The Kargah Buddha, occupies a conspicuous position,
more than 30 feet above the ground, on a precipitous rock-face. The figure is
about nine feet in height, carved in low relief within a shallow niche of
trefoil shape. Buddha is represented standing with the right hand and forearm
raised across the breast, in the gesture which, in Buddhist convention, is
known as the abhayamudra (the pose of assuring safety), while the left hand
hangs down grasping the edge of the rope. Broad pleats or bands appearing
around the neck, and also over the forearm, mark the folds which result from
the classical draping of the robe, as invariably exhibited by Buddha statues in
this posture both in Gandhara and Khotan sculpture.
The famous Buddhist stupas in three numbers are
located at the south western edge of the small village of Naupura 10 km west of
Gilgit and are approached by a metal road.
Famous Gilgit manuscript was recorded
from the ruins of these stupas. Naupur,
formerly called Amsar, where there was a chain of four stupas. In 1931
according to report to HACKIN (printed by Levi 1932) and A.STEIN, in the
largest building (stupa C), wooden beams became visible due to the erosion,
which had in the course of many centuries worn out the previous outer coating
of a “fairly hard plaster”.
The stupa is described as an edifice rounded in
form, three storey high. The base however was quadrangular (Jettmmar, 1958).
Treasure seekers have searches again in the meantime and have carried away the
rubble down to the natural soil. The building apparently had some similarity to
the stupa at Thol (Stein 1932).
The
Tibetan wave reached Gilgit and Punyal. Apparently the later rulers of the
Darada-Bolor state were Buddhist again, even though the charisma derived from
thekings’ identification with the solar deity was preserved. The people
maintaining this tradition were considered with Bonpos (e.g. Hoffmann, 1969).
To this last Buddhist period we must attribute the famous relief in the rock
face near the Kargah Valley and monolith with several reliefs found at Bubur and
finally the construction of a hollow stupa for the safeguarding of the Gilgit
Manuscripts, which were already an incomprehensible, magical heritage of the
past.
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