grappling with and to which there are no ready or easy answers on the horizon. One of the major implications of my archaeological findings is that Upper Tibet was in…
The big event in Chengdu, China This month’s Flight of the Khyung buzzes in and out of Tibet to provide readers with news from a recent archaeological conference in…
Quentin Devers From these photographs of all-stone corbelled chortens in Ruthok, Ladakh and Zanskar it can be readily seen that there are three major corbelled typologies represented: 1) the use…
the basic information provided in the Tibet Museum displays of artifacts with my own descriptions. The trilingual museum labels (in Tibetan, Chinese and English) are usually restricted to location, type…
than the other. In the post-modern world, the question of the nature of reality can be approached from a number of angles in historiography, as it can from various scientific…
More adventures unfold in Tibet as the Flight of the Khyung returns you to Asia’s holiest peak, Mount Kailas. This month’s newsletter looks at vital issues affecting the sacred…
the vicinity of Churo, the ancient cave sanctuary featured in last month’s newsletter, there is a similar installation called Darlung Phukpa (Dar-lung phug-pa, 4670 m). This residential complex consists of…
the literature, there is archaeology. As regular readers of this newsletter and my print publications will know, conflict between archaic (and hybridized) forms of religion and Buddhism in the early…
Welcome to Flight of the Khyung, your journey to the mysteries of ancient Tibet! This month’s newsletter boasts an article about recent archaeological discoveries in Ladakh, written by Dr….
umbrellas! Ecolands: Ecological Zones of Consensus In the current state of world affairs, countries are divided into sovereign states, each with its own particular form of government. There are also…
birth of the Zhang Zhung’s greatest god, Gekhoe (Ge-khod). The newsletter examines the mythic genesis of Gekhoe and the archaeological monuments situated at his birthplace. Only in 2009 did I…
Tsho. Ultimately, the world will serve as a judge of their success. Of a different form: Tabernacles of the ancients In the last few years this newsletter has featured a…
follows is the first of a three-part article. The other two parts of this work will appear in the October and November newsletters. As explained in the July newsletter, no…
disposition of their karma (the law of cause and effect). To encourage a deeply tormented spirit to remain in the worldly sphere creates much distress for it on both subtle…
published on the worldwide web knows, we are especially susceptible to junk mail. Zhang Zhung nearly ready for publication My four month sojourn in Tibet came to an end recently….
Welcome aboard as Flight of the Khyung takes you to new heights in winter-solstice Tibet! This month the reader is treated to the special beauty of a rare assortment…
and Iron Age Qinghai appears to have been an integral part of the north Inner Asian cultural world, but with an admixture of Bodic cultural features (the strength of which…
rival entity further downstream had privileged links with the Indian world and that entity was expanding towards Nyarma, we could imagine that a local ruler there may have sought the…
inside the broader Eurasian cultural and technological world of prehistory. Regular readers of this newsletter and of my print publications will know that there are a number of rock art…
most visionary manifestation. Dhamma showcases India’s extraordinary cultural wealth to the world. It celebrates the nation’s emergence into the 21st century with its values and traditions intact and thriving. This…
radiological and dendrochronological. This current newsletter is merely another introductory report on the Gurgyam tomb, which is written to give some direction and context to future studies. As noted in…
the long run). Perhaps the most momentous personal news is that I have completed by comprehensive survey of pre-Buddhist sites in Upper Tibet, an undertaking that has consumed 12 years…
Springs that have never dried up before have run dry. Rivers in the Kangra valley are a mere trickle. Temperatures are unseasonably high. For a quarter of a century the…
to anyone who reads Tibetan today. These letters were laid down in the same pigment and exhibit the same level of degradation; clearly, the writer was familiar with different styles…
reading The Oriental Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, by Ted Riccardi, a professor emeritus at Columbia University. First published with Random House in 2003, this very charming book has just been…
Tibetan since August 2006. I began Flight of the Khyung a decade ago with generally short newsletters more in the style of a blog. In the early issues I informed…
Welcome to another Flight of the Khyung as we journey to uncover the secrets of ancient Tibet! Many of the places and things highlighted in these newsletters have been…
either stolen or discarded by the Kazakhs. Pawo Akar found the phyi-gling or ritual mirror he uses in the ruins of a Buddhist monastery, while he discovered his chu-gling, another…
even if only in the confines of our own backyard. Divine soundings from the great female lakes For a fourth month running, Flight of the Khyung highlights a spirit-medium from…
