44 The Depiction of Hindu and Pan-Indian Deities in the Lo tsa ba !Ha khang at Nako Christian Luczanits , Wien In the paintings found in the western Himalayan Buddhist temple s of the late lQ'h to the early 13•h century a large number of Hindu and pan-Indian deities 1 are rep- resented in secondary positions. In their function as protective deities they may be portrayed near an entrance or as part of an extensive pantheon in the outermost circle of certain Yoga-Tantra maru;/alas, particularly the Vajradhiitumahiima,:uj.ala, the root marzq,ala of the Yoga-Tantra class, and the Dharmadhiituviigis vara - maiijusrimanq,ala. This contribution concentrates on the depiction of 156 deities flanking a full- wall representation of the Dharmadhiituviigisvaramaiijusrimarzq,ala in the Nako Lo tsa ba !Ha khang in upper Kinnaur , offering a first survey of their iconography and organization. Although in previou s publication s the Nako depictions have been compared to a number of other representation s of the same manq,ala in the region, I will cite only a few comp arisons. The Nako Lo tsa ba /Ha khang Nako is a small village with a popul ation of ap- proximately 420 people in upper Kinnaur, Himachal Pradesh , India . It is located on the slope far above the Spiti river at an altitude of ea. 3600 m (Sanan and Swadi 1998:162). Once an important centre of Bud- dhism , today most of the temples are nearly com- pletely neglected. Of at least seven temples of differ - ent periods spread all over the village, the so-called Lo tsa ba /Ha khan g (referring to the great Tibet an tran slator , Rin chen bzang po) is the largest and old- est monument pre served in the village. It is part of a complex of four temples to the We st of the village. 2 The Lo tsa ba !Ha khang or gTsug lag khan g3 is a ea. 7.9 m long and 8.35 m wide room with an apse at the back which is ea. 2.70 m deep and 4.55 m wide . The room is extremely high (5.50 to 5.70 m), but the original roof is not pre served. In the apse five clay sculptures represent the core deities of a Vajradhiitumahiimarzq,ala , the secondary de- ities of which have been painted around them. 4 The South wall of the main hall carries the largely well- preserved Dharmadhiituviigi sv aramaiijusrimarzq,ala. The marzq,ala on the North wall, a variant of the main marzq,ala of the Sarvadurgatiparisodhanatantra cen- tred on Vairocana , has been repainted in the centre , and only some outer parts are fairly well pre served. The paintings in the two oldest chapels in Nako , particularly in the Lo tsa ba !Ha khang , are clearly stylistically related to those in the latest style of the renovation phase in the Tabo Main Temple (gTsug lag khang) attributable to the middle of the 11 'h cen- tury. The Nako paintings are therefore usually con- sidered to be just slightly later (Klimburg -Salter 1997:207-227). The style of the clay sculptures , however, the representation of Prajii.aparamita as a main image to the side of the apse , the usage of gold and silver paint , and the depiction of fully developed manq,alas with gates, fire-circle , etc. , instead of the horizontally oriented representation of the core marzq,ala assem- bly alone (used at Tabo) , are evidenc e of a marked cultural change . In these latter element s as well as in its layout , the templ e is rather comparable to the 1 The term pan-In dian deities is used for deities which occur in most of the Indian religions, such as e.g., niigas, yakJas and garuda s. The earliest reports on the Nako temples are by Francke (1914}, reprinted in 1992:32-34, pls 7b, 8; Tucci and Ghersi (1934:140-150, figs 111-113); and Tucci (1988:141-173, pls 75-76, 78-81, 83-91), the latter being the most compr ehensive and det ailed discussion of the Nako temples. More rece nt publications dea ling with Nako are among others Thakur (1996) and van Ham and Stirn (1997:140-149). 3 The appellation of the Nako temples is problematic, as different names have been used in earlier publications. The largest temple is the most important and the most venerated today. It has been cal- led the 'lHa-khang-chen-po' (actually written 'lha-khang-ched-po' by Francke (1992:32) and 'Lo-tsa-ba'i lHa-khang' by Tucci (1988:144). As it is the main temple, it could also be called g Tsug lag khang . The temple opposite was called /Ha-khang gong-ma, 'Upper Tem- ple' (Fra ncke 1992:33) and 'g Tsug -lag-khang' (Tucci 1988:168), the latte r be ing complete ly mislea ding. In 1994 I was told it is called 'Lo tsa ba /Ha khang gong ma', a name which takes its ancientness into acco unt. 4 I have discussed the style of these sculptur es at the South Asian Archaeology 1997 conference in Rome. That paper is not part of the procee dings, but is now included in my book on the ea rly Buddhi st clay sculptur es in the western Him alayas (Luczanits 2004).