Palden Drepung Chörten

The Palden Drepung Chörten (དཔལ་ལྡན་འབྲས་སྤུང་མཆོད་རྟེན་) stands near the western end of the Alchi Choskhor, just to the side of where the complex is entered today. The monument and its foundation inscription were first studied in detail by Roger Goepper, who called it the Great Stūpa. The inscription establishes that the chörten was built by Tsültrim Ö (ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་འོད་) immediately after the Sumtsek and can be dated to around 1220.

Conceptually the chörten is a two-storeyed building: a broad lower cuboid base, external dimensions 7.12 to 7.39 metres on the sides and 3.50 metres high, supports a smaller upper cuboid of 4.10 metres side length and 1.50 metres height topped by a bell-shaped crown; four corner turrets replicate this shape, giving the building what Goepper described as an abridged pañcāyatana layout. The total height is 9 metres. The hollow interior contains an inner chörten set on a wooden beam construction above the corridor, with a chapel-like space of 3.12 metres side length and a lantern ceiling rising to 5.77 metres surrounding it.

The Palden Drepung Chörten is the largest and probably earliest of a distinctive type of double-chörten monument unique to the Alchi group and the thirteenth century.

Outer Chörten

The walls of the chapel-like space above the corridor are covered with approximately one thousand small images of the blue Buddha Akṣobhya, identifiable by his earth-touching gesture (bhūmisparśamudrā), covering the western wall and continuing on the north and south sides. The remaining wall surfaces bear the primary Bodhisattvas of the five Buddha families in diagonal columns: white Samantabhadra with a wheel, blue Vajrasattva with a vajra, yellow Vajraratna with a jewel, red Vajradharma with a lotus, and green Vajrakarma with a crossed vajra. This programme gives the outer chörten an orientation from west to east.

The lantern ceiling of eight layers is entirely painted. Its lower three levels bear the five-family Bodhisattvas on the vertical faces and magnificent textile designs and pairs of four-armed flying deities on the horizontal surfaces. From the fourth level upward the ceiling constitutes a fifty-three-deity Vajradhātu mandala centred on Mahāvairocana, with the four surrounding Buddhas, four Mahābodhisattvas each, eight offering goddesses interspersed with the eight auspicious symbols and the seven treasures, and sixteen Bodhisattvas flanking T-shaped mandala gates.

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Inner Chörten

The inner chörten, covered with whitewash, stands approximately 260 centimetres high with a base width of 155 centimetres. Its complex form references the descent from the gods type (lhabap chörten, ལྷ་བབས་མཆོད་རྟེན་), with two multi-cornered base levels each having flights of stairs on the cardinal faces. The walls of the throne have pairs of the vehicle animals of the four surrounding Buddhas painted on them. The pair of elephants on the east side confirms its dedication to Buddha Vairocana, as in the outer chörten. A lantern ceiling with a central lotus tops the interior space.

Each of the four inner walls is devoted to a single teacher. On the east wall the dark-skinned Indian mahāsiddha Padampa Sanggye (ཕ་དམ་པ་སངས་རྒྱས་; d. 1117) crouches with his legs in a yogin’s band, wearing a white fur cape and holding a twig and a flute. Opposite him on the west wall, a white-skinned teacher in central Tibetan monastic robes performs the teaching gesture (dharmacakrapravartanamudrā). Both the inscription and the parallel representation in the Tashi Gomang Chörten identify him as Drigungpa. The two monks on the side walls face towards him: the middle-aged monk to the south, holding prayer beads and equipped with vajra, bell and mandala altar, may well be Tsültrim Ö. The aged white-haired monk to the north, carrying a begging bowl and staff, may be Kalden Shérap (སྐལ་ལྡན་ཤེས་རབ་), founder of the Main Temple.

The three beams supporting the inner chörten bear inscriptions; the most important covers the eastern beam (14 cm high, 210 cm wide, eight lines of headed script) and continues on the western beam. This text, entitled Pearl Garland Composition (ཚིག་སྦྱོར་མུ་ཏིག་གི་འཕྲེང་བ་), was composed by Tsültrim Ö and records his meritorious works up to and including the founding of the chörten. The Tibetan text of this inscription is on the accompanying page.