Beiträge zur politischen Geschichte von Spiti zwischen 1629 und 1842 und zur Geschichte der Sa-skya-pa-Schule im äußersten Westen des tibetischen Hochlandes: Rechtsdokumente aus dem Kloster Gog-mig (~ sTeng-rgyud) in Spiti. 2. Teil

My present modest contribution to the publication of the legal documents is a preliminary exploration of the early history of Go mig (sTeng rgyud), sketching the position of the monastery’s foundation within the larger context of the Sa skya school’s activities in the farwestern regions of the Tibetan plateau during the fifteenth century. However, the major obstacle I faced was the paucity of textual sources on the monastery’s foundation and further development. The documents housed at Go mig, as their analysis by Dieter Schuh has shown, date no earlier than the seventeenth century, the earliest of which is a copy of a royal deed of the Ladakhi king Seng ge rnam rgyal executed in 1629.7 Moreover, the documents hardly refer to the foundation and subsequent development of the monastery, nor do any other historiographical sources known to me provide such details. In the following pages my aim is thus to introduce what I was able to learn about the monastery on the basis of the few existing textual references supplemented by local oral lore, as well as epigraphic and art historical evidence.