CHAPTER XXXII

TARTING-GOMPA AND TASHI-GEMBE

I was awaked early on March 27. I mounted my horse, accompanied by Robert, Muhamed Isa, and three men of the escort, while the fourth had gone on with the caravan. Muhamed Isa conveyed my hearty greetings to the Tashi Lama, and my wishes that the course of his life might run as smoothly and happily as heretofore. Meanwhile, I paid a short return visit to Ma Chi Fu, and had not yet left him when my excellent caravan leader returned with the kindest greetings from the Tashi Lama and a large silken _kadakh_, which I keep as a souvenir with the image he presented to me. Then we rode in close order through the forbidden streets for the last time, and the golden temple roofs disappeared behind us. So, farewell for ever, grand, lovable, divine Tashi Lama!

When we left the side valley of the Nyang-chu and came out into the Tsangpo valley, we were exposed to the storm coming from the west and covering all the country with a thick cloud of dust. The long white foaming waves of the river rose so high that the farther bank was invisible. The horses were restless and would not go into the skin boat, but at last we brought them all safely over. I now rode a rather large brown horse which I had bought in Shigatse. My small white Ladaki was still in good condition, but he was exempt from work. Only three veterans from Leh remained, two horses and a mule. Robert rode one of the horses from the Ngangtse-tso, and Muhamed Isa a large white horse from Shigatse, where we had also bought two mules; the baggage was transported on hired horses and asses. The caravan had encamped in the village of Sadung on the north bank of the Tsangpo. Ishe had carried the four puppies in his dress on his breast, and had led Puppy with a string, that the young ones might be suckled on the way.

Next morning we awoke in beautiful weather. Eastwards were seen a series of brown mountain ridges with shading growing lighter and lighter as they dipped to the river, which stood out in still brighter colouring. The dwellers on the bank here called the Brahmaputra Tamchok-kamba, and said that it would fall for two months more, and would then rise till it attained its maximum at the end of July. Then it floods most of the valley bottom, and rolls majestically down, while all around assumes a fresher hue in the calm air of summer. At the end of September the level of the water becomes lower, and the river freezes only in cold winters.

We again retire from the holy districts, and ride through villages standing at the mouths of side valleys, past granitic promontories of the northern mountains, over fields and dunes, and camp, as before, in the garden of the Tashi Lama in Tanak. The four gentlemen that accompany us have brought their servants with them, and provide their own shelter, horses, and food. They have received on setting out a certain sum for this purpose, but for all that live at the expense of the villagers, eat and lodge free of cost, and order fresh horses for every day's march without paying any hire. They keep their travelling money intact in their pockets, and are therefore well pleased with their commission.

Both on the 28th and on the 29th, when we bivouacked in Rungma, we had violent storms from noon onwards, which blew in our faces. Nothing could be seen of the surroundings, and frequently I could not perceive the man just in front of me. We were pestered with sand, which grated under our teeth, irritated our backs, and made our eyes smart. Where the valley was contracted, the compressed wind blew with double strength, and the sand-clouds rolled in a greyish-yellow mass along the Brahmaputra valley.

We went on the 30th on to Karu in brilliant weather, still along the Tsangpo, which, green and free from ice, gently lapped against the southern foot of the mountains. Occasionally a boat glided downstream. The wild ducks on the shore are very tame, for no one is allowed to kill them, and, indeed, no one wishes to do so. Only a slight local traffic is noticeable. We miss the pilgrims we saw on the journey down; they are now at home again. We leave on the right the small convent Chuding with its nine nuns. On the steep mountain flanks are rocky paths used during high water, for the road we follow is quite covered in summer when the river is 5 feet higher.

