Tabo is a small village located on the banks of the Spiti river in the Spiti valley in Himachal Pradesh. Flanked on either side by the Himalayas, it houses one of the most important Buddhist monastery in the country. Also called as the Ajanta of the Himalayas, it said to be over 1000 years old. The Tabo Gompa is second most important monastery after the Tholing Gompa in the entire Himalayan region. It has preserved and protected the Buddhist culture and heritage through the passage of the centuries. It was founded by the great teacher and translator Lotsawa Rinchen Tsang Po as an advanced center for learning. The monastery stands on a secluded, barren and flat ground having an area of 6300 sq m. It is guarded by high walls made out of mud bricks. It houses a priceless collection of manuscripts and thangkas (Buddhist scroll paintings), historical, exquisite statues and murals depicting tales from the Mahayana Buddhist Pantheon. The walls of the monastery are covered in fine paintings which are astonishingly well preserved. Nearly 36 almost life-size clay statues perch on the walls of the assembly hall. On the cliff face above the monastery are a series of caves which were used as dwelling units by the monks. Traces of the paintings that once adorned the rock face are visible. Hence the name “Ajanta of the Himalayas”. The complex is a national historic treasure of India and protected as such by the Archaeological Survey of India.

A chorten is a Buddhist shrine, typically a saints shrine or a monument to Buddha. The structure of a chorten consists of a square foundation symbolizing the earth, a dome symbolizing water and thirteen tapering steps of enlightenment symbolizing the element of fire. These steps lead to a stylized parasol, the symbol of wind, which is topped in the ethereal sphere by the well-known ‘twin-symbol’ uniting sun and moon, which is the shimmering crown of the Chorten. The Tabo monastery complex has 23 chortens in total