Tamgaly Tas (Buddha rock carving)

Қонаев, Kazakhstan

Petroglyphs of Tamgaly Tas – "open-air temple" with rock paintings of Tibetan iconography and inscriptions dated to the second half of the 17th century. Cave paintings were created by the Oirat and Tibetan masters with the active participation of Galdan-Huntaydzhi (Galdan Boshugtu Khan). In 1677, Ga

ldan created the first "iconostasis" of the figure of Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara-Shadakshari in the image of a deity with four hands, sitting in a diamond pose on a Lotus throne. In the next 5 years, he and his assistants supplemented the images and Tibetan mantras of the Tamgaly-Tas rock. The Dzungarian ruler Galdan-Boshohtu Khan was a fanatically religious man with a deep knowledge of Buddhist symbolism, Tibetan painting and its techniques, and Tibetan iconographic canons. This is confirmed by the image of Avalokiteshvara-Shadakshari in the form of a one-faced deity with four hands, who was the patron of the lords of Tibet. After the expulsion of the Dzungarian khanate from the Kazakh lands, the former temple received a new name from the Kazakhs – Tamga or Tamgaly-Tas (Tamgaly-Tash). In 1771, the last inscription was created on the rocks of Tamgaly TAS-a thanksgiving praise left by the...

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