| OM MANI PADME HUM |
CHAPTER LII
OM MANI PADME HUM
Now begins the last very steep zigzag in the troublesome path among sharp or round grey boulders of every form and size, a cone of blocks with steps in it. Dung-chapje is the name of a round wall of stone, in the midst of which is a smaller boulder, containing in a hollow depression a round stone like the cleft hoof of a wild yak. When the faithful pilgrim passes this spot, he takes this stone, strikes it against the bottom of the hollow and turns it once round like a pestle. Consequently the hollow is being constantly deepened, and one day it will be lowered right through the block.
We mount up a ridge with brooks flowing on both sides. On every rock, which has a top at all level, small stones are piled up, and many of these pyramidal heaps are packed so closely that there is no room for another stone. Thanks to these cairns the pilgrim can find his way in snowstorm and fog, though without them he could not easily find it in sunshine.
At length we see before us a gigantic boulder, its cubical contents amounting perhaps to 7,000 or 10,000 cubic feet; it stands like an enormous milestone on the saddle of Dolma-la, which attains the tremendous height of 18,599 feet. On the top of the block smaller stones are piled up into a pyramid supporting a pole, and from its end cords decorated with rags and streamers are stretched to other poles fixed in the ground. Horns and bones, chiefly shoulder-blades of sheep, are here deposited in large quantities—gifts of homage to the pass, which is supposed to mark the half-way point of the pilgrimage. When the pilgrim arrives here, he smears a bit of butter on the side of the stone, plucks out a lock of his own hair and plasters it into the butter. Thus he has offered up some of himself and some of his belongings. Consequently the stone resembles a huge wig-block, from which black locks of hair flutter in the wind. In time it would be completely covered with Tibetan hair, were it not that the locks occasionally fall off and are blown away by the wind. Teeth are stuck in all the chinks of the Dolma block, forming whole rosaries of human teeth. If you have a loose tooth, dedicate it to the spirits of the pass. Tsering unfortunately was toothless, or he would gladly have conformed to this regulation.
Heaps of rags lie all around, for the pilgrim has always a spare shred to hang on a string or lay at the foot of the block. But he not only gives, but also takes. Our old man took a rag from the heap and had a large quantity of such relics round his neck, for he had taken one from every cairn.
The view is grand, though Kailas itself is not visible. But one can see the sharp black ridge lying quite close on the south side with a mantle of snow and a hanging glacier, its blue margin cut off perpendicularly at the small moraine lake on the eastern side of the pass.
While I sat at the foot of the block, making observations and drawing the panorama, a lama came strolling up leaning on his stick. He carried a book, a drum, a dorche, and a bell, and likewise a sickly-looking child in a basket on his back. The parents, nomads in the valley below, had given him tsamba for two days to carry the child round the mountain, whereby it would recover its health. Many pilgrims gain their livelihood by such services, and some make the pilgrimage only for the benefit of others. The lama with the child complained that he had only made the circuit of the mountain three times, and did not possess money enough to go round thirteen times. I gave him alms.
Then he sat down on the pass, turned his face in the direction where the summit of Kang-rinpoche was hidden, placed his hands together, and chanted an interminable succession of prayers. After this he went up to the block and laid his forehead on the ground—how many times I do not know, but he was still at it when we descended among boulders to the tiny round lake Tso-kavála. We followed its northern shore, and our old friend told me that the ice never breaks up.