In Karu wheat, barley, peas, and radishes are cultivated. We had made a short march, and I had ample time to interrogate the wise men of the village about the geography of the country, the means of communication, the climate, the habits of the river, and the directions of the wind; but I have no room for such particulars in this book. I would rather, instead, introduce our escort to the reader. Vang Yi Tyn is a Dungan, born in Shigatse; Tso Tin Pang has a Chinese father and a Tibetan mother, has his home in Shigatse, holds the Lamaistic faith, and murmurs prayers on the way; Lava Tashi and Shidar Pintso are pure Tibetans. All four are friendly and ready to help, and tell me in confidence that they mean to do their very best, that I may be pleased with them and give them good testimonials.

The last day of the month of March is marked in my journal with an asterisk. While the caravan marched straight towards Ye, the rest of us rode up a side valley, at the mouth of which lies the village Tarting-choro, surrounded by fields and willow trees. A small well-kept _mani-ringmo_ is covered with stones polished by the river, in which the usual formula is not incised, but another in red and blue characters, namely, "Om mati moyi sale do." The figure [symbol: swastika] is many times repeated, and indicates a connection with the Pembo sect, while the figure [symbol: swastika] is a mark of the orthodox yellow-caps.

Farther up lies another village, having a _chhorten_ with a gilded turret in a copse of old trees. A red house is the _lhakang_ (God's House) of Tarting-gompa, and behind stands the house of the Grand Lama, picturesque and unique, built in the usual cubical style, with white steps and flat roof. Above it Tarting-gompa is throned on its hill like Chimre or Tikze in Ladak (Illustrations 173, 174, 178).

We enter the court of the _lhakang_ with its red walls; on two sides a roof is supported by posts, a shed for the riding horses, pack-mules, men and women who carry firewood and goods--a cloister and a caravanserai at the same time, where labour finds harbourage under the protection of religion--and over it waves a long flag from a _tarchen_, a mast standing in the midst of the court. The convent dog is chained up. The gate has an unusually high threshold; on the side walls of the entrance a tiger is painted in fresh colours. We now enter the _lhakang_, and I must confess that I started with surprise in the portal, for we had seen many halls of the gods in Tashi-lunpo, but never yet one so large, ancient and so wonderfully fascinating in its mysterious light.

What rich and subdued colouring! The Sego-chummo-lhakang, as it is called, is like a crypt, a fairy grotto, recalling to mind the rock temples of Elephanta; but here all is of red-painted wood, and 48 pillars support the roof. The capitals are green and gold, carved in intricate and tasteful designs, and carved lions, arabesques, and tendrils adorn the projecting beams of the ceiling. The floor consists of stone flags, their cracks filled up with the dust of centuries, so that it is smooth and even as asphalt. The daylight falls into the hall through a square impluvium, spanned by a network of chains. There stands the throne of the Tashi Lama, who visited the convent two years ago, and is expected again in two years, and opposite is a pyramidal stand, which is hung with lamps at certain festivals. A lama sits all day long at a tall prayer-cylinder (_korlo_ or _mankor_) about 6 feet high, with a pile of loose leaves a foot high in front of him, which he turns over rapidly, and gabbles their contents so quickly that one wonders how his tongue can move so fast. Frequently he beats a drum, then he clashes cymbals, or turns the prayer-cylinder in the heterodox direction (Illustrations 179, 254).

In another saloon, beside this, repose Grand Lamas of the Pembo sect, high priests of Tarting-gompa. We find here the same four-sided passage as round the sepulchres of Tashi-lunpo. But as I was going, as usual, from right to left, lamas hurried up to stop me. The monuments are like _chhorten_, and are covered with gold plaques and precious stones. Twelve statues of deceased high priests have behind them huge gilded halos, richly carved with carefully executed detail. Beside Shen Nime Kudun's monument lie two black smoothly-polished round blocks, apparently of porphyry or diabase. On one of them is seen the impression of the foot of the above-named Grand Lama. On the edge of the other are four impressions, his four fingers, just as though the flat hand with the fingers a little expanded had been pressed against a piece of hard butter. One can try it with one's own hand; the fingers fit in exactly, and the hollows are about 3/4 inch deep. It is well and naturally executed--_pia fraus!_

"When was the monastery founded?" I asked.

