It's early morning at the Songzanlin Monastery in Shangri-La, Yunnan province, and nine monks are fingering prayer beads as they chant in a small room, gold-coloured shawls on their shoulders to ward off the cold mountain air.
On the wall is a likeness of Dorje Shugden, a controversial Tibetan deity. Exactly 340 small new statues of Dorje Shugden riding on a snow lion fill glass-enclosed cabinets covering two sides of the room, which is partially lit by pungent yak-butter candles.
On the second floor, a young monk is huddled in his room reading from a worn yellow book of scriptures, a likeness of Dorje Shugden pasted to a wall.
On the other side of the hilly complex of monastery buildings, a monk greets a visitor with a suspicious look, asking him if he's a follower of 'this or that', holding his thumb up first and then down. It's understood that the up thumb represents the Dalai Lama and the down Dorje Shugden. To reassure the visitor, he says his part of the monastery is 'clean', code meaning there are no statues of Dorje Shugden in its imposing hall.
'We don't worship Dorje Shugden in our khamtsen [housing block for monks],' he says.
Contemporary followers of this centuries-old deity refer to him as Gyel-chen Dor-je Shuk-den Tsal, or the Great Magical Spirit Endowed with Adamantine Force. Critics, many afraid to even mouth his name for fear he may be conjured up, call him 'the devil'.
The conflict, which has resulted in the assassination of at least three monks loyal to the Dalai Lama, appears to be widening in China, with critics accusing Beijing of trying to capitalise on the dispute to weaken support for the exiled Tibetan religious leader, the Dalai Lama.