Saturday, December 11, 2004

Muli [木里] 1994


Muli 1994, originally uploaded by mutikonka1.

This picture was taken from the same position as the one below. It shows how Muli monastery looked when I paid my first visit there in the spring of 1994. All of the original buildings have been destroyed, and the wall knocked down. The main temple had been rebuilt, as had the head lama's residence that had originally been at the top of the town. Some of the old ruins were still visible at this time. The locals said the monastery town had been knocked down in the 1950s - well before the Cultural Revolution, when the monks resisted communist power. The buidling s were systematically taken apart and used to build a new town across the valley, now called Wachang. The name Muli was also taken and used to describe the county town of Bowa, some 100km further down the Litang valley.

When I visited in 1994, there were about 40 novice monks, mostly local Pumi kids.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

where are the original houses?