Very seldom are native merchants honest in their dealing; even the most trustworthy ask a price ten to twenty per cent higher than is reasonable, and the price asked by the more dishonest is really monstrous, being double or even as much as five or six times the real rate.
Another interesting feature in Tibetan transactions is the blessing which the merchants bestow on anything which people buy from them. The most common formula of blessing is to this effect: “May the goods you have bought from me avert from you disease or any other suffering; may your purchase bring good luck and prosperity, so that you may grow richer, build storehouses, and buy more and more goods from us!”
The blessing accompanying the parting with sacred books is more ceremonious. The merchant reverentially lifts the book over his head in both hands, and then hands it over to the purchaser (a priest in most cases) with this blessing:
“May your reverence not only seek the true light from this sacred work, but may you conduct yourself according to that light, so that you may attain better intelligence, wisdom and morals, and fit yourself for the holy work of salvation, for the good of all beings!”
The purchaser has also a ceremony to perform in this transaction, and I must confess that his performance is more obviously selfish, outwardly at least; for in handing the price he just touches the dirty coin with his tongue, then wipes it on the neck of his garment, and finally hands it to the merchant after having cast upon it one lingering glance indicative of his reluctance to part with it. This act of licking and wiping signifies that the purchaser has licked off and wiped away for his own benefit all the good luck that was contained in that piece. The coin that goes to the merchant is therefore considered as a mere empty thing, so far as the virtue that was originally contained in it is concerned.
Though these tedious processes are omitted by big merchants, such as those engaged in dealing in tea, all the others faithfully observe them, especially those in the country.
It may be supposed that with so little to export and so much to import, the country would be impoverished. This, however, is not the case, as I shall explain. Tibet has been used to obtain a large amount of gold from Mongolia—more as donations to Tibetan Lamas than as the price paid for Tibetan goods. This influx of gold from Mongolia has done much thus far in enabling the country to keep the balance of her trade. She therefore cannot adopt an exclusion policy economically, even though she may without much inconvenience do so politically. In fact the enforcement of economic exclusion would be followed by serious internal trouble, simply because it would put a stop to the inflow of gold from Mongolia.
However, so far as this Mongolian gold is concerned, it seems as if circumstances were about to bring Tibet to a result tantamount to the enforcement of economic exclusion, for since the war between Japan and China and especially since the Boxer trouble the inflow of Mongolian gold to Tibet has virtually ceased, so much so that the Mongolian priests who are staying in Tibet for the prosecution of their studies are sorely embarrassed owing to the non-arrival of their remittances from home. Some of them have even been obliged to suspend regular attendance at lectures, and to seek some means of earning their livelihood, just as the poorer native Buḍḍhist students are accustomed to do.