Mani walls are low stone walls built of slabs carved with Buddhist mantras, and they line the trails through upper Humla. Chortens are the Tibetan form of the stupa, sometimes built as arched gateways across the path. Both are passed clockwise, keeping them on your right. The density of them increases the further north from Simikot you go.
What a mani wall is
A mani wall is a long, low wall built from flat stones, each one carved with a mantra or an image and laid so the carved face shows. They are not enclosures and they do not hold anything in or out. They exist to be walked past, and the merit of the act belongs both to the person who carved and placed the stone and to everyone who passes it correctly afterwards.
They accumulate. A wall is added to over years by different people at different times, and a long one represents a great deal of individual labour rather than a single commissioned project. Some are a few metres, some run alongside the trail for a considerable distance on the approach to a village. Above Simikot, in the upper stone village where the Lama households live, the walls are worked into the fabric of the settlement itself. What I noticed there in monsoon 2026 was the moss: it had taken the older stones completely, and it made the newer carving beside them stand out as though it had been cut that week.
| What you see | What it is | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Mani wall | Low wall of stones carved with mantras | Pass with the wall on your right |
| Mani stone | A single carved slab, often on a cairn or rock | Look; do not move, take or stand on it |
| Chorten | Tibetan stupa, a symbolic structure | Circle it clockwise; do not climb it |
| Kani or gateway chorten | An arched chorten built over the trail | Walk through it, not around it |
| Prayer flags | Printed cloth strung on ridges, bridges and passes | Leave them; never take one down |
| Prayer wheel | Cylinder containing printed mantras | Turn clockwise, with the right hand |
What is carved on the stones
Most of it is one mantra, om mani padme hum, the six-syllable mantra associated with Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion. That mantra is what gives the mani wall its name. On many stones it is carved in Tibetan script in a single line or arranged in a block, sometimes coloured, sometimes just cut into the rock and left to weather.
Other stones carry different mantras, images of deities, or short texts. Quality varies enormously along any given wall, from deeply cut and painted work down to a few rough strokes, and that range is the point rather than a defect: the wall is a record of many people's effort over a long time, not a commissioned piece with a consistent standard. Carving is a specialised skill and in many places a paid one, so a family may commission a stone to mark a death, an illness, a journey or a vow.
You will also see the mantra printed rather than carved, on the cloth flags strung above the walls and across the passes, and rolled up inside prayer wheels. The logic is consistent across all three: the mantra is understood to act by being present, being turned, being blown on the wind or being walked past, not only by being spoken.
Who carves the stones
Carving is a skill, and in the Tibetan cultural world it has generally been a specialised and often paid one rather than something every household does for itself. A family that wants a stone placed commissions it. The reasons are the ordinary reasons people commission anything at a shrine: a death, an illness, a safe return from a journey, a vow, or the accumulation of merit for its own sake.
Some of this is readable off a wall without knowing anything about the individuals involved. Deeply cut, well-spaced, painted lettering represents time and payment; a rough scratch represents somebody doing what they could. Weathering gives a loose sense of sequence, with lichen and softened edges on the older stones and sharp faces on the newer ones. Nothing about a mani wall is uniform, because no part of it was commissioned at once.
None of that is offered here as an interpretation of any particular wall in Humla. Naming a carver, a date or a reason behind a specific stone would be exactly the sort of invented detail that a place this remote never gets the chance to correct.
Chortens, and the gateways built across the trail
A chorten is the Tibetan form of the stupa: a stepped base, a dome, a spire, each element carrying meaning. Some hold relics or the remains of a teacher; many do not, and are built as acts of merit, as memorials, or to mark a boundary or a dangerous place. They range from waist-high whitewashed structures beside a field to substantial buildings at the entrance to a village.
The version a traveller meets most often in upper Humla is the gateway chorten, sometimes called a kani, built as an arch across the trail so that the path runs through it. The interior of the arch is usually painted, and the paintings are often better than the exterior suggests, so it is worth stopping under one and looking up. Walking through it is the correct thing to do; walking around it, which people do without thinking when the arch is muddy or the ground beside it is easier, misses the entire point of the structure.
Prayer flags, and what the passes look like
Prayer flags are printed cloth, strung in lines wherever the wind is reliable: ridgelines, bridges, roofs and above all passes. The horse figure printed on many of them gives them the name lungta, wind horse. They are hung to carry the printed prayers on the wind, and they are meant to fade; a bleached, shredded flag has done its work rather than been neglected.
The passes are where this reaches its greatest concentration. Nara La (Nara Lagna) at 4,580 m, the last barrier between the Nepali side and the Tibetan plateau, is a barren ridge carrying thousands of flags, and the noise of them in wind is the thing people remember about the crossing rather than the view. New lines are added by parties as they cross, which is why the density keeps growing.
