YERPA CAVE 1

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

One of the sacred natural caves at Yerpa rock near Sera, north-east of Lhasa. CULTURAL HISTORY - Human use: Troglodyte hermitage retreat. It is renowned for having been used by the Indian Buddhist saint and reformator Atisha, who was born in AD 925. EVANS-WENTZ (1937: 18) notes Atisha's cave is venerated and lies below creepers and roses. BELL (1924 edited 1992: 31): The cave where Atisha lived, sixteen miles [25.7 km] east of Lhasa, is still preserved [?]. High up on the sunny mountainside, surrounded by stunted junipers and bushes of wild currant and wild rose, it seemed a fitting home for a religious reformer in this land of ice and snow.