130 lojda, klimburg-salter and strinu
programme in their original state. The sole example from Phase I that com-
pletely survived is the old entry hall, where the founder of the temple and his
two sons are depicted alongside the Tabo saṅgha (monks, nuns, and laymen).
Other remaining parts of the foundation phase are most probably the sculp-
tures of the cella and some fragmentary murals in the ambulatory that have
been revealed in recent years. They provide evidence that the whole temple
was once decorated in this style.
The entry hall is dedicated to assemblies of protective deities, most of
them arranged in simple rows. Not all of them can be identified and some are
destroyed, but they seem to derive from both the pan-Indian context as well
as from local traditions. For example, the protectress of Tabo, depicted on the
West wall, is identified with her non-Tibetan name Winyu min (Tib. Wi nyu
myin). This name is otherwise completely unknown. Examining the paintings
of the South and North wall, we find on the upper part of the South wall depic-
tions of deities that are organised in three rows consisting originally of eight
figures per row. From top to bottom are depicted deities that can be classified
as the Eight Great Gods, the Eight Great nāgas and the Eight Planets (for a pre-
liminary identification of the individual deities see fig. 4.1). On the North wall
are accompanying paintings of the twenty-eight constellations (oddly in male
form) and the four lokapālas, the guardians of the four cardinal directions.
The upper part of the West wall completes this programme with depictions
of eleven deities, including the dikpālas, the guardians of the world. Similar
assemblies of pan-Indian deities can be found in texts that were popular dur-
ing the ninth and tenth centuries mainly in Dunhuang.21 These deities also
played an important role in earlier texts from Khotan.
21 This assembly of deities can be found in Buddhist literary sources, such as the
Sarvadurgatipariśodhanatantra (SDP), and was transmitted through Buddhist tradition.
It consists of different classes of deities: the Great Hindu Gods, nāgas, dikpālas, planets,
and the nakṣatras (28 constellations). They are also found in the Tabo entry hall.
The SDP played an important role in the spread of Buddhism in Tibet after the eighth
century when it was translated into Tibetan. It contains descriptions of maṇḍalas, each
composed of a class of the aforementioned deities. Kapstein (Kapstein, “Between Na
Rak and a Hard Place,” 172) translated the Tibetan Dunhuang manuscript IOL Tib J 318
that contains a description of an arrangement of deities on a lotus maṇḍala with 108
petals. Kapstein regards it as a variant of the SDP. Both contain pan-Indian deities that are
bound by oath to protect the Buddhist faith. The individual assemblies however consist of
various deities that are not the same in both maṇḍalas. Also, they differ from the deities
painted on the Tabo entry hall walls. “While the general morphology of the maṇḍala may
therefore have been inspired by traditions related to the SDP, its actual population seems
to have been filled in part from other sources, including perhaps generic inventories of