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After visiting the Harem of Allah Kuli Khan I wandered by the Summer Mosque of the Kunya Ark, or Citadel. Finished in 1838, the mosque features spectacular tilework by local masters Ibadullah and Adullah Jin, who had also worked on Allah Kuli Khan’s harem.  Summer Mosque Pillars in the Summer Mosque Base of pillar in the Summer Mosque Pillars and Tilework  Tilework Tilework Tilework Tilework Minbar, or pulpit, in the corner of the mosque  The Kunya Ark, or Citadel, from outside View of the Inner City from the top of the Citadel View the Inner City from the top of the Citadel View from the top of the Citadel, with the Kalta Minaret , top, left-center View from the top of the Citadel with Islam Hoja Minaret (1910), middle Heart-palpitatingly gorgeous local hand-woven carpet. I sat on it for an hour, soaking up the vibes, but in the end did not buy, since the next stop in my wanderings is  Bukhara , whose very name is synonymous with carpets.   This brother and sister duo dogged my trac

While I was mainly interested in Remnants of Khiva Pre-Dating the Mongol Invasion  I thought that while I was in town it would be downright churlish not to wander by the Harem of Allah Kuli Khan (r. 1825–42), even though it is a relatively recent structure, dating back to the 1830s. The Harem is part of the so-called Tash Hauli Palace, which many of you are no doubt familiar with from the descriptions given in Frederick Burnaby’s A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia  (1876) and  The Life and Adventures of Arminius Vambery, Written by Himself  (1883) Both Burnaby and Vambery visited the palace after the death of Allah Kuli Khan, however, and of course neither of them gained access to the Harem. Allah Kuli Khan’s seventeen-year reign as Khan of Khiva began in 1825 with the death of his father Muhammad Rakhim Khan. In 1830 he decided to built a new palace on the eastern side of the city. He envisioned a sprawling complex with 163 rooms and three courtyards and informed

After wandering about the Fifty Forts Region along the northern bank of the Amu Darya I returned to Khiva . I was most interested in finding what traces if any of Khiva survived the Mongol invasion of the lower Amu Darya in the winter of 1220-1221.  Although much has been written about the fall of Urgench, further on down the Amu Darya (now known as Kunye Urgench, or Old Urgench, now in Turkmenistan, and not be to confused with New Urgench, in Uzbekistan just east of Khiva), none of the contemporary Persian accounts of the Mongol invasion that I am aware of say anything about Khiva. Ala'iddin Ata-Malik Juvayni (1226–1283), for instance, in his book Genghis Khan: The History of the World Conqueror , gives a harrowingly detailed account of the fall of Urgench, but as far as I can tell, given the confusion over name places, he makes no mention of any Mongol attack on Khiva. Yet Khiva was a prominent city in the thirteenth-century and would have been a tempting target for plunder dur

A translation by Vesna Wallace  of Chapter Four of the Kalacakratantra  has recently been released. See The Kalacakratantra: The Chapter on the Sadhana Together with the Vimalaprabha . As noted, this translation includes the commentary known as the Vimalaprabha, according to tradition written by Pundarika, the Second Kalkin King of Shambhala (ruled 177 BC - 77 BC). Pundarika You may recall that Dölpopa Sherab Gyaltsen , founder of the Jonang Sect to which Taranatha , the previous incarnation of Zanabazar , the first Bogd Gegeen of Mongolia, belonged, believed that he was a reincarnation of Pundarika and claimed to have visited Shambhala by visionary means. Professor Wallace has also translated Chapter Two of the Kalachakratantra:  The Kalacakratantra: The Chapter on the Individual Together with the Vimalaprabha .   She has also written a commentary on Chapter Two, including an overview of the whole Kalacakratantra:  The Inner Kalacakratantra: A Buddhist Tantric View of the Individua

From Khiva I wandered on down the Amu Darya River (also known as the Oxus)  to the city of Nukus. Actually I did not want to go to Nukus. I was much more interesting in the ruins of the old Silk Road cities and fortresses scattered along the north bank of the Amu Darya, but my driver insisted that all tourists  who come this way go to Nukus to visit the  Karakalpakstan State Museum of Art . Unfortunately he did not point out why all tourists go to the Karakalpakstan State Museum. It turns out, according to A Recent Story In The New York Times , t hat this “museum in the parched hinterland of Uzbekistan . . . is home to one of the world’s largest collections of Russian avant-garde art.” I did not know this at the time. I did peek through a few doorways into galleries containing what looked like avant-garde art, but of course I did not go in, since I have not the slightest interest in anything avant-garde and indeed little interest in any art created since the fall of the Ott