"That was so long ago that no one now living knows."

"Who founded it, then?"

"Gunchen Ishe Loto, long before Tsong Kapa's time."

The lamas spend all their lives in the convents, but have no idea how old these are.

Then we ascend to the top of the hill, where several convent buildings stand, and are received by a whole pack of vicious dogs. The chief temple hall, Dokang-chummo, is built on the same plan as the one below, and has numerous images, some of which are covered with strips and silver cases. We are led from one sanctuary to another, and are astonished at the extremely finely-executed frescoes that cover the walls. A temple in an elevated situation is surrounded by an uncovered passage with balustrades and prayer mills. A grand panorama of wild fissured mountains extends all round.

We had heard that the evening before our arrival an octogenarian lama had died, and I begged to be allowed to see his cell. But the excuse was made that some monks were reciting the prayers for the dead, and must not be disturbed. However, the house of the deceased was pointed out to us, and we went and knocked at the door of the courtyard. After a long wait a man came and opened it. Half of the small court was occupied by a black tent, where two men and a woman were cutting chips of wood 2 feet long, on which prayers and holy texts would be written, and then they would be used to kindle the funeral pyre of the deceased. One was drawing religious symbols and circles on a large paper, which would also be burned. We mounted a short staircase and came to a narrow open verandah before a store-shed with leathern chests containing the clothing of the deceased, and a compartment where his servant lived, who was now engaged in printing prayers in red, on white paper, with a wooden stamp; 700 such strips of paper are burned with the body, and the prayers follow the soul through the unknown realms of space.

From here we reach his cell, which is little more than double the size of my tent. There sit two old monks, with their backs against the trellised window. Books containing the prayers for the dead lie on a table before them. Two others sit on the floor in the middle of the room. All four must pray thrice twenty-four hours, day and night, for the soul of the deceased. The cell has a pillar, and is full of idols, holy vessels, banners, and books--a small museum. I asked if I might buy any of the things, but was told that they must all be handed over to the monastery.

The divan bed, partly draped with red hangings, stood against the shorter wall, the head to the window. Here sat the body, bent very much forward and with the legs crossed, and the back to the light. It was dressed in coloured garments with shoes on the feet, a thin _kadakh_ over the face, and a head-covering of red and blue stuff somewhat like a crown. Before it on the bed stood a stool with images, bowls, and two burning candles.

The body is not consumed in this dress. A white frock is put on, and a square cloth is spread over the knees, on which a large circle and other symbols are drawn. A crown (_vangsha_) of paper is set on the head, a square brimless hat, on which a button is fixed within eight broad teeth; it resembles an imperial crown. Thus attired the body, in a sitting position, is burned in the hollow of the valley below the temple. A lama carries the ashes to Kang-rinpoche (Kailas), where they are deposited in a holy _chhorten_.

At the age of five years this Yundung Sulting was consigned by his parents in the year 1832 to the care of the confraternity of Tarting-gompa, and his convent name was thenceforth Namgang Rinpoche. He, too, was an incarnation, and stood in high repute for his holiness, wisdom, and learning. On account of these merits he was burned, while the other monks in Tarting are cut in pieces. His sister and only relation, an old wrinkled woman, was present. The watchers of the dead were just in the act of eating their dinner, which was placed on a stool--cold dried meat, _tsamba_, and _chang_ (beer). They were shy and astonished, had never seen a European, and did not know whether they should answer my questions as I sat by them on the floor and took notes. I noticed, however, that they were less concerned for themselves than for the deceased. Twenty-four hours out of the prescribed seventy-two had passed when I came to interrupt the masses for the dead, and to disturb the soul which was nearly set free. But Namgang Rinpoche sat still, meditating over the endless enigmatical perspective that the formula "Om mati moyi sale do" opened out to him; and as long as I remained in his cell, no awful wonders and signs were seen.