Two details make a line of flags legible rather than decorative. The five colours are a fixed set standing for the elements, and they are strung in a set order rather than arranged for effect. And flags are added rather than replaced: old lines are left to disintegrate where they hang and new ones go up alongside, which is why a long-used pass accumulates cloth and why the ground beneath one is scattered with faded remnants. Tidying that away would be exactly the wrong instinct.
How to pass a mani wall: keep it on your right
The rule is clockwise. Approaching a mani wall or a chorten, go to the left of it so the structure stays on your right, and keep it there as you pass. If a wall runs down the middle of a trail, which happens, take the left-hand branch. Coming back the other way, you go the other side, so the structure is on your right again. Once you have it, it becomes automatic within a day.
Chortens are circled clockwise for the same reason, and prayer wheels are turned clockwise, with the right hand. There is no penalty for getting it wrong and nobody will confront you, which is precisely why it is worth getting right: it is a piece of consideration that costs nothing and that local people notice.
Prayer wheels come in more forms than the handheld one most visitors picture. There are rows of them set into a wall at the entrance to a monastery or a village, turned in sequence by a hand run along them as somebody walks past. There are large wheels housed in their own small building, heavy enough to need a push and to keep turning afterwards. And there are wheels driven by a stream, which turn continuously and unattended, doing at all hours what a person can only do while standing there. Each contains printed mantras, sometimes in very large numbers, and the logic is the same as the flags and the stones: the text works by being present and in motion.
Some further things not to do. Do not move, remove or take a mani stone; they are not souvenirs and some are memorials. Do not sit or stand on a wall, and do not put a rucksack down on one. Do not climb a chorten for a photograph. Do not take down or cut prayer flags. And when a mule caravan or a group of people is coming the other way at a narrow wall, the practical courtesy is to step off on the side that lets them keep the wall on their right, which our article on mule caravans on the Karnali trails covers alongside the rest of trail etiquette.
Where you start seeing them, and what that tells you
The density of carved stone is a reliable indicator of where you are in the cultural gradient of Humla. In the south of the district, around the Hindu shrine at Kharpunath and below, there is essentially none. From Simikot at about 2,910 m upwards it begins, and it is already substantial in the upper stone village there. North of Simikot, along the trail through Kermi and Yalbang towards Yangar, Muchu and Yari, the walls become continuous features of the approach to every settlement.
By the time you reach the Limi Valley or the border country, the stone is everywhere the trail is. That progression is the clearest physical evidence of the point made in our article on the Buddhist heritage of upper Humla: the district changes religion as it gains altitude, and it does so gradually rather than at a line. The large monastic expression of the same tradition is at Namkha Khyung Dzong at Yalbang, and the oldest is Rinchenling at Halji in Limi.
None of this is preserved for visitors. Walls are still being added to, chortens are still being built and whitewashed, and flags are still being strung. Anyone travelling north of Simikot needs a restricted-area permit through a registered agency, with a licensed guide and a minimum party of two, as set out in our guide to restricted-area permits.
Before you travel. Humla is a restricted border district and conditions change without notice. Roads close, flights are cancelled, permit rules and fees are revised, and the Hilsa crossing opens and shuts to different categories of traveller. Confirm the current position with the District Administration Office in Simikot, the Department of Immigration, or a registered local operator before you commit to a route.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a mani wall?
A low wall built from flat stones carved with Buddhist mantras, laid so the carved faces show. It is built up over years by many different people, and it is meant to be walked past clockwise rather than to enclose anything.
What is written on mani stones?
Most often om mani padme hum, the six-syllable mantra associated with Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, carved in Tibetan script. Other stones carry different mantras, deity images or short texts.
Which way do you walk around a mani wall?
Clockwise, which in practice means keeping the wall on your right as you pass. If a wall splits the trail, take the left branch. Chortens are circled the same way and prayer wheels are turned clockwise with the right hand.
What is a chorten?
The Tibetan form of the stupa: a stepped base, dome and spire, built as an act of merit, a memorial, or a marker at a boundary or a hazardous place. Some contain relics. Gateway versions are built as arches over the trail and should be walked through.
Can you take a mani stone as a souvenir?
No. They are offerings and often memorials, placed deliberately, and removing one is straightforwardly theft from a shrine. The same applies to prayer flags, which should never be cut down or taken.
What do prayer flags mean?
They carry printed prayers that the wind is understood to spread. The horse figure printed on many of them gives them the name lungta, wind horse. They are meant to fade and fray with exposure, so a bleached flag has done its job.
Where in Humla do the mani walls start?
Around Simikot and northwards. The south of the district is Hindu and has essentially none; the density rises steadily up the valley until, in the upper villages and Limi, carved stone lines the trail into every settlement.