Tibetan Pilgrimage--Architecture of the Socred Land.

Watercolour of the Maitreya temple, part of the fourteenth-century royal citadel of Tingmogang in Ladakh, from Tibetan Pilgrimage--Architecture of the Socred Land, by Michel Peissel, London: Abrams, 2005, [pounds sterling]19.95. Peissel, a French anthropologist who speaks Tibetan, is an intrepid explorer, scouring the inhospitable mountainous terrain of the Himalayan plateau on foot and on horseback to reach the fortresses, chapels, monasteries and temples he has meticulously recorded for this book. It is a lifetime's work--45 years, 29 expeditions--but Peissel's beautiful watercolours and unsentimental commentary convey a lively, authentic sense of Tibetan culture that still endures.

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