Consequently the Tibetans may be said to be divided into two classes of people, one being subject to the control of the lords of the manors and other to that of the Central Government. Not unfrequently the two overlap, and the same people are obliged to pay poll-tax to their lords and other taxes to the Central Government.
The work of revenue collection is entrusted to two or three Commissioners appointed from among the clerical or lay officials of higher rank, and these, invested with judicial and executive powers, are despatched every year to the provinces to collect revenue, consisting of taxes, imposts and import duties, these being paid either in money or kind.
The demands on revenue are many and various, and among the items of ordinary expenditure may be mentioned first of all the sums required for supporting, either wholly or partially, a large number of priests residing both in Lhasa and in the provinces, the former alone numbering about twenty-five thousand. The outlay on account of building temples and religious ceremonies is not small, but that on account of salaries paid to the officials of the Central Government appears to be less. A Premier draws the yearly salary of about six hundred koku or four thousand bushels of wheat, the stipend being generally paid in this grain. The first Lord of the Treasury draws three hundred and sixty koku. What is very interesting about these salaries is that the State functionaries very often relinquish the right of receiving their salaries, and leave them unclaimed. My host, who continued to hold for ten years the post of the Minister of Finance, had persistently refrained during that long period from claiming what was his due. When I marvelled at this strange act of disinterestedness on his part, he replied that his own estate supplied what he wanted and so he did not wish to give trouble to the Grand Lama’s Exchequer. And he further informed me that most of his colleagues who were men of means generally omitted to claim their salaries wholly or in part, though there were some who punctually received the money to which they were entitled by right. Not that even those who showed themselves so disinterested in the matter of official stipends are above corruption, for I heard that some of the Ministers who declined their salaries did not scruple to receive or even to exact bribes. In justice to them I may add that bribery is a universal vice in Tibet, and is not regarded in so serious a light there as in more enlightened countries. My host was a gentleman of strict integrity and morals, but he used to accept presents offered out of respect to him.
The clerical and lay high functionaries, each numbering one hundred and sixty-five, attend to the various affairs of State. They are sometimes appointed as Governors of provinces, while at other times they are sent on judicial business. In such cases appointments are never given to clerical or lay officials only, but both are invariably appointed as associates, and in equal number, one each or two, or sometimes four. The Judicial Commissioners were formerly often guilty of injustice and open to the charge of judging cases, not according to their real deserts, but according to the amount of bribes offered. They are no longer so now, thanks to the vigilance and energy of the present Dalai Lama who, whenever such a case of wrong-doing comes to his ears, does not hesitate to confiscate the property of the offending parties and to deprive them of their rank. Sometimes when a case of grave moment occurs it is submitted to the personal judgment of the Grand Lama himself.
The Grand Lama is therefore placed in a highly anomalous position, for while he is the dispenser of benevolence and the supreme head of a religion preaching mercy and forbearance, he is obliged to pass judgment and to sentence persons to exile or even to capital punishment. As head of a religion he is positively forbidden by its teachings to pass a decree of that nature, whether that decree is justifiable in the worldly sense or not. But the Grand Lama does issue decrees of this irreligious description. He is not, however, a political chief, inasmuch as he faithfully adheres to the rules of mortification enforced by his religion; he has no wife, for instance, nor does he drink intoxicating liquor. His position is really highly anomalous.
And yet all the priests in Tibet take from the Grand Lama the holy vow of discipline; I myself was advised by my Tibetan friends to pass that ceremony, but my religious scruples stood in the way, so I did not follow the advice. However I was initiated by the Grand Lama in the ‘Hidden Teaching,’ for this ceremony had nothing to do with my religious convictions.
The Grand Lama himself being placed in this false position, all the priests under him are naturally open to a similar charge. They are partly priests and partly men of the world, and sometimes it is hardly possible to distinguish them from ordinary laymen. For instance, the Tibetan priests, as I have mentioned elsewhere, undertake farming or business, while the young rowdies among them attend to the work of ordinary soldiers. The only things that distinctly distinguish the priests from laymen are that the former shave their hair and wear priestly robes, and the latter do not; that is all. I am compelled to say that Lamaism has fallen, and that it has assumed a form quite contrary to that to which its great reformer Je Tsong-kha-pa elevated it, and I am sincerely sorry for this degeneration. I shall next describe the education and the caste system in Tibet.
[CHAPTER LXIII.]
Education and Castes.
Education is not widely diffused in Tibet. In the neighborhood of Shigatze children are taught comparatively well the three subjects of writing, arithmetic and reading, but in other places no provision exists for teaching children, except at monasteries, so that the boys and girls of ordinary people are generally left uneducated, especially the latter.