The ordinary student in these monasteries had certainly to work hard. Kawaguchi worked till he got "a swelling on his shoulder"; and, to get a degree, some work for twenty years, with examinations every year. Besides Tibetans, there were numbers of Mongols, and also some 200 Buriats from Siberia. The Mongols were hard-working and progressive, but “very quick-tempered, proud, and uppish,” and every Mongol had it in him to be a great leader, like Jenghiz Khan, whose career was, however, according to Kawaguchi, but a meteoric burst. Compared with these the Tibetan students, though, generally speaking, very quiet, courteous, and intelligent, were lazy and sluggish “beyond the powers of Westerners to imagine,” and on account of their laziness very dirty.
Catechism seems to have been their chief study. “The object of the questions and answers is to free the mind from all worldliness, and to get into the very bottom of truth, giving no powers to the devils of hell in the mind.” It is by this means, continues Kawaguchi, that the naturally dull and lazy Tibetans are guided to understand Buddhism, and through it they are, for a half-civilized nation, very rich in logical ideas. The catechisms, which I should judge were really more in the nature of philosophical debates which all Orientals love, were carried on in a most excited manner. Many texts and reference books had to be read before anyone could take part in them, and the catechists were always taught that “the foot must come down so strongly that the door of hell may be broken open; and that the hands must make so great a noise that the voice of knowledge may frighten the devils all the world over.”
Besides studying and being engaged in ceremonial observances, the monks, however, also carry on business. Most of them are engaged in trade; many are employed in agriculture, others in cattle-breeding, and sheep-rearing; and others, again, in the manufacture of Buddhist articles, the painting of Buddhist pictures; while tailors, carpenters, masons, and shoemakers are also found among the priests. Those of the higher class live very comfortably, building their own villas and temples. Some employ as many as 70 or 80 servants.
The lower-class priests, on the other hand, live in a pitiful way. No words, says Kawaguchi, can describe their poor condition. The scholar-priests have to earn their living as well as their expenses as students. Yet they are too busy to go out and make money, and what they receive as offerings from believers and as salaries from temples does not amount to enough to support them. They get a drink of tea gratis, but no flour; and such is their pitiable condition that they will often pass a couple of days without eating.
A noteworthy fact is, that though by their religion the Lamas are not supposed to take life, yet they are said not to be able to pass a day without eating meat, and more than 50,000 sheep, goats, and yaks are killed at Lhasa during the last three months of each year. Their punishments, too, are so cruel—gouging out eyes, cutting off hands, beating, etc.—as to excite the Japanese just as much as ourselves.
It is altogether a sorry picture which Kawaguchi draws, but it precisely bears out the casual impressions we got during our limited stay in Lhasa, and from what intercourse we had with the Lamas. Whether Lamaism has on the whole been a success I doubt. It has had a pacifying effect, it is true. If the Tibetans had been Mohammedans, we should not have reached Lhasa as easily as we did. And the Mongols also have lost their old warlike tendencies. The numerous figures of the placid Buddha sitting in calm repose have had their influence. Cut in rocks, erected in imposing statues, or modelled in bronze and brass, and set up in their temples and household altars, they have hypnotized the people to a sense of peace and rest. The Tibetans, who once carried their arms to Peking itself, are now one of the most peaceful of people. And the Mongols, who had set up a dynasty in China, conquered all Central Asia, and laid waste Western Europe, are now an almost negligible quantity in war.
Lamaism has certainly, then, nourished peace in Tibet and Mongolia. But the peace that has been nurtured has been the quiescence of sloth and decadence. The Buddhist idea of repose and kindness all can appreciate. There are few men who have no kindly feelings, and would not wish, if they could, to be at peace with all the world. Yet the idea may have its danger and be as likely to lead downward as upward. It may lull to rest and render useless passions and energies which ought to be given play to. And the evil of Lamaism is that it has fostered lazy repose and self-suppression at the expense of useful activity and self-realization.
The Mongols in their deserts, the Tibetans in their mountains, have had the amplest opportunity for carrying into effect the Buddhist idea. I have seen the one in the deepest depths of their deserts, and the other in the innermost sanctuary of their mountains, and to me it seems that they have both been pursuing a false ideal. They have sought by withdrawing from the world into the desert and into the mountain to secure present peace for the individual, instead of, by manfully taking their part in the work of the world, aiming at the eventual unison of the whole. Peace, instead of harmony, has been their ideal—peace for the emasculated individual instead of harmony for the united and full-blooded whole.
The Tibetan’s main idea, in fact, has been to save his own soul. He does not trouble about others so long as he can save himself. Indeed, he thinks it will require all his energies to do even that much, for at heart he is still full of his original religion of demonology. He looks upon the spiritual world as filled with demons, ready to prey upon him if he makes the slightest slip. Every temple, almost every house, is full of fantastic pictures of the most terrible and blood-curdling devils, with glaring eyes, open fang-studded mouth, extended neck and outstretched arm, ready to pounce upon some miserable victim. The belief in heaven is vague. The belief in hell is the one great fact in their lives, and how real it is may be imagined when we hear of these poor wretches, who, in order to escape its terrors, voluntarily allow themselves to be walled into solitary cells, from which for years they never emerge, but take in their food once a day through a narrow opening. Thus only do those poor deluded creatures think they can escape from demons in the world to come. But that they most sincerely believe in a life hereafter no more positive evidence could be afforded. An interesting detail is that their hell is not hot, but cold. If it were hot, the inhabitants of frozen Tibet would all flock there.
As might be naturally expected, such a people are ready believers in the supposed supernatural powers of certain men. We could hear nothing of the wonderful Mahatmas, and the Ti Rimpoche told Colonel Waddell he was entirely ignorant of their existence. But, according to Kawaguchi, oracles are held in high esteem. The Ngpak-pas, or miracle-workers, the descendants of Lamas who worked miracles, are supposed to possess hereditary secrets, and are held in great awe as being magicians of power. The people showed such practical faith in the efficacy of the charms which the Lamas gave that they rushed right up to our rifles, believing that our bullets could not hit them.