Tangyud Monastery

Tangyud Monastery, also called Sa-skya-gong-mig Gompa, stands at Komic village in the Spiti Valley, a couple of kilometres southeast of Hikkim, at 4,520 metres. Set at the rim of a deep canyon with Kaza about 4 km to the west, it is among India's highest gompas and lies on the edge of the Kibber Wildlife Sanctuary. Its massive sloping mud walls and battlements, painted in vertical stripes of red ochre and white, follow the pattern of a Tibetan castle and look taller than they are.

Locals regard it as very old, but the present building probably dates from the early 14th century, when the Sakya school rose under Mongol patronage; an earlier Kadampa foundation linked to Rinchen Zangpo may have stood here. It is one of two Sakya monasteries left in Spiti. A cell on its southeastern side is kept for visiting Spiti chieftains, and Tangyud village lies at its foot. The monastery is reported to have been badly damaged in the 1972 earthquake.