171. MAJOR W. F. O'CONNOR, BRITISH TRADE AGENT IN GYANGTSE, NOW CONSUL IN SEISTAN.]

172. CAPTAIN C. G. RAWLING.]

For my part, I thought of the singular fate of the man whose life had come to an end the day before. As a novice he had left for ever in childhood the free existence among the black tents and grazing herds, said farewell to the world and its vanities, and was received into a community of monks, of whom none now remained alive. He saw his elders die one after another, the young ones grow up to manhood, and new recruits come in. They wandered for a season through the temple halls, lighted the candles, and filled the water-bowls before the statues of the gods, and then passed on to other scenes on the endless road to Nirvana. Seventy-five years he had been an inmate of the monastery, and had lived in the cell in which his body now lay. How many soles must he have worn out on the same stone floor! For seventy-five years he had searched the holy scriptures and had pondered over an easier existence beyond the funeral pyre; for seventy-five years he had seen the westerly storms driving the sand along the Brahmaputra valley. Only yesterday, at the point of expiring, he had listened to the sound of the temple bells, which, with their clappers bound with large falcon's feathers, had rung in his passage to the world beyond. And then with tottering steps he had followed the uncertain track of the brethren who had passed away before him.

Such a life seems hopelessly sad and gloomy. And yet a man who will venture to shut himself day and night within the walls of a dim convent must possess faith, conviction, and patience, for it is a prison which he in the tumult of his mind has chosen of his own free will. He has renounced the world when he allows himself to be walled in alive in the dark courts of Tarting; and when the smoke of his pyre ascends, it must, if equal justice be meted out to all, be a pleasant savour before the eternal throne.

But evening was coming on, and we must set out again. Below in a field a woman was ploughing with two oxen. She was singing loudly and cheerily to lighten her work. We rode on between low mountains, leaving Tanka-gompa on our left. When we came down to the plain the darkness was impenetrable, being made denser by thick clouds. A violent north wind arose, bringing cold air from the Chang-tang. At length we caught sight of comet tails of shooting sparks--our camp-fire in the Ye, where we had halted for a night's rest two months before.

We remained two days in the Ye or Yeshung, and here took some liberties which were not in accordance with the terms of our passport, but the escort made no protest. On the first day we rode to Tugden-gompa, a row of cubical, two-storeyed houses painted dark greyish-blue with vertical white and red stripes. The monastery is said to be of the same colour as the famous Sekiya, south-west of Tashi-lunpo, and also belongs to the sect which allows lamas to marry under certain conditions. The convent has thirty monks, and is directly under the Labrang (Tashi-lunpo). I will not enter into a full description, but will only say that the _tsokang_, the assembly saloon and reading-room of the lamas, had four red pillars, divans in the nave, and handsome banners on the walls of the side aisles, which were painted on Chinese silk, some with dragons on the lower border, some without. The statues for the most part represent monks of high rank (Lama-kunchuk, _i.e._ divine lamas or incarnations). Before the portal stands a huge bundle of rods with streamers in all the colours of the rainbow, which are already torn by the wind. In an upper hall is enthroned a figure of Hlobun-Lama, a regular bishop, with mitre, cassock, and crozier. Some of these statues are very comical--fat, jolly old boys with a divinely gentle smile on their rosy lips, wide-opened eyes, and chubby cheeks, sometimes with moustaches and imperials. The likeness is probably more than doubtful, but at any rate they are very unlike one another. Most of them are wrapped in silken mantles. The Labrang here was closed, for the head lama of Tugden was gone to the tent of a dying nomad to the north. We visited a monk's cell instead. It had a yard, a stall for the monk's horse, a small dark closet for a kitchen, where a cat kept company with two pots, and a large lumber-room crammed with clothes, rags, images of Buddha, books, and tools, in which a novice, the pupil of the monk, lodged.

