Page:Picturesque Nepal.djvu/293

tion between Tibet and the Valley, and the intercourse between that country and Nepal, commercially, religiously, and also artistically, has been constant for many centuries. Tibet obtained much of its Buddhism from Nepal, when its king in the sixth century A.D. contracted a marriage with a Newar princess, and how much of the beautiful Lamaistic art of that country has been produced by Nepalese craftsmen, specially retained at Lhassa for this purpose, is a subject open to considerable discussion. One authority has gone so far as to state that the best metal figures produced in Tibet are the work of Newar artisans who have emigrated from Nepal in view of the inducements held out to them by the heads of the great religious order at Lhassa. In these circumstances it is not strange that a certain amount of Lamaistic influence is observable in the Buddhist buildings of the Valley, and the ritual in some of its temples has obviously been imported from Tibet. The principal temple of Shambu-Nāth is under the charge of a community of Lamas, supervised by a "Lama