The 'White Temple' at Tsaparang, in Western Tibet preserves some of the most important pre-sixteenth century works of art of Tibet. The temple is dated on literary grounds to around 1540, but its...Show moreThe 'White Temple' at Tsaparang, in Western Tibet preserves some of the most important pre-sixteenth century works of art of Tibet. The temple is dated on literary grounds to around 1540, but its works of art seem to indicate - on iconographic and stylistic grounds - that it was built before 1440. The temple used to be one of the main shrines in a monastery still counting circa sixty monks towards the end of the 17th century, but abandoned some time later when Western Tibet depopulated. Tsaparang was rediscovered and first described by the Italian Tibetologist Giuseppe Tucci in the 1930’s. My thesis shows that Tucci mixed the temples up. Facts derived from authoritative Tibetan literary sources have therefor been attributed to the wrong monuments. Contemporary authors focusing on the region have not noticed this, resulting in a growing amount of literature based on an unclarified chronology of the temples at Tsaparang.Show less
