Village

The village of Kanji is situated in lower Ladakh, its historic core perched on a coarse conglomerate rock cliff. At the foot of the cliff stands the village's most important monument, the Tsuklakkhang (གཙུག་ལག་ཁང་), a small Buddhist temple in active use. A cluster of chörten of considerable antiquity marks the approach, visually linking the temple to the village above; their varying and sometimes unusual forms speak to an early foundation, and they continue to receive fresh whitewash and serve in ritual use today.

Local tradition attributes the Tsuklakkhang to the great Tibetan translator Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055), whose activities are intimately connected with the First Propagation of Buddhism across the western Himalayas. This attribution is, however, not supported by the evidence. The temple is approximately 700 years old and most probably dates from a period when Kanji was part of a local kingdom ruled from Wanla, making it roughly contemporary with the Tashi Sumtsek of Wanla. Its custodianship has long rested with Skyapa House — more recently known as Kagarpa — one of the three principal households of the historic village core.

By the end of the twentieth century the building had suffered significant structural damage that allowed water to penetrate the interior, soiling and in places destroying the paintings. In 1999 the Achi Association chose the Kanji Tsuklakkhang as the inaugural project of its conservation programme; structural consolidation and conservation of the wall paintings were completed by 2007.

Tsuklakkhang

On the back wall three larger-than-life sculptures are seated side by side on a common throne platform. The central figure is a white four-armed Ṣaḍakṣaralokêśvara (sPyan-ras-gzigs Yi-ge-drug-pa), a personification of the six-syllable mantra oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ, with the main arms in the gesture of veneration and a rosary and lotus in the second right and left hands respectively. He is flanked by the blue Medicine Buddha, dressed in monastic robes and holding a fruit and a bowl, and by a dark green Tārā, holding the stalk of a lotus in each hand. The two male deities sit in vajrāsana while the goddess sits in a more relaxed posture with her right leg resting on a small lotus footstool. The front of their common platform is decorated with separately moulded and attached lotuses.

All painted surfaces are articulated by dark yellow borders set against a black background. Top and bottom borders are decorated with geese and a three-coloured valance representing a hanging cloth with streamers. Behind the throne backs of the main sculptures, the back wall depicts large ornamental halo structures, each surmounted by a garuḍa holding two nāgas in his beak and flanked by lotus pillars supporting kinnara figures whose tails curl into decorative volutes. The remaining space above the side sculptures carries the Kagyü lineage, beginning with the Ādibuddha Vajradhara and continuing through Tilopa, Naropa, Marpa, and Milarepa.

The left wall is dominated by two mandalas. The first is dedicated to Vajrasattva at the centre of a four-petalled circle, surrounded by concentric squares populated by the Jinas of the directions, bodhisattvas, offering goddesses, sixteen vajra-bodhisattvas, twelve Pratyekabuddhas, and sixteen Hearers (Śrāvaka) dressed in monastic robes. The second mandala is dedicated to the Buddha of long life, Amitāyus, surrounded by the four Jinas of the directions and the Eight Auspicious Symbols. The spaces between and beside the mandalas are filled with rows of Akṣobhya figures repeated two to a row.

The right wall mirrors this composition with two further mandalas: one dedicated to the teaching Buddha Śākyamuni within an eight-petalled lotus, and a second, more damaged mandala of the Durgatiupariśodhana type with a four-faced meditating Vairocana at its centre. Outside this mandala, possible states of rebirth are depicted in the corners, with the realms of hells, hungry ghosts, animals, and asuras. Along the lower zone of the right wall begins an extensive depiction of the life of the Buddha, starting with the bodhisattva's teaching in Tuṣita heaven.

The entry wall carries two additional mandalas flanking the doorway. The left mandala is largely unrecognisable due to water damage; the right, better-preserved mandala is dedicated to Vajrapāṇi. Above the door, a depiction of Mahākāla and attendant deities has largely been lost to damage, though test cleaning has revealed a raven-headed form of the protector beneath later overpaint. The life of the Buddha cycle continues along the lower zone of this wall. A long donor inscription runs along the base of the right wall and has been published in full by Tropper (2015).

The paintings are executed in the secco technique on dry walls, using local materials including a prime coating of karsi, a decomposed stone material found across Ladakh. Scientific analysis during the conservation campaigns established that the binding medium is protein-based, and that the colour green throughout the paintings is achieved not with a green pigment but through a consistent mixture of orpiment and indigo — a finding paralleled at Wanla and Nako. The three main sculptures show evidence of two major painting phases, differing principally in the treatment of colour modelling.