Tentative
Architectural and Functional Comparison
After
returning from Bhutan in July 2000, we came to know about platform-like
stone structures featuring puzzling similarities with the central
platform of B3 monument at Batpalathang. The structures are located in
northern Tibet, in a region named Byang-thang. Among 150 archaeological
structures mapped and described, American scholar and explorer John
Bellezza documented five structures he named “graves with
superstructures built on summits” and about twelve buried structures
he called “cist-type graves, both square and round in form”. He
published examples of them in a World Wide Web site (Bellezza 1999).
The
“graves with superstructures built on summits” can be described as
simple stone platform of square shape, mostly built on mountain and
ridge tops. Their side dimensions are averaging 2-3 meters and they are
built entirely above ground (Fig. 56). Each platform
features a single square chamber (maximally 1 x 1 meter) that was sealed
with large flat stone slabs. In the structures with lacking chamber
covering, the chambers seem to be lacking any sedimentary deposit. The
open chambers contain clearly distinguishable human remains (Fig. 57). The observer
states that there is a single body in each individual monument and that
the bodies were dismembered.
Fig.
56
Fig.
57
The
“cist-type graves” are said to be found throughout northern Tibet
and are sometimes found clustered. On the actual surface, they appear as
oval or square shapes, measuring about 3-4 meters across, and made of
roughly arranged stones. Some graves were found opened, revealing their
chamber. At this point, we must state that the interior of those Tibetan
chambers is built exactly the way our platform chamber is, with vertical
stones at the base, supporting horizontally layered stones (Fig. 58).
Fig.
58
The
similarity with monument B3 is not solely reduced to the chamber
morphology, but also to the fact that the Tibetan graves are not built
above ground level. They were built a way that the side of the platform
is invisible from the surface. Unfortunately, no peripheral wall was
observed in Tibet. The peculiar trapezoidal shape of B3 seems also to be
specific to the Bhutanese monument.
Bellezza’s
informants attribute both the above ground structures (mon.pa.nag.po) and the buried graves (mon.khang) to Mon-pa (or Bon-po)
religious belief which was widespread before the advent of Buddhism in
the 7th century A.D. Bellezza himself tends to assign these
monumental graves even more precisely to the little known Zhang Zhung
kingdom. This political unit existed independently, eventually in the
last five centuries before the introduction of Buddhism in Tibet. The
dynastic succession of 32 kings are said to have ruled over a very large
territory encompassing most of Western Tibet. Among the other sites
eventually attributed to Zhang Zhung period, Bellezza documented
numerous other architectural remains, including fort ruins, terraces and
walls, megalithic pillars and stelae, rock carvings and paintings, religious structures in caves,
sedentary village ruins, etc. With his large scale surveying
investigations, Bellezza made an important contribution to the
pre-Buddhist studies.
As
we noticed, the Tibetan graves indeed have similarities with monument B3
at Batpalathang, but their age is estimated to be fairly older than our
object, making even indirect linkage difficult. We would nevertheless
like to underline here that a relation cannot be fully excluded
concerning the architectural tradition, building type, and landscape
integration of both Tibetan and Bhutanese monuments. To explain this, we
are supported by the fact that Bön
belief and traditions partly survived the spread of Buddhism in Bhutan,
some Bön elements being integrated into the new developing cults. This
seems especially true in the valleys of Central Bhutan. Moreover, the Bön
religion went through several revivals in Tibet (at least one starting
in 1017 A.D.). Between the 11th and the 14th
centuries A.D., the Bon-po had at least four important study centers in
the Tsang province of Tibet. It is estimated that there were 330 Bon-po
monasteries in Tibet by the start of the 20th century. The
strong rooting of Bon-po in many Tibetan regions, and the fact that the
same beliefs were once widespread in Central Bhutan, make it possible
that at some times in the history of the Choskhor valley, links with the
Bon-po communities of Tibet were tied. To push the hypothesis a concrete
step further, the possibility of important Bon-po leaders staying in the
central valleys of Bhutan cannot at all be excluded, even midst of the
16th century, time at which monument B3 was built at
Batpalathang. The absence of preserved human remains in the chamber of
monument B3 does neither exclude that the monument is built following a
tradition which originated in Bon-po context; a cremation could have
taken place instead to dispose of the body, thus joining Bon-po and
Buddhist beliefs and traditions into a single cross-cultural ceremony.
