With the exception of the cathedral, most of the temples and monasteries are on the outskirts of the city. There is a sameness about these places of worship that would make description tedious. Only the Ramo-ché and Moru temples, which are solely devoted to sorcery, are different. Here one sees the other soul-side of the people.
The Ramo-ché is as dark and dingy as a vault. On each side of the doorway are three gigantic tutelary demons. In the vestibule is a collection of bows, arrows, chain-armour, stag-horns, stuffed animals, scrolls, masks, skulls, and all the paraphernalia of devil-worship. On the left is a dark recess where drums are being beaten by an unseen choir.
A Lama stands, chalice in hand, before a deep aperture cut in the wall like a buttery hatch, and illumined by dim, flickering candles, which reveal a malignant female fiend. As a second priest pours holy water into a chalice, the Lama raises it solemnly again and again, muttering spells to propitiate the fury.
In the hall there are neither ornaments, gods, hanging canopies, nor scrolls, as in the other temples. There is neither congregation nor priests. The walls are apparently black and unpainted, but here and there a lamp reveals a Gorgon's head, a fiend's eye, a square inch or two of pigment that time has not obscured.
The place is immemorially old. There are huge vessels of carved metal and stone, embossed, like the roof, with griffins and skulls, which probably date back to before the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet, and are survivals of the old Bon religion. There is nothing bright here in colour or sound, nothing vivid or animated.
Stricken men and women come to remove a curse, vindictive ones to inflict one, bereaved ones to pay the initiated to watch the adventures of the soul in purgatory and guide it on its passage to the new birth, while demons and furies are lurking to snatch it with fiery claws and drag it to hell.