Wangden Valley 

"Wangden" is the name of a remote river valley in the Tsang province of Southern Tibet. In the valley there are 22 villages, some comprised of only a few households, and 3 monasteries. The valley runs north to south, beginning roughly 25 kilometers south of Penam Xian, on the main road between Shigatse and Gyantse.

Wangden's Unique Weaving Tradition 

Wangden was once famous throughout Tibet for its unique style of carpet weaving, practiced nowhere else in Tibet, and in great demand by monasteries from Lhasa to Amdo to Ladakh. Wangden carpets were used as meditation mats by the Fifth Dalai Lama, and every year a new set of Wangden runners was woven for use by monks participating in the Great Monlam Prayer Festival in Lhasa, the first and largest religious gathering of the Tibetan Buddhist year.

Known as "Wangden Drumse," these carpets are technically and aesthetically distinct from the more common "Drumse" or "Gamdrum" carpets produced in the rest of Tibet. According to local oral traditions as well as the opinion of some Western rug scholars and enthusiasts - they were the first type of knotted pile rug ever woven in Tibet. 

Wangden carpets differ from other knotted Tibetan carpets in both structure and design: structurally, the knotting method is distinct and the rug backing is "warp-faced." Aesthetically, as a group they represent what is according to legend an ancient, strictly-preserved canon of designs, adhering to rigid knot-counting, arid, color schemes in honor of a former Wangden Lama Jian Teppe Genshe with whom the designs (and the weaving tradition itself) are associated.

Before Tibet was opened to westerners in 1984 nothing was published on Wangden carpets nor were they available in the Kathmandu market. Soon after this some pieces came out from Lhasa to Kathmandu and the unusual construction was noted by western carpet enthusiasts. In the late 80's western dealers expressed an interest in these pieces.

Therefore Lhasa carpet dealers started to find this type until in 1991 a large group came onto the market in Lhasa and we were able to see 40 or 50 such pieces in combing Lhasa dealers' houses. Due to this group's sudden emergence, I guessed that it had come from a single source, which in this case presupposes a monastery. Due to the unusual weight it seemed to be very unlikely that they were carried by nomads. Lhasa carpet dealers refer to this type as Wangden drumse. Drumse means carpet in Tibetan, Wangden is a village between Xigaze and Gyantse in Central Tibet which is mentioned several times throughout history.

In the 11th century annals of the Nyang valley Wangden is mentioned as a rug weaving center. Chandra Das made a trek from Xigaze to Gyantze in the early 1890's, and visited Wangden on the way.

Wangden is included on the map of Central Tibet in Diana K. Myers "Temple Household and Horseback" 1984. Victor Chan marked it exactly in his "Pilgrims Guide to Tibet" and this made it possible for us to rent a jeep whose driver had also never visited Wangden and turning South at Penam on the road between Gyantse and Xigaze found two Wangdens. The first a village with a monastery while the second is only a collection of houses and narrow alleys on the hillside where the valley forks and comes to an end.

Semi-nomadic Culture 

The father or sons of the family still go to spend six months a year tending their sheep and other animals on the high pastures with the nomads while the rest of the family permanently stay in their houses in Wangden. When asked if nomads made carpets in the same way as Wangden, villagers said they did not but that they still did indigo dying and showed us an indigo dyed piece of flat woven wool known as nambu. Nomads also make tsu truk blankets which have long looped pile but no knots and are made in strips on a back strap loom. When we asked if tsu truk was the origin of the Wangden technique, villagers said it was not.

Extra Research
Lhuntse Xian

Talking with Tibetan traders (Khampas) in Lhasa, we discovered warp face back rugs were being found to the South East of Lhasa in Lhuntse Xian. So we obtained a permit to go there.

We crossed two passes to the South of Tsedang and on the high lands between them we were able to confirm the large numbers of yak in the area which leads to the use of yak hair in the warp face back rugs made in this area.

After an hour convincing the police we would return to Tsedang the same day, we went on to Lhuntse Xian which is now a governmental center with paved road being built around the town. We were soon told warp face back WANGDEN TYPE rugs were not made there but in Nyime Shang a three hour walk away. Luckily our jeep made it in half an hour and we soon found the monastery. Entering the main hall we found an old warp face back rug with tigma (cross) designs. We went up to the newly rebuilt Mahakala temple and found the head Lama (monk) who was seventy years old. He said he could remember warp face back rugs in the temple when he was fifteen years old.

We left the monastery and led by a local man, were taken into a house with large upright looms leaning against the wall where we were shown new carpets with large knots and the same large swastika designs found on warp face back rugs made in the area. A seventy five year old man told us the warp face back rugs usually were made using yak hair. More importantly, he said before his time Wangden villagers had come to Nyime Shang and taught the locals how to weave with the warp face back WANGDEN technique.

With experience of the Wangden and Nyime Shang warp face back rugs it is possible to differentiate between the making and designs of each place. Since we have been buying in Lhasa for the last ten years, I believe there were no other places which have made warp face back rugs but I hope we may have the chance to travel to other obscure places to investigate this is in fact the case.

Current State Of The Craft 

When we first saw new warp-face back rugs in Wangden they had 3 medallion designs and bright chemical green dyes. In order to find out if they could still remember how to indigo dye we returned with indigo from India.

Now we have made many journeys to Wangden repeatedly taking indigo and other locally grown vegetable dyes back to the villagers. They have produced a range of totally vegetable dyed rugs recreating ancient designs without the use of graph paper templates. So not only could these villagers remember the meaning of designs but also remember their vegetable dying and weaving techniques after having not produced rugs of this type for many years.

Gabu Village

Dorje and Wangdu

Warp face back production

_{all text & images © Rupert Smith}

Asianart.com | Articles
Gallery of Antique Rugs