origins of the kashmiri style 151
the Dras river upsteam of its prayag (auspicious confluence) with the Wakha
and Suru rivers, gorged as the latter is at times with the melted glaciers of the
7000+ m Nun and Kun peaks. Dras is the first little town in a more or less flat
valley East of the Zoji pass (earlier, Bul tul) connecting Kashmir, Zangskar,
and Ladakh, and on the route to Baltistan and Skardu. The march from here is
somewhat shorter to Padum in Zangskar than it is to Leh or Shey, the old capi-
tals of the Ladakh Kingdom. There is a trekking path between Dras and Sanko,
which reduces the distance to or from Zangskar and the Srinagar Valley by
several days. The Suru Valley was important for Zangskar for trade and travel
purposes,8 and hosts at least two Kashmiri stone sculptures, one of which is
considered here.
Almost universally considered an inhospitable, extreme and frighteningly
cold place, Dras is still of great strategic importance. Because it is on the main
route between Srinagar and Leh, the Kashmiri sculptures at Dras have fre-
quently been noticed by travellers. It is possible to partially reconstruct several
of the extant fragments based on the early observations of missionaries, gov-
ernment agents, mountaineers, and contemporary scholars, though because
of space considerations, not in this venue. This is a pity, since these were,
and still are to a certain extent, remarkable sculptures, in granite mica slate.
Instead, I focus solely on the largest relatively complete sculpture and on an
inscription on one of the other sculptures in the group. It is Sanskrit written in
the Śāradā script in use in Kashmir, and according to the Moravian Christian
missionary scholar A. H. Francke, “the inscription records the erection of two
images, one of Maitreya, and another of [Avalokiteśvara], evidently the
two larger sculptures”.9
The four-armed Maitreya Bodhisattva sculpture is more intact than any other
at the site, and although still very damaged, remains impressive (figs. 5.1–5.3).
Depending on where exactly one measures it, the height is roughly 177.8 cm, its
width 86, and it is 40.4 cm deep. In a photograph taken in the early 1980s, the
crown was still visibly a three-crest crown overlapping the top of the rounded
niche, and parts of a fifteen-line inscription to the right of Maitreya’s head and
the niche were perceptible.10 That is also the case in Cunningham’s coloured
8 A more direct route from Panikkar in the Suru Valley to Pahalgam in the Srinagar Valley
over the Lonvilad pass was also available though it has for the most part fallen into disuse
today.
9 Francke, A. H., Antiquities of Indian Tibet, Vol. 1: Personal Narrative, ed. J. Ph. Vogel
(Calcutta: Archaeological Survey of India, Superintendent Government Printing, 1914
[1992]), 106.
10 Peter van Ham published an excellent photograph taken by Michael Henss in the early
1980s; van Ham, Peter with contributions by Linrothe, Rob; Kozicz, Gerald; and Heller,