill.
• Kozicz, Gerald. 2002. “The Wanla Temple.” In Buddhist Art and Tibetan Patronage Ninth to Fourteenth Centuries, edited by Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter, and Eva Allinger, 127–36. Leiden: Brill.
  
• Luczanits, Christian. 2002. “The Wanla Bkra shis gsum brtsegs.” In Buddhist Art and Tibetan Patronage Ninth to Fourteenth Centuries, edited by Deborah E. Klimburg-Salter, and Eva Allinger, 115–25. Leiden: Brill.