Note 10 — Chapter IV · RESIDENCE AT TASHILHUNPO, AND PREPARATIONS FOR JOURNEY TO LHASA.
Reading edition
Some 200 paces farther on in the same direction we came to a huge stone building called Kiku-tamsa. It is about 60 paces in length and 30 in breadth, and I counted nine stories in it. Though it is upwards of two hundred years old, it is still in excellent repair. Captain Turner made a sketch of it in 1783,10 but he mistook it for “a religious edifice.” It is at present used as a godown for dried carcasses of yaks, sheep, and goats. Every year, in the latter part of November, all the sacred pictures of the Labrang are hung up on this building for the benefit of the people, who, by touching these paintings with their foreheads, receive the blessings of the gods they represent.11