Amongst these Lama paintings, however, you sometimes come across specimens by no means destitute of beauty. One day, during a visit in the kingdom of Gechekten to the great temple called Alton-Somné (Temple of Gold), we saw a picture which struck us with astonishment. It was a large piece representing, in the centre, Buddha seated on a rich carpet. Around this figure, which was of life size, there was a sort of glory, composed of miniatures, allegorically expressing the Thousand Virtues of Buddha. We could scarcely withdraw ourselves from this picture, remarkable as it was, not only for the purity and grace of the design, but also for the expression of the faces and the splendour of the colouring. All the personages seemed full of life. We asked an old Lama, who was attending us over the place, what he knew about this admirable work. “Sirs,” said he, raising his joined hands to his forehead in token of respect, “this picture is a treasure of the remotest antiquity; it comprehends within its surface the whole doctrine of Buddha. It is not a Mongol painting; it came from Thibet, and was executed by a saint of the Eternal Sanctuary.”
The artists here are, in general, more successful in the landscapes than in the epic subjects. Flowers, birds, trees, mythological animals, are represented with great truth and with infinitely pleasing effect. The colouring is wonderfully full of life and freshness. It is only a pity that the painters of these landscapes have so very indifferent a notion as to perspective and chiaro-oscuro.
The Lamas are far better sculptors than painters, and they are accordingly very lavish of carvings in their Buddhist temples. Everywhere in and about these edifices you see works of this class of art, in quantity bespeaking the fecundity of the artist’s chisel, but of a quality which says little for his taste. First, outside the temples are an infinite number of tigers, lions, and elephants crouching upon blocks of granite; then the stone balustrades of the steps leading to the great gates are covered with fantastic sculptures representing birds, reptiles, and beasts, of all kinds, real and imaginary. Inside, the walls are decorated with relievos in wood or stone, executed with great spirit and truth.
Though the Mongol Lamaseries cannot be compared, in point
either of extent or wealth, with those of Thibet, there are some of them which are highly celebrated and greatly venerated among the adorers of Buddha.
The most famous of all is that of the Great Kouren (enclosure), in the country of the Khalkhas. As we had an opportunity of visiting this edifice in one of our journeys into Northern Tartary, we will here give some details respecting it. It stands on the bank of the river Toula, at the entrance to an immense forest, which extends thence northwards, six or seven days’ journey to the confines of Russia, and eastward, nearly five hundred miles to the land of the Solons, in Mantchouria. On your way to the Great Kouren, over the desert of Gobi, you have to traverse, for a whole month, an ocean of sand, the mournful monotony of which is not relieved by a single stream or a single shrub; but on reaching the Kougour mountains, the western boundary of the states of the Guison-Tamba, or King-Lama, the scene changes to picturesque and fertile valleys, and verdant pasture-hills, crowned with forests that seem as old as the world itself. Through the largest valley flows the river Toula, which, rising in the Barka mountains, runs from east to west through the pastures of the Lamasery, and then entering Siberia, falls into Lake Baikal.
The Lamasery stands on the northern bank of the river, on the slope of a mountain. The various temples inhabited by the Guison-Tamba, and other Grand Lamas, are distinguishable from the rest of the structure by their elevation and their gilded roofs. Thirty thousand Lamas dwell in the Lamasery itself, or in smaller Lamaseries erected about it. The plain adjoining it is always covered with the tents of the pilgrims who resort hither from all parts to worship Buddha. Here you find the U-Pi-Ta-Dze, or “Fish-skin Tartars,” encamped beside the Torgot Tartars from the summits of the sacred mountains (Bokte-Oula), the Thibetians and the Péboum of the Himalaya, with their long-haired oxen, mingling with the Mantchous from the banks of the Songari and Amor. There is an incessant movement of tents set up and taken down, and of pilgrims coming and going on horses, camels, oxen, mules, or waggons, and on foot.
Viewed from the distance, the white cells of the Lamas, built in horizontal lines one above the other on the sides of the mountain, seem the steps of a grand altar, of which the tabernacle is the temple of the Guison-Tamba. In the depths of that sanctuary, all resplendent with gold and bright colouring, the Lama-King, The Holy, as he is called, par excellence, receives the homage of the faithful, ever prostrate, in succession, before him. There is not a Khalkha Tartar who does not glory in the title of the
Holy One’s Disciple. Wherever you meet a man from the district of the Great Kouren, and ask him who he is, his proud reply is always this: Koure Bokte-Ain Chabi, (I am a disciple of the Holy Kouren.)
Half-a-league front the Lamasery, on the banks of the Toula, is a commercial station of Chinese. Their wooden or mud huts are fortified by a circle of high palisades to keep out the pilgrims, who, despite their devotion, are extremely given to thieving when ever the opportunity occurs. A watch and some ingots of silver, stolen during the night from M. Gabet, left us no doubt as to the want of probity in the Holy One’s disciples.