Immediately to the south-east of Tugden a small poor nunnery, Ganden-chöding, lies buried among hills. The _dukang_, a dark crypt with red pillars and neatly carved capitals, is reached through an unpretending portal in the middle of the façade. Beggarly offerings, scraps of iron and other rubbish, are hung on nails driven into the pillars. The _serku-lhakang_, the holy of holies, receives its light from the larger hall, and as this is dark, it must be pitch dark in the inner shrine. The statues of Chenresi (Avalokiteswara) and of the Tsepagmed (Amitayus) can only be seen with a lamp.

The sixteen nuns of the convent are under the control of Tashi-lunpo, and the Tashi Lama provides them with tea once a day; the rest of their food they must beg in the houses and tents, so that some of them are always on the road. Now there were only five sisters at home, all dirty, with short hair, and poorly clad. Two were young and shy, the others were old wrinkled women with silvery-grey bristles, and in clothes which had been red once, but were now black with dirt, partly soot from the kitchen--a miserable hole, where they spend most of the day. I asked them whether they had attended the festival in Tashi-lunpo, but they replied that their means would not allow them except when a charitable person gave them travelling money. I always left a few rupees in the convents I visited, and the inmates were never too holy to take the valuable metal from the hands of an unbeliever.

The whole broad valley at Ye is begirt by a circle of monasteries. Our Chinamen had given notice of my visit on April 2 to Tashi-gembe, a large convent of 200 monks, who belong to the same colour as the monks of Tashi-lunpo. We had an hour's ride to this town of white sanctuaries, which are erected at the foot of a mountain spur. About 100 brethren gave me a civil greeting at the entrance, and led me to the paved court of ceremonies, which has the same appearance as the one in Tashi-lunpo, is surrounded by pillared galleries, has numerous pictures of Buddha painted in fresco on the walls, and a throne for the Tashi Lama, who celebrates a mass here once a year. By a staircase of wood and stone, between two pillars of the entrance hall, where the four spiritual kings keep watch on the walls, we enter into a _dukang_, with the usual pillars and divans. On two of these pillars hang complete suits of armour with shirts of mail, casques and tasses of iron scales fastened together with iron rings, maces, spears, tridents, and lances; on one of these lances hangs a white pennant with a brown border; on the pennant are written characters, and on the point of the lance a skull is placed. Among the harness _tankas_ are suspended, which, surrounded by silken cloths, look like escutcheons. Amid this harness and weapons, which are worn by divine powers when contending with devils, one may fancy oneself suddenly transplanted into an ancient Asiatic castle.

A gallery runs round three sides, and standards and banners hang down from it, all in fresh colours, tasteful and handsome. In the middle of the altar rank is enthroned Sakya-tubpa, the Buddha, and before the statues stands a row of polished brass bowls with lights which, mingling with the daylight, cast a magic gleam over the dusky hall. Some are filled with crystal-clear water, the nectar of the gods.

On one of the longer sides the folios of the Kanjur, the collection of canonical books contained in 108 volumes, as many as the beads in a rosary, are arranged in pigeon-holes. The Tanjur, the other collection, consists of 235 folios--a caravan of about 150 horses would be necessary to carry the two bibles of the Tibetans. Only rich monasteries are able to keep both. The thought that no one but themselves has waded through these endless scriptures must inspire a feeling of security in the monks. A layman is unable to confound a monk; he has never had an opportunity of dipping deeply into these everlasting truths.

Above the idols and the altar runs a frieze of small Buddha images forming, perhaps unintentionally, a highly decorative element of the internal architecture of the hall.

Beside it lies the Kasang-lhakang, a temple with sixteen pillars and a statue of the Sakya-tubpa. The hall is well lighted with skylights, and abounds in gold and valuables, climbing flowers, sacred trees, and lacquered shrines inlaid with gold. Here, too, are holy writings with unusually elegant margins; an embroidered silk cover is laid over each volume. A copper gong is sounded whenever fresh water is poured into the votive bowls.

