What’s so fascinating about the Third Eye?

 Located on a craggy hill 19 kilometers from capital city Leh, the Thikse Monastery is by far most appealing in terms of outward appearance, ambience, proportion & rugged beauty.

A pleasant climb over unpaved steps brings you to the monastery courtyard. From a vantage view point located on the terrace atop the monastery you can gaze at the meandering Indus river surrounded by a carpet of green, on the other end there lies the stark grandeur of a desert landscape known as the Zanskar Valley.Belonging to the Bon sect, the monastery has a twenty feet statue of Maitreya Buddha - also known as the future Buddha, at the farthest point in the courtyard. Magnificently coated with paint, gold in color, bedecked with a brilliant crown & jewelry, the statue has a third eye on the forehead reportedly shaped like an ammonite.

How does ammonite which is an extinct mollusk feature on this statue located in the `artic desert'? As is well known the mighty Himalyays were formed when two gigantic plates - the Indian subcontinent collided with the Eurasian plate 130 million years ago. The dramatic collision thrust the bottom of the Tethyn Sea upwards creating the Himalayas.

To this day traces of aquatic life can be found in Ladakh & also explains the significance of ammonite on the `eye of insight.' Mollusk became extinct more than eighty million years ago.