Tanbaly-Tas: An Open-Air Buddhist Sanctuary in Kazakhstan

Site at a Glance

Rating

★4.7

Popularity

Low

Country

Kazakhstan

Primary era

Early Modern

Eras represented

Medieval, Early Modern

Civilizations

Tibetan

Site type

Religious

Remains

Sanctuary

History

Tanbaly-Tas is an open-air Buddhist sanctuary in Kazakhstan near Iliysk, created by Tibetan and Oirat masters in the second half of the seventeenth century. The complex lies within the historical world of the Dzungar Khanate, an Oirat-led state that existed in Central Asia from 1635 to 1758. It was established in the Habatsagai tract beside the Ili River, with the initiative and active participation of Galdan Boshugtu Khan, the Dzungar ruler associated with the state’s expansion and Buddhist religious culture.

Creation under the Dzungar Khanate

A detailed reconstruction places the first group of images in 1677. Galdan and his assistants then expanded the carved figures and added Tibetan mantras during the following five years. The sanctuary served as a place for Buddhist prayer and meditation, with images of major Buddhist figures accompanied by sacred texts.

After the Dzungar Khanate was expelled from the Kazakh lands, Kazakhs who moved into the Ili Valley gave the former Oirat sanctuary the name Tamgaly-Tas, meaning “stones with signs” or “inscribed stones.” A separate tradition assigns the three Buddha images to the tenth century. In that account, Buddhist missionaries travelling toward the Zhetysu region stopped beside the Ili River, where an earthquake caused part of a large rock to fall and the missionaries carved the figures into it. Another tradition links the images and inscriptions with the Oirats’ use of the clear script created by Zaya Pandita in 1648.

Later inscriptions and study

The latest prayer inscription was carved in 1771 by Volga Kalmyks who had fled to the Ili Valley. Its text gives thanks to the depicted Buddhas and Avalokiteshvara for deliverance from danger and disease, while expressing a wish for lasting peace and prosperity in the land.

Study of the rocks began in the nineteenth century. Chokan Valikhanov drew the area in 1856, Nikolai Pantusov investigated it in 1897, and Alexei Pozdneev published a detailed description of its inscriptions and images in 1899. Later research included field campaigns from 2008 to 2010. Kazakhstan placed the site under state protection in 1981, and it entered the Almaty Region’s 2010 list of historical and cultural monuments of local significance. That listing classified it as an Early Iron Age monument, a dating considered incorrect. In 2016, the state territory of the Tamgaly-Tas tract along the Ili River was transferred to a private real-estate company.

New inscriptions and autographs have appeared near the rocks as access has remained unrestricted. Images added to the southern part of the Tamgalyzhar cliff during the 1950s to 1970s were used for cinematographic filming and are not regarded as historical heritage.

Remains

Tanbaly-Tas is a rock sanctuary in the Habatsagai tract of Almaty Region, approximately 120 kilometres north of Almaty. It stands near the Ili River between the mouth of the Kurta’s left tributary and the steppe river Shengeldy. The principal ensemble is spread across 15 separate rock blocks. Buddhist images occupy the main carved surfaces, while Tibetan and Oirat texts are distributed among the surrounding boulders.

Buddhist images

Central Buddhist panel

The main iconographic composition brings together Buddha Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, the four-armed bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, and Buddha Bhaisajyaguru, known as the Medicine Buddha. Tibetan inscriptions accompany these central figures. Avalokiteshvara appears as a one-faced, four-armed deity seated in the diamond posture, a cross-legged meditative position, on a lotus throne.

Separate Buddha figures

Two further figures are carved separately from the central panel. They represent Buddha Nageshvararaja and Buddha Akshobhya, one of the principal Buddhas of Mahayana Buddhism. Together with the central images, they form an ensemble of five Buddhist deities distributed across the rock sanctuary.

Inscriptions and carved texts

Tibetan prayer inscriptions

Prayer texts occur on rocks surrounding the images. They include two mantras of Buddha Manjushri, a Buddhist figure associated with transcendent wisdom, and an address to the Fourth Panchen Lama, one of the senior religious leaders of Tibetan Buddhism. Four six-syllable om mani padme hum mantras, a well-known invocation associated with Avalokiteshvara, are carved on separate boulders along the edges of the rock scatter. Three additional six-syllable mantras, an invocation praising a lama’s knowledge and compassion, two Manjushri mantras on the southern edge, and a mantra of Akshobhya complete the Tibetan textual group.

Oirat clear-script texts

Ten further versions of the six-syllable om mani padme hum mantra were later carved in Oirat clear script. Created by the Buddhist scholar Zaya Pandita in 1648, this script was designed for writing the Oirat language. The latest inscription is a large, vertically elongated text in cursive clear script. It contains more lines than the other inscriptions and is cut directly into a rock.

Ancient Turkic writing

One stone bears ancient Turkic runic writing dated to the eighth or ninth centuries. The text is tentatively attributed to the Kipchaks, adding an earlier layer of written culture to the Buddhist imagery and later Tibetan and Oirat inscriptions.