ABSTRACT
This chapter suggests that the entrance stupa as a genre of architecture was deployed as a rhetorical device among Buddhists of the western Himalaya. A striking feature of the entrance stupa's provision of pictures within its dark heart is that in many ways it was able to continue to honour this earlier tradition of interior invisibility. In both solid and niche forms, the stupa was transmitted to Tibet, where the structural form has thrived for 1300 years, overcoming obstacles as overwhelming as the brutal attempt by the People's Republic of China to eliminate Buddhism from Tibet. The mural paintings of the Karsha entrance stupa are closely associated with central Tibetan painting, and may date to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. The entrance stupa at Karsha documents an early and relatively unique intrusion of central Tibetan painting styles in a period of Ngari history dominated by the Kha che lugs.
