Prologue His parents already knew of his proclivity to create wonderful images of Hindu and Buddhist deities in clay and wood from a small age. When he could get hold of charcoal from his mother's kitchen, he would draw strange but striking images on the walls and floors. Wise elders nodded in approval and whispered to his grandparents Mitra and Kundalaxmi that the boy was a prodigy. He would do the Sakya clan proud one day by helping spread the glory of Sakya Muni to the furthest corners of the world.   T he great Mongol looked at the vast plains stretching before him in eternity and decided that this would be the place where he would build his new capital city, Dadu, and move the court from his citadel in Inner Mongolia Shangdu or Xanadu as we have come to be familiar with in the English language. It was a decision based in realpolitik as after all he was the ruler of China now, not just a barbarian from the outer fringes of empire as his grandfather Genghis Khan and his