On our way down to the eastern gateway of Tashilhunpo we met two Ladaki Tibetans, who told us that they had just come from the Chang-tang, or the desert in the north-western part of Tibet.[12]
The Tung-chen showed me the Dongtse Kham-tsan, where the people of Dongtse and neighbourhood put up. We also saw a juniper bush planted by Gedun-dub, the founder of Tashilhunpo, in which that saintly lama’s hair is said to still exist.[13] I had pointed out to me, as we walked along the spacious buildings of the Taisamling college, the Kyil khang Ta-tsan and the Shartse college.
The descent to the foot of the hill proved very steep, but all along it we found rows of prayer-wheels, which we put in motion as we passed; near the gateway, and beside a mendong, there were two dozen of them together.
Passing by the main Mani lha-khang, we reached the eastern gateway of Tashilhunpo. Over it is a notice forbidding smoking within the monastery, for both the red and yellow-hat schools of lamaism strongly denounce tobacco-smoking by monks. [[118]]
From this gateway a road leads south to the Kiki-naga, where the Grand Lama’s mother resides, while another runs westward to the court of the Tashi lama, or Labrang gyal-tsan tonpo.
It was dusk when we had finished our walk around the monastery, and lamps were already burning in many of the houses to bid farewell to the old year.
February 19, New Year’s Day.[14]—The preparations for the day’s celebration commenced before dawn, and the noise of the blowing of the kitchen fires never ceased, as there were many dishes and dainties to be got ready for the dinner the minister was to give to a large party of nobles and incarnate lamas.
When the minister came back from visiting the Grand Lama, he told me that the latter had inquired about me, as he had some translation into Sanskrit which he desired I should make for him. “His holiness,” the minister said, “has given me a hundred and twenty titles of chapters of a work he has written, and wishes you to put them into Sanskrit for him.” The minister further said that when I had finished this work he would present me to the Grand Lama.
The next day the minister was called to Dongtse by the illness of the Dahpon Phala’s wife; his prayers, it was hoped, would restore her to health. About a week after his departure he was suddenly recalled by the Grand Lama, with whom he had, on March 3, a long conference. The Dalai lama’s Government had protested against the Tashi lama having taken the vows of monkhood from the Sakhya Pan-chen, a red-hat lama, the hierarch of the Sakhya school. The Dalai lama charged him with encouraging heresy, if not with being a heretic himself. It was for this reason that the Tashi lama had not been invited to ordain the supreme ruler of Tibet, for, belonging to the Gelugpa or yellow-hat school, the Dalai lama could have no connection with the school of which the Sakhya Pan-chen was the chief.
On March 4 the minister ordained some forty monks gelong. Formerly the Grand Lama used to perform this ceremony himself, but he has now delegated a large portion of his religious duties, including ordination, to the minister.[15]