Zêkog County 泽库县

Setting and landscape

The air holds only about 60 percent of the oxygen found on the plains; winters are long, there is no true summer, and spring runs straight into autumn. Thirteen main rivers cross the county. The largest, the Zequ (泽曲), takes its name from Tibetan for "river of the high mountain country"; it rises on Suhuderi Mountain (苏乎德日山) in the southwest, passes the southern edge of the county town and runs 232.9 kilometres to the Yellow River. Its basin, in the first great bend of the upper Yellow River, is marshy herding country and the main breeding ground of the Hequ horse (河曲马).

What to see

The Heri stone sutra wall (和日石经墙) stands on a hillside terrace behind Heri Monastery in Heri village (和日村), which the Qinghai provincial government portal places 80 kilometres west of the county town. The main wall, beside the monastery's great assembly hall, is 165 metres long and built from more than 30,000 irregular slabs carved with the Kangyur (甘珠尔), cut twice over and stacked in the page layout of Tibetan scripture books. Smaller walls to the east carry the Tengyur (丹珠尔) and other texts, and some slabs bear Buddha figures, folk patterns and scenes from Buddhist stories. Tradition among the monks and local herders dates the start of the carving to the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty, under the monastery's third Derdun lama (德尔敦); a later lama, Luojiacang (洛加仓), saw it finished in 1955. Much of it was broken up during the Cultural Revolution, and about 240 metres of carved canon were restored by 2005.

"Heri Monastery stone sutra wall and Heri Monastery" is a national key heritage site, listed in the category of cave temples and stone carvings and dated to the Qing dynasty.

Crafts and local products

The carving tradition behind the wall, Zêkog Heri Monastery stone carving (泽库和日寺石刻), entered the national intangible heritage list in 2008 under traditional fine arts. It covers carved scripture and carved Buddha images, worked in incised line, relief and carving in the round. After religious policy was restored, the elderly monk Gongbao Caidan (公保才旦) took on apprentices and revived the craft.

Getting oriented

The county seat is Zequ town (泽曲镇), 97 kilometres from the prefecture seat at Longwu (隆务镇) and about 285 kilometres from Xining (西宁). Tongren (同仁) lies to the northeast and Xiahe County (夏河县) in Gansu to the east.

Highlights

• Heri stone sutra wall 和日石经墙: Main wall 165 m long, built from more than 30,000 slabs carved with the Kangyur; finished in 1955.
• Heri Monastery 和日寺: Listed with its sutra wall as a national key heritage site of the Qing dynasty.
• Heri Monastery stone carving 泽库和日寺石刻: Scripture and Buddha-image carving on the national intangible heritage list since 2008.
• Zequ River 泽曲: The county's largest river, 232.9 km long, flowing to the Yellow River through the Hequ horse's main breeding area.