We were very hungry after our ride, and in a few moments we were busy eating Tibetan fashion, i.e., pocket-knives and fingers, each one selecting from the joint whatever morsel took his fancy; to do the thing properly each bone should be scraped scrupulously clean, but, though we did our best, our host could give us points at this. The ease and rapidity with which he cleaned up the most awkward-looking bones came as a revelation. As a matter of fact he had already had his evening meal, but etiquette compelled him to eat again to encourage us. We were waited upon by the treasurer of the establishment and by a jolly little boy, about twelve years old, a disciple of Mina Fu-yeh's, under whose tuition he was studying the sacred writings. In the intervals of filling up our bowls with tea and pressing food upon us, he amused himself and the company by teasing his teacher's dog, a very fat little Pekin pug, as it lay beside its master.
When we had eaten our fill we rose to say "Good-night," and apologised for having thrust ourselves in without due notice, having come, too, just when our host must have been about to go to bed. To this he replied that he was delighted that we had come, that he hoped that we would go all over the place, taking pictures if we wished to. The priests would be occupied in public reading in the big hall, but we should be free to go where we wished; he added that he was only writing extracts from the books when we came in, and that we had not disturbed him at all.
Of course we asked if we might see his writing, and when produced we were most unfeignedly astonished by it. Never have I seen more beautifully even writing, or better formed characters. Every here and there a word was written in red ink. On asking why this was we were told that it was the character for "Sum," or three, and stood for the Trinity of Buddha.
It was very late, so having again said "Good-night," we went to bed and slept soundly. The next morning we were up betimes, as we had a busy day before us. At daybreak we were awakened by hearing two short blasts from a long horn, followed by a louder blast which was dwelt upon till it gradually died away. This was the warning to the 4,000 priests at Kumbum to get ready for prayer; it was the commencement of a new day. But, early as we were, our host was before us, and when we left our room we found him making preparations for breakfast. He explained that his steward and several of his servants were away, so he had to do a great deal himself. It seemed strange to see an incarnate saint, who is held in the deepest reverence and worshipped by men, busying himself unlocking drawers, producing sugar and butter, and generally attending to the most trivial and mundane matters, chattering away all the time like an ordinary mortal.
Thanks, however, to these endeavours, our breakfast of tea and tsamba was soon ready. Rijnhart, of course, is an adept at mixing up the butter, meal, and sugar into the correct dough, but neither of us had acquired the art. For some time our host watched us in silence, smiling occasionally at our awkwardness, but at last he offered to do it for us, adding hastily to Rijnhart, "Please tell them my hands are quite clean." Breakfast over, we lost no time in starting, armed with the kodak, to visit the many temples and shrines which form the monastery.
When we arrived the previous evening, it was too dark to get any idea of how the monastery lay, but we were enabled to do so. Kumbum itself lies at the junction of two small valleys, one coming from the east, the other from the south, the buildings lying to the south of the former, while on the north is the "Precious Hill," which keeps off all evil influences. On the east side of the other valley are most of the private dwellings, while on the west are temples, chief among which is the famous "Gold-Tiled Temple" of Tsong K'aba. Lower down, below the junction of these two valleys, is the little town of Lusar. Altogether in Kumbum there are close on 4,000 priests, the vast majority of which, say seventy per cent., are Tibetans; of the rest about twenty per cent. are Mongols, and the remainder Chinese. Nearly all of them speak Chinese with a greater or less degree of fluency, but there are a few who speak only Mongol and Tibetan.
It has, I believe, been stated in print, though I have never seen it, that Kumbum is entirely Chinese in its government and organisation. That this is not the case needs no further proof than the fact that, in all things temporal, it is under the Tsong T'u, or Prince of the Koko Nor, a mandarin appointed by the Emperor to govern all his Tibetan dependencies in this direction; he lives at Sining, and is known among Tibetans and Mongols as the "Seling Amban"; on the other hand, if Kumbum were really Chinese, it would be subservient to the Fu of Sining, and would be governed by the Fu T'ai. There is, moreover, a distinct boundary line, separating the territory which comes under Fu T'ai from that which comes under the Tsong T'u, those living within the boundary paying taxes to the monastery, while those outside pay to Sining Fu.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE STORY OF THE FIRST BUDDHA OF THE EMPIRE—THE SACRED TREE—THE GOLD-TILED TEMPLE—PARTING FROM MINA FU-YEH—THE GREEN GLAZED-TILE TEMPLE—THE FLOWER TEMPLE—SIGNS OF THE MOHAMMEDAN REBELLION—AT THE MISSION HOUSE.
When we got outside Mina Fu-yeh's house, the first thing that caught our eyes was a row of eight small towers or chortens, like those one sees in Ladakh, from which, I believe, Kumbum gets its Chinese name of "T'ah Ri Ssi," the "Monastery of the Eight Towers." From these we crossed by a small bridge to the eastern side of the valley, where many of the private houses are, and got a good bird's-eye view of the whole place. Unfortunately it was a dull, cloudy day, unsuitable for taking photos with a kodak, so I did not get as many as I should have liked, but while we were standing looking across the valley, a number of priests came out from the public reading hall, and I managed to get a pretty fair picture of them.