is a mark of the orthodox yellow-caps.
| 169. The Little Brother of his Holiness with a Servant. |
Farther up lies another village, having a chhorten with a gilded turret in a copse of old trees. A red house is the lhakang (God’s House) of Tarting-gompa, and behind stands the house of the Grand Lama, picturesque and unique, built in the usual cubical style, with white steps and flat roof. Above it Tarting-gompa is throned on its hill like Chimre or Tikze in Ladak (Illustrations 173, 174, 178).
We enter the court of the lhakang with its red walls; on two sides a roof is supported by posts, a shed for the riding horses, pack-mules, men and women who carry firewood and goods—a cloister and a caravanserai at the same time, where labour finds harbourage under the protection of religion—and over it waves a long flag from a tarchen, a mast standing in the midst of the court. The convent dog is chained up. The gate has an unusually high threshold; on the side walls of the entrance a tiger is painted in fresh colours. We now enter the lhakang, and I must confess that I started with surprise in the portal, for we had seen many halls of the gods in Tashi-lunpo, but never yet one so large, ancient and so wonderfully fascinating in its mysterious light.
What rich and subdued colouring! The Sego-chummo-lhakang, as it is called, is like a crypt, a fairy grotto, recalling to mind the rock temples of Elephanta; but here all is of red-painted wood, and 48 pillars support the roof. The capitals are green and gold, carved in intricate and tasteful designs, and carved lions, arabesques, and tendrils adorn the projecting beams of the ceiling. The floor consists of stone flags, their cracks filled up with the dust of centuries, so that it is smooth and even as asphalt. The daylight falls into the hall through a square impluvium, spanned by a network of chains. There stands the throne of the Tashi Lama, who visited the convent two years ago, and is expected again in two years, and opposite is a pyramidal stand, which is hung with lamps at certain festivals. A lama sits all day long at a tall prayer-cylinder (korlo or mankor) about 6 feet high, with a pile of loose leaves a foot high in front of him, which he turns over rapidly, and gabbles their contents so quickly that one wonders how his tongue can move so fast. Frequently he beats a drum, then he clashes cymbals, or turns the prayer-cylinder in the heterodox direction (Illustrations 179, 254).
In another saloon, beside this, repose Grand Lamas of the Pembo sect, high priests of Tarting-gompa. We find here the same four-sided passage as round the sepulchres of Tashi-lunpo. But as I was going, as usual, from right to left, lamas hurried up to stop me. The monuments are like chhorten, and are covered with gold plaques and precious stones. Twelve statues of deceased high priests have behind them huge gilded halos, richly carved with carefully executed detail. Beside Shen Nime Kudun’s monument lie two black smoothly-polished round blocks, apparently of porphyry or diabase. On one of them is seen the impression of the foot of the above-named Grand Lama. On the edge of the other are four impressions, his four fingers, just as though the flat hand with the fingers a little expanded had been pressed against a piece of hard butter. One can try it with one’s own hand; the fingers fit in exactly, and the hollows are about 3/4 inch deep. It is well and naturally executed—pia fraus!
“When was the monastery founded?” I asked.
“That was so long ago that no one now living knows.”