India and Tibet / A history of the relations which have subsisted between the two countries from the time of Warren Hastings to 1910; with a particular account of the mission to Lhasa of 1904

by Sir Francis Edward Younghusband

I returned to the Sha-pés the sum of Rs. 5,000, which I had exacted from them, and released the hostages I had demanded on the occasion of the attack by a fanatical Lama on two British officers. But I demanded back the sum of Rs. 1,000 on account of the murder of one and the brutal torture of another servant of the Mission caught in the town of Gyantse on the night of the attack on the Mission. I said we did not mind fair and square fighting between men whose business it was to fight, but the murder and torture of harmless and defenceless servants was pure barbarity. The Sha-pés acknowledged that what I said was just, but said they were not present, and knew nothing of it. Rs. 1,000 were, therefore, retained to be paid in compensation to the servants’ families.

I then remarked that we had now had a general settling up of all accounts between us, and could start fair. The Sha-pés said they hoped now we should always be on friendly terms, and they certainly meant to observe the Treaty.

The Tongsa Penlop paid me a formal visit on the 10th to congratulate me on the successful issue of the negotiations. He said that there was no resentment at the settlement or at the manner in which it had been made, and the Nepalese representative was of the same opinion. The Tibetans were well satisfied with the issue of the negotiations. And I dare say in their heart of hearts, and despite all their protests, they had fully expected us to annex the whole country, as we had annexed Burma, or at any rate to annex up to Gyantse, and were probably quite surprised to have got off so lightly.

Congratulations from India and England soon came pouring in. Only six days after the Treaty was signed came a telegram from the Viceroy conveying the congratulations of the King himself. His Majesty, though away at Marienbad, had immediately telegraphed his congratulations, a particular compliment which is rarely given for work in India. To the troops this was especially gratifying. The telegram was read out to them on a full parade, which General Macdonald ordered for the purpose. The Secretary of State, the acting Viceroy, Lord Ampthill, Lord Curzon, from England, Lord Kitchener, and very many others, also sent their congratulations; and now, while the Chinese Government were making up their minds whether they would allow the Resident to sign his adhesion to the Treaty, I had leisure and inclination to go about Lhasa and see something of the monasteries and temples, and talk with the people in a less forced and formal manner than I had to while the strain of the negotiations was on us.

We had so far seen the Tibetans only on the contentious side. Now that the stress was over I wished to see them as they really were. What especially I wished to see was their monastic life. The priesthood ruled Tibet. Religion was the chief characteristic of the people. Their religion and the character of the Lamas, who both led the religious life of the people and guided their political destinies, were, therefore, the special objects of my interest.

From the first I had insisted that we should not be denied access to the monasteries, for to get rid of misunderstandings it was essential that we should close up with the Lamas and come directly into contact with them. But I had been careful to let only those officers enter the monasteries who could be trusted to comport themselves with propriety, and have all reasonable regard for the feelings and prejudices of the monks.

For this purpose Mr. White, Mr. Walsh, Captain O’Connor, and Colonel Waddell, the well-known writer on Lamaism, who was appointed Chief Medical Officer and Archæologist to the Mission’s escort, were invaluable. Each had his special qualification for the work, and each made use of it by “peaceful penetration” to break through the last barrier which separated us from the Tibetans. Mr. White was known in person or by reputation as none of the rest of us were, and had many friends who were also friends of these Lamas. Through them he obtained an invitation to the De-pun Monastery, and from this start made rapid progress. Mr. Walsh, as Deputy Commissioner of Darjiling, and through his long acquaintance with this frontier and intimate knowledge of the language and history of the country, was also able to exert a most useful influence after his arrival from Chumbi, while Colonel Waddell interested himself in the libraries and in historical research. As a consequence, when I visited these monasteries, after the signature of the Treaty, I was received as if the visit from a British official was the same ordinary occurrence as it is in India.

Each monastery is a little town in itself, a compact block of solidly-built masonry—houses, halls, and temples. The streets are narrow and not over-clean, but the halls and temples are spacious. They are mostly of much the same type, with pagoda-shaped roofs, painted wooden pillars, and grotesque demonesque-like figures. In the De-pun Monastery there were from 8,000 to 10,000 monks, divided into, I think, four sections, each with its Abbot and its separate temple hall and institutions.

In outward appearance the monks of some of these Lhasa monasteries are not prepossessing. They look coarse and besotted. Some are bright and cordial, but hardly any look really intellectual or spiritual, and the general impression I took away was one of dirt and degradation. Of the higher Lamas, also, my impression was not favourable as regards their intellectual capacity or spiritual attainments. The Regent (Ti Rimpoche), with whom I carried on the negotiations, had great charm. He was a benevolent, kindly old gentleman, who would not have hurt a fly if he could have avoided it. No one could help liking him, but no one could say that he had the intellectual capacity we would meet with in Brahmins in India, or the character and bearing one would expect in the leading man of a country. And his spiritual attainments, I gathered from a long conversation I had with him after the Treaty was signed, consisted mainly of a knowledge by rote of vast quantities of his holy books. The capacity of these Tibetan monks for learning their sacred books by rote is, indeed, something prodigious; though about the actual meaning they trouble themselves but little.