Trans-Himalaya: Discoveries and Adventurers in Tibet. Vol. 2 (of 2) — Themes and Context

re his thoughts when the others had gone, and the short hollow echo had died away of the noise he heard when the door was shut for the last time, only to be opened again when he was a corpse? Perhaps something like what Fröding has expressed in his verse:

Here breaks the soul from every bond That fetters to this life its pinion; Here starts the way to the dark beyond, The land of eternal oblivion.

He hears the brethren rolling the heavy stones to the door with levers, piling them up one on another in several layers, and filling up all chinks with smaller stones and fragments. It is not yet quite dark, for there are crevices in the door, and daylight is still visible at the upper edge. But the wall rises. At length there is only a tiny opening through which the last beam falls into the interior of his tomb. Does he become desperate; does he jump up, thrust his hands against the door and try to catch one more glimpse of the sun, which in another moment will vanish from his sight for ever? No one knows and no one will ever know; not even the monks who were present and helped to block up the entrance can answer this question. But he is but a man and he saw how a flagstone was fitted over the hole through which a last ray of daylight fell; and now he has darkness before him, and wherever he turns there is impenetrable darkness.

He assumes that the other monks have gone down again to Samde-puk and Linga. How shall he pass the evening. He need not begin at once to read his holy books; there is plenty of time for that, perhaps forty years. He sits on the mat and leans his head against the wall. Now all his reminiscences come with great distinctness into his mind. He remembers the gigantic characters in the quartzite, "Om mani padme hum," and he murmurs half dreaming the holy syllables, "Oh! thou jewel in the lotus. Amen!" But only a feeble echo answers him. He waits and listens, and then hearkens to the voices of his memory. He wonders whether the first night is falling, but it cannot be darker than it is already in his prison, his grave. Overcome by the travail of his soul, he sleeps, tired and weary, in his corner.

When he awakes, he feels hungry, crawls to the opening and finds the bowl of _tsamba_ in the tunnel. With water from the spring he prepares his meal, eats it, and, when he has finished, puts the bowl in the loophole again. Then he sits cross-legged, his rosary in his hands, and prays. One day he finds tea and butter in the bowl and some sticks beside it. He feels about with his hands and finds the flint, and steel, and the tinder, and kindles a small fire under the tea-can. By the light of the flame he sees the interior of his den again, lights the lamp before the images, and begins to read his books; but the fire goes out and six days must pass before he gets tea again.

The days pass and now comes autumn with its heavy rains; he hears them not, but the walls of his den seem to be moister than usual. It seems to him a long time since he saw the sun and the daylight for the last time. And years slip by and his memory grows weak and hazy. He has read the books he brought with him again and again, and he cares no more for them; he crouches in his corner and murmurs their contents, which he has long known by heart. He lets the beads of his rosary slip through his fingers mechanically, and stretches out his hand for the _tsamba_ bowl unconsciously. He crawls along the walls feeling the cold stones with his hands, if haply he may find a chink through which a ray of light can pass. No, he hardly knows now what it is like outside on sunny paths. How slowly time passes! Only in sleep does he forget his existence and escape from the hopelessness of the present. And he thinks: "What is a short earthly life in darkness compared to the glorious light of eternity?" The sojourn in darkness is only a preparation. Through days and nights and long years of solitude the pondering monk seeks the answer to the riddle of life and the riddle of death, and clings to the belief that he will live again in a glorified form of existence when his period of trial is over. It is faith alone which can explain his inconceivable fortitude of mind.

It is difficult to picture to oneself the changes through which the lama passes during successive decades in the darkness of his cell. His sight must become weak, perhaps be extinguished altogether. His muscles shrink, his senses become more and more clouded. Longing for the light cannot pursue him as a fixed idea, for it is in his power to write down his decision to curtail his time of trial, and return to the light, on one of the leaves of his books with a splinter dipped in soot. He has only to place such a paper in the empty _tsamba_ bowl. But the monks had never known a case of the kind. They only knew that the lama who had been walled in for sixty-nine years had wished to see the sun again before he died. I had heard from monks who were in Tong at the time that he had written down his wish to be let out. He was all bent up together and as small as a child, and his body was nothing but a light-grey parchment-like skin and bones. His eyes had lost their colour, were quite bright and blind. His hair hung round his head in uncombed matted locks and was pure white. His body was covered only by a rag, for time had eaten away his clothing and he had received no new garments. He had a thin unkempt beard, and had never washed himself all the time or cut his nails. Of the monks who sixty-nine years before had conducted him to his cell, not one survived. He was then quite young himself, but all his contemporaries had been removed by death, and new generations of monks had passed through the cloisters; he was a complete stranger to them all. And he had scarcely been carried out into the sunlight when he too gave up the ghost.

