Kalwang received a call from his friend when he was doing the general survey on cliff paintings in November 2014. His friend told him a new giant Buddha statue was found in Ngangring. On hearing the news, Kalwang went to Ngangring to check it. 

“The statue is amazing,” Kalwang said. The 9m tall Buddha statue was quite exquisite. It was Kalwang’s first time to see such a scene since he engaged in cultural relics.  

In the following days, he tried to check related materials on Shigatze City and Tibet Autonomous Region, however, no record on this statue was found.  

Kalwang consulted Shaka Wangdu, an archaeological expert about the statue. Shaka inferred this was a Buddha carved over 600 years ago based on inscription and some other clues. 

No related records on this Buddha make Kalwang rethink if there are any other cases of this kind. 

Later, Kalwang wrote a report on the number of stone carvings in Shigatze City. 

After his son Kelsang Namgyal attended the college entrance examination in 2015, he went on field investigation together with Namgyal. 

They started from Rinbung County and covered Shigatze City’s 18 districts and counties, taking 2,356 pictures and making 127 rubbings of stone carvings. Kalwang also wrote a record of about 20,000 characters on these stone carvings. 

Kalwang was advised to hold a stone carving culture and art exhibition in Dzongri Museum as the first promoter in September in 2015 and he agreed. 

The project on investigation, protection and study stone carving culture in Shigatze City was approved by Tibet Autonomous Region in November, 2015. And Kalwang was appointed as the project leader. 

From January to July in 2016, the project group had discovered over 20 cliff inscriptions and many statues. 

A law was enacted on January 1, 2017 to better protect cultural relics, stone carvings protection in Shigatze City included. 

“It is time for more people to learn about and join in stone carving protection." Kalwang said.