Nako : Research and Conservation in the Western Himalayas

Abstract

The settlement of Nako, at 3,700 m altitude in Upper Kinnaur, North India, and close to the Tibetan border was once part of the Western Tibetan Purang-Guge Kingdom. Today it is a remarkable well preserved mountainous village with living Buddhist cultural heritage. Apart from its breath-taking cultural landscape setting embedded in the Himalayan mountains, it is important for its temple complex dating from the 12th century which is considered as an extraordinary testimony of early Tibetan Buddhism, not anymore preserved in Tibet today. In the footsteps of the famous Tibetologist Giuseppe Tucci, who explored the region in 1933, a group of scholars from various Austrian universities started a transdisciplinary long-term research project at Nako in the 1980s which led to the preservation and model-like conservation of its temples and artworks.