Some mention should also be made of the monasteries at Kuku khotun, ‘the blue city’ in Tartary. That town contains no less than five great Lāmaseries and fifteen affiliated monasteries, with a grand total of 20,000 Lāmas dwelling in them. The chief monastery is that of the ‘Five Towers’—not to be confounded with one of the same name in the Chinese province of Shan si.
This latter is a celebrated place for burials (see p. 370), and pilgrims may there be edified by a sight of the Buddha’s shadow impressed on a rock.
Another example of a monastery in a remote situation is that of Kurun or Kuren (see [p. 295]), situated on the slope of a mountain in Mongolia. In this celebrated monastery of the Grand Lāma Tāranātha 30,000 Lāmas (according to M. Huc) are lodged and supported.
The plain at the foot of the mountain is constantly covered with tents of various sizes for the convenience of pilgrims. Hither throng the worshippers of Buddha from the most remote countries.
Viewed from a distance, the white cells of the Lāmas, built on the declivity in horizontal lines one above the other, resemble the steps of an enormous altar, of which the temple of the Tāranātha Lāma appears to constitute (in Roman Catholic phraseology) ‘the tabernacle.’ In this country Tāranātha is the saint par excellence, and there is not a Tartar Khalka who does not take a pride in calling himself his disciple.
Passing on now to Tibet, we find that in its principal provinces the number of monastic institutions connected with its two respective capitals of Lhāssa and Tashi Lunpo, is more than a thousand, with 491,242 Lāmas. This is the estimate of the latest traveller[228].
According to Huc, more than thirty large monasteries may be reckoned in the neighbourhood of Lhāssa alone.
Adverting for a moment to Lhāssa itself, we may note that this ‘city of the gods’—the chief town of the province of U, situated on the Ki-ćhu river[229]—had in 1854 about 15,000 inhabitants within a circumference of two-and-a-half miles. According to a Chinese proverb, its chief inmates have always been ‘priests, women, and dogs.’ Koeppen affirms that Lhāssa has always been a greater nest of monk-priests than Rome has ever been.
Doubtless its population is now increased, and includes a considerable proportion of laymen; yet, in all likelihood, at least two-thirds of the inhabitants are monks; and it cannot be too often repeated that, according to the true theory of Buddhism, the only raison d’être of the laity is to wait upon the monkhood.
Moreover, Lhāssa, next to Benares and Mecca, is, perhaps, the most frequented place of pilgrimage upon earth. Scarcely a day passes on which the streets do not overflow with crowds of pilgrims—some from every quarter of Tibet, some from Bhutān and other Himālayan regions, some from all parts of Mongolia. All meet here to worship the incarnated representative of the Bodhi-sattva (Avalokiteṡvara) manifested in the Dalai Lāma—to receive his blessing, his consecrated pills, and his prayer-papers (see [p. 331] of these Lectures). The residence of this Lāmistic Pope is at Potala.
In fact Potala on the north-west side of Lhāssa is what the Vatican is to Rome. It existed in ancient times as a palace, but was rebuilt and converted into a palace-monastery by the celebrated fifth Dalai Lāma Navang Lobsang, A.D. 1617-1682 ([p. 292] of this volume), and from that time forward became the residence of all the Dalai Lāmas, who had before lived either at Sera or at Brepung (Dapung, see p. 442).