There are also wandering lamas among the pilgrims. One day I made a sketch of one who had roamed far and wide. He wore a rosary round his neck, a necklace of shells, and a gao with an idol, which had been given him by the Tashi Lama. Not long before he had performed a prostration pilgrimage round all the monasteries of Lhasa, and had just completed this feat, so acceptable to the gods, round Tashi-lunpo. He moves in the direction of the hands of a watch, and measures the distance round the monastery with the length of his body. He folds his hands over his forehead, sinks on his knees, lays himself full length on the ground, stretches both arms forward, scratches a mark in the soil, stands up, steps up to the mark and falls again on his knees, and repeats this process till he has gone all round the monastery. Such a circuit of Tashi-lunpo demands a whole day, but if he also goes into the lanes and round all the mausoleums and temples, this religious gymnastic feat requires three days. We saw daily whole rows both of clerical and lay pilgrims encompassing Tashi-lunpo and all its gods in this fashion. I asked several of them how many times they prostrated themselves on the ground during a circuit, but they did not know; for, they said, “We pray all the time, Om mani padme hum; there are twenty manis to each prostration, and we cannot therefore count the prostrations as well.” Many of them encircle the wall several times.
This wandering lama was one of a brotherhood of nine monks, who often visited us in our garden, sat down in front of the tents, turned their prayer mills, and sang. They had free lodging in a building in Tashi-lunpo, called Hamdung. Another member was the seventeen-year-old Tensin from Amdo, who had taken four months to travel thence to Tashi-lunpo. They had come for the festival, and intended to return home through Lhasa and Nakchu (Illustration 216).
The contributions of the pilgrims are one of Tashi-lunpo’s chief sources of revenue. But the monastery also possesses extensive estates and herds, and certain monks, who superintend the agricultural affairs and have the disposal of the produce, also carry on trade with the neighbourhood and with Nepal. The produce of the whole of Chang is devoted to the use of Tashi-lunpo, which is therefore wealthy. Each of the 3800 monks, irrespective of rank, receives 15 rupees annually, and, of course, lives gratis in the convent.
Another large source of income is the sale of amulets, talismans and relics, idols of metal or terra cotta, sacred paintings (tankas), joss-sticks, etc. The priests also get very good prices for small, insignificant, almost worthless clay idols, and paper strips with symbolical figures, which the pilgrims carry round the neck as talismans, when these things have been duly blessed by the Tashi Lama.
| 143. Lamas Drinking Tea in the Court of Ceremonies in Tashi-lunpo. Sketch by the Author. |
On February 21 I spent nearly the whole day in parts of the monastery I had not previously seen. We wandered through narrow winding corridors, and lanes in deep shadow, between tall white-washed stone houses, in which the monks have their cells. One of the houses was inhabited by student monks from the environs of Leh, Spittok, and Tikze, and we went into the small dark cubicles, hardly larger than my tent. Along one of the longer sides stood the bed, a red-covered mattress, a pillow, and a frieze blanket. The other furniture consisted of some boxes of books, clothing, and religious articles. Holy writings lay opened. A couple of bags contained tsamba and salt, a small altar with idols, votive vessels, and burning butter lamps, and that is all. Here it is dark, cool, damp, and musty—anything but agreeable; very like a prison. But here the man who has consecrated his life to the Church, and stands on a higher level than other men, spends his days. Monks of lower rank live two or three in one cell. Gelongs have cells to themselves, and the chief prelates have much more elegant and spacious apartments.
Each monk receives daily three bowls of tsamba, and takes his meals in his own cell, where tea also is brought to him three times a day. But tea is also handed round during the services in the temple halls, in the lecture-rooms, and in the great quadrangle. No religious rite seems to be too holy to be interrupted at a convenient time by a cup of tea.
One day from the red colonnade (Kabung) I looked down on the court full of lamas, who were sitting in small groups, leaving only narrow passages free, along which novices passed to and fro with hot silver and copper pots, and offered the soup-like beverage stirred up with butter. It had all the appearance of a social “Five o’clock tea” after some service. But the meeting had a certain touch of religion, for occasionally a solemn, monotonous hymn was sung, which sounded wonderfully beautiful and affecting as it reverberated through the enclosed court. On March 4 the quadrangle and other places within the walls of Tashi-lunpo swarmed with women—it was the last day on which the precincts of the monastery were open to them; they would not be admitted again till the next Losar festival (Illustration 150).
The young monk who, when accompanying the Tashi Lama in India, had had an opportunity of learning about photography, had his dark room beside his large elegant cell. I, too, was able to develop my plates there. He asked me to come frequently and give him instructions. He had solid tables, comfortable divans, and heavy handsome hangings in his room, which was lighted with oil lamps at night. There we sat and talked for hours. All of a sudden he took it into his head to learn English. We began with the numerals, which he wrote down in Tibetan characters; after he had learned these by heart he asked for other of the more common words. However, he certainly made no striking progress during the few lessons I gave him.
Care is necessary in walking through the streets of the cloister town, for the flags, which have been trod by thousands of monks for hundreds of years, are worn smooth and are treacherous. Usually there is a good deal of traffic, especially on feast days. Monks come and go, stand talking in groups at the street-corners and in the doorways, pass to and from the services, or are on their way to visit their brethren in their cells; others carry newly-made banners and curtains from the tailor’s shop into the mystical twilight of the gods; while others bear water-cans to fill the bowls on the altars, or sacks of meal and rice for the same purpose. Small trains of mules come to fill the warehouse of the convent, where a brisk business is going on, for a family of 3800 has to be provided for. And then, again, there are pilgrims, who loiter about here only to look in on the gods, swing their prayer mills, and murmur their endless “Om mani padme hum.” Here and there along the walls beggars are sitting, holding out their wooden bowls for the passer-by to place something in, if it is only a pinch of tsamba. The same emaciated, ragged beggars are to be found daily at the same street-corners, where they implore the pity of the passengers in the same whining, beseeching tone. In the narrow lanes, where large prayer mills are built in rows into the wall, and are turned by the passers-by, many poor people are seated, a living reproof of the folly of believing that the turning of a prayer mill alone is a sufficiently meritorious action on the way to the realms of the blessed. In one particularly small room stand two colossal cylindrical prayer mills before which a crowd is always collected—monks, pilgrims, merchants, workmen, tramps and beggars. Such a praying machine contains miles of thin paper strips with prayers printed on them, and wound round and round the axis of the cylinder. There is a handle attached, by which the axle can be turned. A single revolution, and millions of prayers ascend together to the ears of the gods.