The mystic words rang constantly in my ears. I heard them when the sun rose and when I blew out my light, and I did not escape them even in the wilderness, for my own men murmured “Om mani padme hum.” They belong to Tibet, these words; they are inseparable from it: I cannot imagine the snow-capped mountains and the blue lakes without them. They are as closely connected with this country as buzzing with the bee-hive, as the flutter of streamers with the pass, as the ceaseless west wind with its howling.
The life of the Tibetan from the cradle to the grave is interwoven with a multitude of religious precepts and customs. It is his duty to contribute his mite to the maintenance of the monasteries and to the Peter’s pence of the temples. When he passes a votive cairn he adds a stone to the pile as an offering; when he rides by a mani, he never forgets to guide his steed to the left of it; when he sees a holy mountain, he never omits to lay his forehead on the ground in homage; in all important undertakings he must, for the sake of his eternal salvation, seek the advice of monks learned in the law; when a mendicant lama comes to his door he never refuses to give him a handful of tsamba or a lump of butter; when he makes the round of the temple halls, he adds his contribution to the collection in the votive bowls; and when he saddles his horse or loads a yak, he again hums the everlasting “Om mani padme hum.”
More frequently than an Ave Maria or a Paternoster in the Catholic world, “Om mani padme hum” forms an accompaniment to the life and wanderings of humanity over half Asia. The boundless vista opened out by the six holy syllables is thus expressed by Edwin Arnold in the concluding lines of his poem, The Light of Asia:
| The dew is on the lotus. Rise, Great Sun! And lift my leaf and mix me with the wave. Om mani padme hum, the sunrise comes. The dewdrop slips into the shining sea. |
| 276. The Policemen from Simla. |
| 277. My Boat on the Indus. |
| 278. Ladaki Women. |
CHAPTER LIII
THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOURCE OF THE INDUS
Immediately on my arrival in Khaleb I told the old gova, who had the hopeless and thankless task of watching my proceedings, that I now intended to take the road past Singi-kabab, or the source of the Indus.