In analysing the state of such a soul, fancy has free play, for we know nothing about it. Waddell and Landon, who took part in Younghusband's expedition to Lhasa, and visited the hermits' caves at Nyang-tö-ki-pu, say that the monks who have there retired into perpetual darkness first underwent shorter experiences of isolation, the first lasting six months, and the second three years and ninety-three days, and that those who had passed through the second period of trial showed signs that they were intellectually inferior to other monks. The cases which the two Englishmen have described seem not to have been so severe a trial as the one I saw and heard about in Linga, for in the Nyang-tö-ki-pu caves the lama who waited on the recluse tapped on a stone slab which closed the small opening, and at this signal the immured lama put his hand out of this door for his food; he immediately drew the stone shutter to again, but in this way he would at least see the light of the sun for a moment every day. In the cases described by Waddell and Landon the immured monks had passed some twenty years in confinement. Waddell, who has a thorough knowledge of Lamaism, believes that the custom of seclusion for life is only an imitation of the practice of pure Indian Buddhism, which enjoins periodical retreats from the world for the purpose of self-examination and of acquiring greater clearness in abstruse questions. In his opinion the Tibetans have made an end of the means.

Undoubtedly this opinion is correct, but it is not exhaustive. It may be that the future hermit has in religious delusion come to the decision to allow himself to be buried alive. But does he clearly conceive what this means? If he became dull and insensible like an animal in his cell, all his energy and his power of will would be deadened, and what seemed to him, when he entered, to be worth striving for, would gradually become more and more indifferent to him. But this is not the case, for he adheres firmly to his decision, and therefore his energy must remain unimpaired. He must possess a steadfast faith, an immovable conviction, which is exposed to a harder trial because he is alone and death alone can visit him in his cave. Possibly he becomes by degrees a victim of self-delusion, so that his longing for the last hour in the long night of his den gives place to the feeling that he is always at the moment when the hour-glass of time has run down. He must have lost all idea of time, and the darkness of the grave appears to him only as a second in eternity. For the means he formerly had of marking the flight of time and impressing it on his memory no longer exist. The changes from winter to summer, from day to night, are only made known to him by the rise or fall of the temperature in his den. He remembers that several rainy seasons have passed by, and perhaps they seem to him to follow closely on one another while his brain is clouded by monotony. It is inconceivable that he does not become insane, that he does not call out for the light, that he does not jump up and run his head against the wall in the agony of despair, or beat it against the sharp edges of the stones till he bleeds to death and frees himself by committing suicide.

But he waits patiently for death, and death may delay its coming for ten or twenty years. His remembrance of the world and life outside his cell becomes fainter and fainter; he has long forgotten the dawn in the east and the golden clouds of sunset; and when he looks up his dimmed eyes perceive no stars twinkling in the night, only the black ceiling of his cave. At last, however, after long years have passed in the darkness, suddenly a great brilliancy flashes out--that is, when Death comes, takes him by the hand, and leads him out. And Death has not to wait, entreat, and coax, for the lama has waited and longed for his welcome and only guest and deliverer. If he has had his mind still clear, he has taken the little wooden stand under his arms so that he may die in the same sacred position in which Buddha is represented in all the thousands of statues and pictures which have come under our notice in our wanderings through the cloister temples of Tibet.

When the _tsamba_ bowl, which has been filled daily for so many long years, remains at last untouched and the six days have expired, the cave is opened and the abbot of the monastery sits down beside the deceased and prays for him, while all the other monks pray in the _dukang_ hall for five or six days together. Then the body is wrapped in a white garment, a covering called _ringa_ is placed on his head, and he is burned on a pyre. The ashes are collected, kneaded together with clay, and moulded into a small pyramid, which is deposited in a _chhorten_.

The Linga monks said that an ordinary lama, when he dies, is cut in pieces and abandoned to the birds. This process is performed here by five lamas, who, though they belong to the monastery, attend the service in the _dukang_, and drink tea with the other monks, are still considered unclean, and may not eat with the other brethren. Also when nomads die in the neighbourhood, their services are required, but then the relatives are bound to provide them with horses and to undertake that the property of the deceased shall pass into the possession of the monastery.

For days and weeks I could not drive away the picture I had formed in my mind of the Lama Rinpoche, before whose cell we had stood and talked. And still less could I forget his predecessor, who had lived there forty years. I fancied I could hear the conch which summoned the monks to the funeral mass of the departed. I pictured to myself the scene in the cave where the lama, crouching in rags on the floor, stretches out his withered hands to Death, who, kindly smiling like the skull masks in the temples, gives him one hand while he holds a brightly burning lamp in the other. The features of the monk are transfigured in a reflexion of Nirvana, and forgetting the "Om mani padme hum" that for tens of years has reverberated from the walls of his den, he raises, as the trumpet blasts sound out from the temple roof, a song of victory, which calls to mind the following strophe from the myths of another people (_Frithiof's Saga_, Blackley's translation):

Hail, ye deities bright! Ye Valhalla sons! Earth fadeth away; to the heavenly feast Glad trumpets invite Me, and blessedness crowns, As fair, as with gold helm, your hastening guest.