The Tsokang is a more elevated hall, which is draped with black hangings striped white at the bottom.

Monks were sitting in a small open space with a quantity of small articles before them; it was an auction, at which the worldly goods of a departed brother were being sold. I acquired some wooden blocks with which the holy scriptures are printed by hand.

In the Ganden-lhakang we see two _chhortens_ of gold and precious stones. In one of them are preserved relics of a Grand Lama, some of his blood, his bones, and his intestines. In a room situated beside this hall we saw with surprise six curious figures of cast iron, representing Europeans in the dress of the thirties of the nineteenth century, with tall chimney-pot hats, stiff folded neck-cloths, upstanding collars, and dress coats with high collars, whiskers, and moustaches. They had come from Pekin, and were quite out of place here before the tasteful group of Buddhas, which was set up in a red lacquered niche, where climbing plants, dragons, and small figures like Cupids or angels were beautifully carved.

The Mankang-lhakang has figures of the higher gods on the walls, and in the middle a prayer cylinder rises from the floor up to the ceiling, 11½ feet high, and of such circumference that I laid my outstretched arms four times round it, measuring from finger-tips to finger-tips. Its red surface is covered with gigantic golden characters, and round the middle of the cylinder dances a string of goddesses. A smaller hall of the same kind is called Mankang-chang. On the upper edge of its prayer cylinder is a peg which, as the cylinder revolves, strikes against the clapper of a bell. An old lama sat before it and kept the cylinder in constant motion by means of a string attached to a crank on the iron axle. It is the duty of himself and another monk to keep this monstrosity humming all the day and half the night, or from sunrise to midnight. As he sat turning, he said his prayers, but he did not murmur them in the usual way. No, he bellowed, he howled out inarticulate sounds, so that he foamed at the mouth, perspired, and groaned, throwing himself violently back at each revolution, and then bending forward again. He was, so I was told, in a religious ecstasy, and did not hear, however loudly one shouted to him. I should prefer the oar of a galley slave to this monster, which cripples any capacity of thinking freely in the darkness of the crypt, where only musty dumb gods can be witnesses of its rotations. I looked at my watch; the bell sounded nine times in a minute, so that the machine makes 10,000 revolutions before the midnight hour comes to release the weary monk.

We passed the whole day in the wonderful monastery Tashi-gembe, which, after Tashi-lunpo, is the richest and finest I have seen in Tibet. As to cleanliness and good taste, it surpasses all. The temple halls were well lighted by numerous windows, the mid-day sun shone in between the pillars and produced a bewitching play of light and shade, and revealed a charming arrangement of colours between red and gold. Some monks sat on a divan and conversed with our companions; they made a clear and effective picture in the sunlight, red on a red background. Others leaned against the pillars, solemn as Roman senators in their togas, in a flood of sunshine, while a dense group of their brethren was dimly seen under the shadows of the gallery. And where the sunbeams played on the gold of Buddha's robe and broke on the leaves of the golden lotus-flower, out of which he rises, reflexions were scattered through the fairy hall, and the pillars shone like transparent rubies. We were dazzled by these effects of light, and might have been transplanted to the halls of the gnomes.

In contrast to all this wealth, an old blind man of eighty sat at a street-corner with a staff in each hand, and sang a beggar's ditty. Beside him lay a half-starved dog, his only friend in this world. The pitying love of Sakya-muni did not extend so far as to release this old man from the bonds of age and suffering. He also found a place in the picture gallery of my sketch-book, which on this memorable day received considerable additions. As ever, I felt myself to be only a passing pilgrim, a wanderer who had crossed the threshold of Tashi-gembe for a few hours, and a stranger and guest in the dreary valleys of Tibet and its mysterious enchanting temples.

The sun had set when we rode home, but the crests of the eastern mountains still glowed as in a rain of transparent gold. In the gently rippling water-channels the wild-geese gathered, screaming, for their spring migration, and the shadows of evening fell over the wide fields of Yeshung.