The Dingpon and Gyapon receive pay at the rate of thirteen srang and twenty-five srang a year from the imperial treasury, but no more rations from the Tibetan Government than the soldiers.
The Emperor allows Chinese soldiers serving in Tibet a family allowance of six srang a month and sixty pounds of rice per head as subsistence allowance, in addition to their monthly pay of six srang.[49] On the next day (January 2) Ugyen surveyed the town and its great monastery, the Palkhor choide. A stone wall nearly two miles and a half long surrounds the town. He estimated its length, by means of his prayer-beads, to be 4500 paces.[50] At each pace he dropped a bead [[87]]and muttered om mani padme hum, and the good people of Gyantse who accompanied him in his circumambulation (lingkor) little suspected the nature of the work he was doing. When he reached the foot of a mendong called Gojogs, and situated to the north of the Djong, he took the bearing of the Tse-chan monastery, one of the most ancient religious establishments of Tibet. It bore south-west, and was nearly three miles from him. To the north of Gyantse he saw Ritoi gomba, a cloistered lamasery with five or six long houses, each with a large number of cells. To the south-south-east of Gyantse djong is the road to Pagri, in the direction of the Nia-ni monastery and the Niru chu, one of the principal feeders of the Nyang chu, which drains the northern glacier of the Chumo-lha ri mountain. To the north-east of Gyantse the Nyang chu is visible for a great distance, and Ugyen conjectured from its course that it came from the snow-clad Nui-jin kang-sang mountains, which stretch out to the north and north-east. On the uplands to the north of Gyantse, and some three miles away, is the Choilung gomba.
The Chinese cemetery Ugyen found situate at the foot of the hill on which the Djong stands, a little above the high-road to Lhasa, and some three miles from the town. He counted three hundred tombs, some of which appeared very old and dilapidated, but a few quite new.
The castle or Djong of Gyantse stands on the top of a hill nearly 500 feet above the town. It is very strong, and was built by the famous Choigyal rabtan who ruled in the fourteenth century over the province of Nyang, of which Gyantse was the capital. This province was a part of the domain of the Sakhya hierarchs. He had built a long stone-covered way running from the Djong to the foot of the hill, by which he meant to secure a supply of water in time of siege from the three deep wells at the foot of the hill. Ugyen visited these wells, where water-carriers were drawing water in hide buckets attached to a rope about 150 feet long passing over a pulley.
The landlord of the Litophug sub-division of Gyantse told Ugyen that about eighteen years ago the ex-Dewan of Sikkim had come here on some State business, and had put up in the same house in which he was now stopping. One night about fifty sinister-looking Khamba traders suddenly broke into the house, beat him with clubs, tore his earring out of his ear, stripped him of his clothing, carried off [[88]]all his property, and thrashed his servants and forced them to run for their lives. Some of the robbers ran away from Gyantse, taking the Dewan’s property, his mules and ponies; but on the following morning, when the matter was brought to the notice of the Djongpon, the chief of the robbers, who had stayed behind, was apprehended. He said that a year previously the Dewan had treated him and his accomplices most harshly during their stay at Chumbi on their way to Darjiling, exacting from them the last pice they had in their purses, besides depriving them of all their property to the value of upwards of Rs. 500. The Dewan lost, in his turn, over Rs. 1000 in cash, besides jewellery, clothes, etc.
A well-informed Nyingma lama, the manager of Palri kusho’s (an incarnate lama) estate near Panam Jong, came and put up at the house where Ugyen was stopping. He was on his way back from Lhasa, where he had stayed for two or three months after a pilgrimage to the Tsari country. His master was studying sacred literature at Lhasa. He promised to let Ugyen see the books of the Palri library, and to lend them to him on the surety of the minister or his Chyag-dso-pa. He told him, furthermore, that there existed two printed volumes about Choigyal rabtan, the famous king who had founded the Palkhor choide of Gyantse, but that these works and the history of Gyantse were now kept as sealed works (terchoi) by the Lhasa Government. Ugyen also learnt from the lama that in the recluses’ monastery of Lhari-zim-phug, situated on a wild mountain to the east of Panam djong, there was a complete account of the life and writings of Lama Lha-tsun chenpo, who had introduced Buddhism into Sikkim.[51]
At this season of the year the climate of Gyantse is very bad, high winds blowing daily, raising dense clouds of dust. The inhabitants spend this time of the year in idleness, having but little to do besides weaving and spinning.
Such was the information that Ugyen gave me to-day.
When we had finished our breakfast we went with the Kunyer of Gandan Lhakhang to perform choi-jal at the different shrines of Gyantse. The chorten is a splendid edifice of an unique style of architecture. Hitherto I had been under the impression that chorten were nothing more than tombs intended solely to contain the remains of departed saints, but now my views became entirely changed. This chorten is a lofty temple nine stories high. Ugyen, I, the [[89]]Kunyer, Lhapa-rida, and our servant, Lhagpa-sring, went into the enclosure and entered the shrine with a number of pilgrims and travellers, most of whom seemed to be from Ladak or the Changtang. In the service hall, where the priests were assembled for religious service, hundreds of lamps were burning, and incense-sticks were smoking so as to nearly darken the room. We ascended at once to the top story, but the other visitors began their circumambulation from the bottom upwards—the usual practice, though many become so wearied going round and round that they do not reach the uppermost story. The chorten is about 100 to 120 feet high, the top covered by a gilt dome, the gilded copper plates of which are so thick that they have withstood centuries of exposure to the weather. The base of this sacred edifice is, we found by actual count, 50 paces square. From the cupola (pumpa), immediately under the gilt dome, I had a magnificent view of the town and monasteries and the surrounding hills and distant mountains; their black surface, broken here and there by some white-walled monastery, offered a singularly wild aspect.
There were inside the chorten innumerable niches filled with images of Buddhas and saints, and in visiting the various chapels we were required to do so walking from left to right, for this is the Buddhist usage.