With regard, however, to the dress of Lāmistic monks after their admission to the Order, the ancient rule, as we have seen, obliged them to wear only three garments of a dirty yellowish colour, made out of rags, or picked up in cemeteries or on dust heaps. But the necessities of a colder climate have compelled the Lāmas to increase their official vestments, and the higher Lāmas sometimes wear bright silken robes enriched with ornament. The law is sufficiently obeyed by putting a patch or two at one corner.
A full equipment is supposed to consist of an under vestment, a sort of tunic worn over it, a mantle, a kind of scarf worn over the left shoulder, a loose robe brought round over the same shoulder, and a cap[142]. The right shoulder is rarely bare, as it generally is in Southern Buddhist countries.
The colour of these six articles of clothing, especially of the cap, is yellow or red, according to the sect to which a monk belongs.
The cap is an important mark of sectarian difference, and is of various forms, and when it has five points, has been compared to a bishop’s mitre, but the five points really denote the five Dhyāni-Buddhas and their Bodhi-sattvas.
Part of every full monk’s equipment in Tibet is a peculiar instrument, made of bronze or other metal, and called a Dorje (Sanskṛit Vajra, ‘a thunderbolt’), the employment of which for religious objects is peculiar to Northern Buddhism. It is shaped like the imaginary thunderbolt of the gods Indra and Ṡiva—that is, it consists of a short bar, about four inches long, the two extremities of which swell out in globular form, or like small oval cages formed of hoops of metal. The original Dorje is supposed to have fallen direct from Indra’s heaven, and to have been preserved in a monastery near Lhāssa, called Sera pp. [278], [442]. According to another legend, the original instrument belonged to Gautama Buddha himself, and on his passing away into non-existence, transported itself through the air from India into Tibet. The consecrated imitations of it are innumerable. Their primary use is for exorcising and driving away evil spirits, especially in the performance of ceremonies and repetition of prayers—the instrument being then held between the fingers and thumb and waved backwards and forwards, or from side to side.
The efficacy of the Dorje in securing good fortune and warding off evil influences of all kinds is supposed to be of wide application. The idea was really borrowed from Ṡaivism or from the Tantra system, introduced through Nepāl by the Red sect. It is easy to understand the enormous power supposed to belong to a priesthood which claimed to be the wielders of a formidable thunderbolt, sent to them directly from heaven.
No wonder that the original Dorje preserved at the Sera monastery has become an object of actual worship. According to M. Huc, countless pilgrims prostrate themselves before it; and at the New Year’s festival, on the 27th day of the first month, it is carried in procession with great pomp to Lhāssa,—to the two centres of Lāmism—Potala and Lā brang. On its way there, the mystical implement is adored by the whole population, male and female (ii. 221).
Below is an engraving of a Dorje which I brought from Dārjīling.
It should be mentioned that the fierce Bodhi-sattva Vajra-pāṇi (see [p. 201] of this volume) is represented holding a similar Dorje in his right hand in his character of subduer of evil spirits. In some representations the evil demons are denoted by serpents.