On one of the longer sides the folios of the Kanjur, the collection of canonical books contained in 108 volumes, as many as the beads in a rosary, are arranged in pigeon-holes. The Tanjur, the other collection, consists of 235 folios—a caravan of about 150 horses would be necessary to carry the two bibles of the Tibetans. Only rich monasteries are able to keep both. The thought that no one but themselves has waded through these endless scriptures must inspire a feeling of security in the monks. A layman is unable to confound a monk; he has never had an opportunity of dipping deeply into these everlasting truths.
Above the idols and the altar runs a frieze of small Buddha images forming, perhaps unintentionally, a highly decorative element of the internal architecture of the hall.
Beside it lies the Kasang-lhakang, a temple with sixteen pillars and a statue of the Sakya-tubpa. The hall is well lighted with skylights, and abounds in gold and valuables, climbing flowers, sacred trees, and lacquered shrines inlaid with gold. Here, too, are holy writings with unusually elegant margins; an embroidered silk cover is laid over each volume. A copper gong is sounded whenever fresh water is poured into the votive bowls.
The Tsokang is a more elevated hall, which is draped with black hangings striped white at the bottom.
Monks were sitting in a small open space with a quantity of small articles before them; it was an auction, at which the worldly goods of a departed brother were being sold. I acquired some wooden blocks with which the holy scriptures are printed by hand.
| 178. Tarting-gompa. |
| 179. Sego-chummo Lhakang in Tarting-gompa. Sketch by the Author. |
In the Ganden-lhakang we see two chhortens of gold and precious stones. In one of them are preserved relics of a Grand Lama, some of his blood, his bones, and his intestines. In a room situated beside this hall we saw with surprise six curious figures of cast iron, representing Europeans in the dress of the thirties of the nineteenth century, with tall chimney-pot hats, stiff folded neck-cloths, upstanding collars, and dress coats with high collars, whiskers, and moustaches. They had come from Pekin, and were quite out of place here before the tasteful group of Buddhas, which was set up in a red lacquered niche, where climbing plants, dragons, and small figures like Cupids or angels were beautifully carved.
The Mankang-lhakang has figures of the higher gods on the walls, and in the middle a prayer cylinder rises from the floor up to the ceiling, 11½ feet high, and of such circumference that I laid my outstretched arms four times round it, measuring from finger-tips to finger-tips. Its red surface is covered with gigantic golden characters, and round the middle of the cylinder dances a string of goddesses. A smaller hall of the same kind is called Mankang-chang. On the upper edge of its prayer cylinder is a peg which, as the cylinder revolves, strikes against the clapper of a bell. An old lama sat before it and kept the cylinder in constant motion by means of a string attached to a crank on the iron axle. It is the duty of himself and another monk to keep this monstrosity humming all the day and half the night, or from sunrise to midnight. As he sat turning, he said his prayers, but he did not murmur them in the usual way. No, he bellowed, he howled out inarticulate sounds, so that he foamed at the mouth, perspired, and groaned, throwing himself violently back at each revolution, and then bending forward again. He was, so I was told, in a religious ecstasy, and did not hear, however loudly one shouted to him. I should prefer the oar of a galley slave to this monster, which cripples any capacity of thinking freely in the darkness of the crypt, where only musty dumb gods can be witnesses of its rotations. I looked at my watch; the bell sounded nine times in a minute, so that the machine makes 10,000 revolutions before the midnight hour comes to release the weary monk.
We passed the whole day in the wonderful monastery Tashi-gembe, which, after Tashi-lunpo, is the richest and finest I have seen in Tibet. As to cleanliness and good taste, it surpasses all. The temple halls were well lighted by numerous windows, the mid-day sun shone in between the pillars and produced a bewitching play of light and shade, and revealed a charming arrangement of colours between red and gold. Some monks sat on a divan and conversed with our companions; they made a clear and effective picture in the sunlight, red on a red background. Others leaned against the pillars, solemn as Roman senators in their togas, in a flood of sunshine, while a dense group of their brethren was dimly seen under the shadows of the gallery. And where the sunbeams played on the gold of Buddha’s robe and broke on the leaves of the golden lotus-flower, out of which he rises, reflexions were scattered through the fairy hall, and the pillars shone like transparent rubies. We were dazzled by these effects of light, and might have been transplanted to the halls of the gnomes.
In contrast to all this wealth, an old blind man of eighty sat at a street-corner with a staff in each hand, and sang a beggar’s ditty. Beside him lay a half-starved dog, his only friend in this world. The pitying love of Sakya-muni did not extend so far as to release this old man from the bonds of age and suffering. He also found a place in the picture gallery of my sketch-book, which on this memorable day received considerable additions. As ever, I felt myself to be only a passing pilgrim, a wanderer who had crossed the threshold of Tashi-gembe for a few hours, and a stranger and guest in the dreary valleys of Tibet and its mysterious enchanting temples.