OVER THE CHANG-LA-POD-LA

We had stayed three days near the monastery Linga, when we went on north-westwards on April 17 up the narrow My-chu valley, in which the volume of water was now considerably diminished. Space does not permit me to describe in detail this wonderful road and its wild beauty. From the expansion of the valley at Linga routes run eastwards and westwards into the mountains, with branches to numerous villages, of which I noted down the names and approximate positions. The traffic is now much less, but still numerous _manis_ and other religious symbols stand beside the solitary path.

We ride along the steep slopes of the right bank; below us the river forms rapids, and the way is dangerous, especially with a horse that is not sure on its feet. Robert's small bay filly stumbled and fell, so that the rider was thrown headlong to the ground. Had he rolled down the slope he would have been lost; but fortunately he fell towards the mountain.

We encamped in the village Langmar, consisting of a few scattered houses, at the entrance of the small side valley Langmar-pu.

We still have hired horses, and now yaks also, and the caravan is divided into the same detachments as before. Sonam Tsering and Guffaru command their sections. Tsering's party sets out last and is the last to come to rest, and Muhamed Isa supervises the whole. In the evening he is massaged by two men selected for the purpose, of whom Rehim Ali is one. There is still _chang_, the harmless, but still intoxicating, beer. Among the singers at the camp-fires, Tsering, as usual, deserves the first prize. He gives me no end of amusement; he sings like a cow, or at best like a burst temple drum. His voice cracks continually, and he loses the time and the melody without being the least put out. But he considers his singing very fine, and the others take pleasure in it; one can tell from a distance that the tears are coming into his eyes. Sometimes he pauses to explain the subject of the ballad and take a drink, and then he goes on again. When all the others are asleep, and all is so quiet in the camp that the rushing of the stream is audible and from time to time the bark of a dog, Tsering's rough voice trilling harshly still resounds among the mountains.

Next day we draw near to the main crest of the Trans-Himalaya, for to my great surprise and delight we have been conducted in this direction. Granite still predominates, and in it erosion has excavated the wild forms of the valleys; the way is tolerably good, but very stony; small strips of ice lie along both banks of the stream, within which the bright green water fills the valley with the roar of its impetuosity. The dark green of a kind of juniper called _pama_ is a relief to the eyes, which otherwise perceive nothing but grey slopes of detritus.

The river here is named Langmar-tsangpo, but it is really only the upper course of the My-chu. It is formed by the Ke-tsangpo coming from the north and the Govo-tsangpo from the west. The former, called in its upper course Ogorung-tsangpo, descends from the main watershed of the Trans-Himalaya, and must therefore be considered the main stream. I was told that its source may be reached in a day and a half from the junction of the valleys. On the left bank of the Govo a thicket of _pama_ shrubs grows, and a safe bridge of three arches spans the river. Over this bridge runs the important trade route to Tok-jalung which I have mentioned above. Herds of yaks and flocks of sheep graze on the slopes, and circular penfolds remind us of our life in the Chang-tang. A little farther up we cross the Govo, which is half frozen over; springs and brooks from the side valleys adorn the scene with cascades of ice. The river is said to be here so swollen in summer that it cannot be crossed at any point. To the north and south snowy mountains are visible.

In the village of Govo, consisting of seven stone houses, barley is cultivated and yields a moderate crop; but the inhabitants are not dependent on the harvest, for they also possess sheep, goats, and yaks, with which they migrate northwards in summer. Govo is the last village where agriculture is pursued, so we here find ourselves on the boundary between tillage and grazing, and also between stone houses and black tents (Illust. 182).

We have, then, still time to look into an ordinary Tibetan stone hut belonging to a family in comfortable circumstances. The walls are built of untrimmed bare stones, but the crevices are stopped with earth to keep out the wind. Through a labyrinth of walls and over round stones where the tripping foot seldom touches the ground we come to two yards where goats and calves are kept. In a third is a loom, at which a half-naked coppery-brown woman is working, and in a fourth sits an old man engaged in cutting up _pama_ shrubs.

From this yard we entered a half-dark room, with a floor of mud, and two openings in the roof, through which the smoke escapes and the daylight enters. The roof consists of beams overlaid with a thatch of brushwood, which is covered all over with soil and flat stones--it must be nice and dry when it rains. There sat an elderly woman telling off her _manis_ on a rosary of porcelain beads.

The next room is the kitchen, the general living-room and the principal apartment of the house. At a projecting wall stands the stone cooking-range with round black-edged holes for saucepans and teapots of baked clay. A large earthen pot, standing on the fire, contains barley, which is eaten parched; a stick with a stiff piece of leather at the end is twirled round in the barley between the palms so that it may be roasted equally. It tastes delicious.