In Mustang, practice is never abstract.

It is painted into gold ink, carved into stone, written onto prayer flags, and spun into prayer wheels. Faith in this desert has settled into things one can touch. They share a common name — the ritual object.

A ritual object is no ornament. Inside a prayer wheel is a scripture; on a prayer flag is a mantra; on a mani stone is a sacred syllable. Each time the wind passes a prayer flag, it is as if the sutra were recited once; each turn of the wheel by hand equals a volume of scripture chanted. In this harsh, cold land where human strength avails little against the elements, people let the wind, the hand, and the stone recite the Buddha's name on their behalf.

The most famous ritual object of Mustang is, in fact, a set of books.

In the fifteenth century, Ngorchen Kunga Zangpo, the founding master of the Ngor branch of Sakya, entered Lo three times and oversaw the transcription of the Kanjur in Lo Manthang — the entire Buddhist canon written in gold ink. The gold liquid was written upon parchment; against the deep ground of the page, each character seems cast from molten gold. This set of scriptures is material proof of the alliance between the Kingdom of Lo and the Sakya lineage, and the most precious heirloom of Mustang.

For the centuries that followed, through dynastic change and border turmoil alike, this gold-ink Kanjur was tended with care in the depths of the monastery. It is not lightly shown — once a ritual object is enshrined, it becomes a covenant made with the divine.

The prayer wheel is the most everyday ritual object of the plateau, and Mustang is no exception.

Its cylinder is of copper or wood, with scripture scrolls hidden within and sacred syllables carved without, often crowned with a seed syllable. To turn it once by hand is equal to reciting the scripture it holds. The great wheels stand before the temple — an arm's width thick and a man's height tall — for the faithful to turn one by one as they circumambulate; the small ones are held in the palm, carried at all times, and turned in idle moments.

Rows of prayer wheels stand beside the gates of both Lo Gekar and Lo Manthang. A pilgrim must turn the wheels before entering — from left to right, clockwise — and their humming rises and falls like the whole monastery chanting softly. Turn the wheel a day, and the scripture is chanted a day; so long as the wheel does not rest, the vow does not rest.

Beyond the city walls, the ritual objects spread from the halls out across the whole earth.

Mani walls. Beside the villages of Mustang, mani walls tens or even hundreds of meters long are a common sight. Upon each stone is carved the Six-syllable Mantra, "Om Mani Padme Hum." The stone-carver, chisel stroke by stroke, leaves his prayer for later generations; the passerby, walking clockwise, touches the stone with his hand, and so forms a connection with the syllables upon the wall. The mani wall beside Ghami village — said to have been transformed from the "demon's intestines" — is the most celebrated stretch of all.

White chörtens. Upon the stupa, too, are often carved sacred syllables and seed letters. A single stupa is a standing scripture. The cluster of white chörtens on the ridge outside Lo Manthang, seen from afar, resembles a string of prayer beads, counting this city's merit.

If one were to name the most spectacular "ritual object" of Mustang, it must be the prayer flags.

The five-colored flags: blue is the sky, white the clouds, red the flame, green the rivers, yellow the earth. Upon them are printed scriptures and the wind horse (Lungta), tied at mountain passes, monasteries, and rooftops. When the wind rises and the flags snap and flutter, people believe that each flutter recites a scripture on behalf of whoever hung them. Thus the flags fear no age — the older, the better, for an old flag is one that has already finished reciting its vows for its keeper; when a new flag is hung the next year, the prayer simply continues.

At Lo Gekar, at Lo Manthang, at every mountain pass, the prayer flags are Mustang's most striking scenery. They are not enshrined within halls but hung between heaven and earth, so that the wind of this land turns the scriptures for all beings, day and night, without cease.

Among ritual objects, the most "portable" is the thangka.

A thangka is a temple rolled up. At its center is the meditational deity; around it, mandalas, protectors, and the lineage masters. The monastic and lay faithful unroll it for veneration and roll it up again for travel. The mural paintings of Mustang's monasteries are, in essence, giant thangkas painted upon walls — the gold-ground mandalas of Jampa Lhakhang and the lapis murals of Thubchen Gompa are both of this principle.

And the making of a thangka is itself a practice. The canvas is stretched of cotton or linen upon a wooden frame, coated with a ground of animal glue and chalk, and polished repeatedly until smooth as paper before the brush may begin. Pigments are mostly mineral — cinnabar, azurite, malachite, realgar — ground to powder, mixed with glue, and layered on in washes. The use of gold shows the artist's skill most: the deity's crown, robe folds, and halo are brightened with gold leaf or gold ink, so the image holds a faint light even in darkness. The "opening of the face" is the final step: the artist must lay down the most crucial few strokes upon the deity's countenance, sketching out the compassionate eyes and brows — many ateliers still keep the prayer rite before the face is opened, for they hold that a Buddha's visage must not be painted without reverence.

It is for this reason that small privately venerated thangkas become the "portable shrine" of many Tibetan households. Away from home, one unrolls and hangs it, and there is one's homecoming. It is at once a ritual object, an art, and a miniature of an entire sacred site that can be carried at one's side.

If one asks which ritual object is closest to the person, it must be the prayer beads.

A string of 108 beads, of sandalwood, bodhi seed, conch shell, or agate, is something the Tibetan never parts with. The 108 correspond to the 108 afflictions to be severed; one full turning of the beads completes one recitation of the heart mantra. The farmer turns them while herding, the woman while spinning wool, the elder while basking in the sun — the beads never leave the hand, the mantra never leaves the lips, and practice is completed in these fine, repeating rounds.

The prayer beads of Mustang often carry yet another layer of meaning. This land is arid and barren, its material life extremely simple; a string of beads, a single mani stone, is the most precious heirloom of most households. They are worth nothing, yet held with the utmost gravity; given to one setting out on a journey, they are a blessing deeper than gold or silver.

If one presses to ask what all these ritual objects are reciting, the answer is but one — the Six-syllable Mantra.

It is what the prayer wheel turns, what the mani stone carves, what the prayer flag prints, and what the lips still intone. Om Mani Padme Hum — the six syllables hold compassion and wisdom; it is the heart mantra of Avalokiteshvara and the most widely circulated mantra of Tibetan Buddhism. In Mustang, young and old, rich and poor, all hold a string of beads and silently recite this mantra — for all the myriad ritual objects, in the end, it is but a single heart.

The people of Mustang often say that the best offering is not gold or silver, but the heart.

A single butter lamp may be filled with a copper coin; a string of prayer beads may be polished bright over half a lifetime. Upon this land of thin substance, people give their very best — time, recitation, stone-carving, wheel-turning — to their faith. A ritual object is precious because of the devotee's piety, not because of its material.

Thus the ritual objects of Mustang never flaunt themselves. They are plain, old, worn smooth by ten thousand hands. And it is precisely this plainness and age that make each object like a seal patinated by the years — pressed upon the heart, it is a blessing.

▶Watch furtherNEPAL: The Last Forbidden Kingdom on Earth | 8K Travel DocumentaryTrue Planet Explorer · Watch on YouTube

• Images: Google Art Project (Public domain); Gerd Eichmann (CC BY-SA 4.0, three photographs)
• Video: NEPAL: The Last Forbidden Kingdom on Earth | 8K Travel Documentary · True Planet Explorer / YouTube

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