SAMDE PHUG

Herbert Daniel Gebauer - 06/01/2018

HEDIN (1910, 2nd German edition, vol. 2, page 5ff + illustration 197) notes a troglodyte cave near N30°10’: E087°10’, north-west of Shigatse [MOSER, pers. corr. 1998, after HUMMEL 1957, page 945, note 16]. Sven Hedin, while travelling from Shigatse to the pass Chang La Pod La (Changla Podla), heard in April 1907 of a hermit who had lived for three years in a cave in the valley of the monastery of Linga. Hedin rode up to the small convent of Samde-puk (Samde Phug) on 16 April 1907, noted schist on the approach, visited two small temples with altars of mud at Samde-pu-pe, and close by, at the foot of the mountain, the hermitage ('dupkang' = sgrub khang). HEDIN (1909-1912a, 1909-1912b, 1991, II: 1-12) gives a heart-rendering chapter evoking the dreary dullness of a Tibetan hermitage and describes the structural retreat: It is built over a spring which bubbles up in the centre of the single room, a square apartment with each side five paces long. The walls are very thick, and are in oe solid mass, unbroken by windows. The doorway is very low, and the wooden door is shut and locked…Beside the entrance is a tiny tunnel [for food] … A small chimney rises from the flat roof… and by means of these two vents the air is renewed in the cell.