On August 10 I sat in my tent door and painted Kailas in different lights (Illust. 260). Its white summit stood out cold and bare against a bright blue cloudless sky, and the lake was of a deep, dazzling ultramarine. When a breeze swept over the surface it was in the distance like clear green malachite. After sunset the sky was orange-coloured, and the lake, of just the same colour, reflected the outlines of the mountains in quivering serpentine lines. The evening before, the whole western horizon had glowed with bright red flames.
CHAPTER XLVIII
OUR LAST DAYS ON TSO-MAVANG
At this time Robert had perfected himself more than I in the Tibetan language, and he talked it almost fluently. Therefore, while my whole time was taken up with other work, he was able to obtain information about the country and people, and perform certain tasks I set him. On the left, shorter wall of the vestibule of Tugu-gompa was an inscription for the enlightenment of pilgrims, and this Robert now translated into Hindustani and English. Freely rendered it runs as follows:
Tso-mavang is the holiest place in the world. In its centre dwells a god in human form, who inhabits a tent composed of turquoise and all kinds of precious stones. In the midst of it grows a tree with a thousand branches, and every branch contains a thousand cells in which a thousand lamas live. The lake tree has a double crown, one rising like a sunshade and shading Kang-rinpoche, the other overshadowing the whole world. Each of the 1022 branches bears an image of a god, and all these images turn their faces towards Gossul-gompa, and in former times all the gods gathered together here. Once golden water was fetched from the lake, and with it the face of Hlobun Rinpoche in Chiu-gompa was gilded, and what was left was used to gild the temple roofs of Tashi-lunpo. In old times the water of the lake flowed over a pass named Pakchu-la to the Ganga-chimbo. Water flows into the lake from all sides, cold, warm, hot, and cool. Water passes from the lake to the Ganga-shei and comes back again. Vapour rises annually from the lake and hovers over it once in the year, and then sinks down into the centre, and the next year the process is repeated. If any one brings up clay from the middle of the lake, that clay is really gold. The lake is the property of the lake-god. The lake is the central point of the whole world. Sambu Tashi grew out of the lake tree. Sochim Pema Dabge is of very holy, clear, and pure water. The Gyagar Shilki chhorten stands in the lake. The palace of the lake-god is in the lake. All the lamas there recite their prayers with one voice. All the gods assemble together in the lake and sit there among chhortens of all kinds, embellished with gold and precious stones. The spirit king of the southern land resides here in a golden house, and is not angry when any one comes to wash and purify himself. If we pray to the spirit king of the southern land, we shall be very wealthy and fortunate. Four large rivers and four small flow out of the lake by underground channels. The four large ones are one warm, one cold, one hot, and one cool. (The Karnali, Brahmaputra, Indus, and Sutlej.) If any one washes in the lake he is cleansed from sin and all impurities. If any one washes once in the lake, the sins of his forefathers are forgiven, and their souls are relieved from purgatorial fires. Datping Ngacha came with 500 pilgrims from Kang-rinpoche to wash in the lake. Lo Mato Gyamo met him and begged him to come to Tso-mavang. Dachung Ngacha and the pilgrims came with heaps of flowers and strewed them in the lake. Dachung Ngacha went three times round the lake and then ascended into heaven.
Of particular interest is the suggestion made here that the four large rivers stream out of Tso-mavang by subterranean passages. As regards the Sutlej this belief is, in my opinion, quite correct. I was told that the fifth Tashi Lama, whose mausoleum we had seen in Tashi-lunpo, once made the pilgrimage to Tso-mavang and went down to the shore at Tugu-gompa to offer a kadakh to the lake-god. The kadakh remained suspended in the air, that is, it was actually hanging on one of the branches of the holy tree, but as the tree is only visible to Rinpoches and genuine incarnations, the kadakh seemed to ordinary mortals to hang alone in the air.
On August 11 we bade a long farewell to the amiable monks of Tugu-gompa, and gave them liberal presents. They accompanied us down to the shore, when we put off on our voyage westwards. Into a large lagoon of the shore, brown and dirty owing to the numerous gulls and wild geese which here wallow in the mud, a brook from Gurla Mandatta runs, and now discharges 37.8 cubic feet of water in a second. All the way along runs a rubbish heap, the continuation of the pebble terrace on which Tugu-gompa stands. The lake bed consists sometimes of sand, sometimes of detritus—offshoots of the detritus cone of Gurla Mandatta. Large collections of weeds form dark patches. Up above, at the mouths of two valleys of Gurla, are seen foaming streams, and it is strange that they do not debouch into the lake. But the explanation is easy. Twenty to fifty yards from the bank numerous small holes in the sand of the lake bed open and close like the valves of an artery, and the surface of the lake above them bubbles. These are springs. The streams disappear in the detritus cone, and the water runs below over impermeable layers of glacial clay. At the edge of the cone the water comes up again under the surface of the lake. I perceived, then, that I must gauge the rivers at the points where they emerge from the mountain valleys, if I would ascertain the exact amount of the tribute Tso-mavang receives.
Near camp 218, quite close to the shore, a spring came to the surface, and where it welled up it had a temperature of 38.1°, and therefore brought down the cold of the glaciers to the lake. As the melted water of the Gurla glaciers retains its low temperature on its subterranean course, it probably assists in keeping the water of the lake cool during the summer. Whole shoals of fish sported at the surface of the water, and snapped at plumed gnats, which were gathered in thick clouds.