A PILGRIMAGE ROUND KANG-RINPOCHE
We are again on the Khaleb moor and the day is September 3, on which we
are to begin the circuit of the holy mountain. The head Gova of Parka is
with us to hold me in check, but I take very good care not to betray my
plans. Tsering, Rabsang, Namgyal, and Ishe are to go with me; they are
Lamaists, and are glad of the opportunity to come nearer the gates of
salvation by wandering round the holy mountain. We take provisions for
three days, the absolutely necessary instruments, sketch- and
note-books. The stand of the large camera and one of the boat's
tarpaulins are to serve as a tent. The whole baggage is only a light
load for a horse. I ride my small grey Ladaki and the four men march on
foot, for no one may ride round the holy mountain unless he is a
heathen, like myself. The rest of the caravan is to wait for us in
Khaleb, and my tent is to be left untouched that the Tibetans may think
that I am expected back in the evening.
Tsering, Namgyal, and Ishe start early, and Rabsang and I a little
later. The Gova and his men come to ask what it all means and whither I
am going, but I answer only, "I shall soon be back again," and ride off
to the north, 30° E., to the mouth of the Dunglung valley.
The others wait for us among the first moraines, and then we proceed in
close column up and down among old moraines which have been thrust down
by vanished glaciers. A party of pilgrims from Kham in the distant east
are resting on the bank of the Dunglung river. They have pitched their
tents, and their horses are grazing on the fresh grass. From the top of
the moraine is seen the northern part of our stormy Langak-tso.
We ride up the valley and soon have on both sides solid rock of hard
green and violet conglomerate, with huge cones of detritus at the foot
of the slopes. Enormous boulders of conglomerate have fallen down here.
On the left bank of the river, where the road comes up from Tarchen,
stand a small cubical house and several _manis_ and _chhortens_ in long
rows: it is a sacred road, the road of pilgrims round Kang-rinpoche.
The cliffs assume ever wilder forms, falling perpendicularly to terraces
and pebble screes, forming steps and ledges, fortifications, battlements
and towers, as though built by human hands. They consist of sandstone
and conglomerate, and the strata dip 10° to the south, and to the eye
appear horizontal. A small bridge spans the river. A party of pilgrims
behind us is just crossing it. But we are on the right bank, and above
us Nyandi-gompa is perched on its terrace. Above it rises the vertical
wall of a huge mountain mass, a dangerous background for the monastery.
Up on a ledge dwells a hermit, and quite at the top stands a streamer
pole named Nyandi-kong. Five years ago a huge block fell down upon the
monastery and laid half of it in ruins. The block still lies in the
inner court. It was early in the morning after long-continuous rain; no
one was hurt, but the monastery had to be rebuilt.
Two monks, two old women, and a boy received us kindly, and said it was
the first time they had seen a European in Nyandi. The monastery, as
well as the three others on Kailas, is under Tarchen-labrang, which is
situated on the southern foot of the mountain, where the pilgrims begin
and end their circuit. Curiously enough, these monasteries belong to
Tongsa Penlop, the Raja of Bhotan. The preceding year, 1906, was a year
of the fire horse, and the year 1918 will be a year of the earth horse;
every twelfth year is a horse year, in which wood, fire, earth, iron or
water is prefixed to the name horse; the Tibetan cycle (the period of
time which is the base of the reckoning) extends over sixty years with
the names of twelve different animals. Every horse year, and accordingly
every twelfth year, crowds of pilgrims come to Kailas. The monks said
that they cannot be counted, but they knew that in the year 1907 more
than 5000 pilgrims had been at Nyandi, of whom the greater part came
from Ladak.
The _lhakang_, or hall of the gods, is very original. Four pillars
support the roof. The altar, like a Chinese kiosque of wood painted in
colours, stands alone and in deep shadow, but so many votive lights are
placed in front that they seem like a festival illumination. An especial
lamp hangs before the image of Sakya-muni, which stands against a wall.
In front of the altar is a huge copper vessel with a cover, which is
called Tosungjön. It is said to have flown in old times from India
through the air. In winter it is filled with butter, in summer with
_chang_. A lama with a brass ladle poured the consecrated beverage into
the bowls of my men, and out of the silver bowls with peacocks' feathers
he poured holy water into the hollow of their hands; they drank of it
and besmeared their faces with the rest. All, except Rabsang, paid due
reverence to the statues and prayed, and Tsering had murmured his
prayers all the way along and let the beads of his rosary slip through
his fingers. Two fine elephant's tusks (_langchen-sala-rapten_) were set
up before the altar.
In the Tsenkang hall is a figure of Hlabsen clothed in gold brocade and
_kadakhs_, the god of Kang-rinpoche and Tso-mavang. In the ante-chamber
is a whole arsenal of guns and swords and wooden and leathern shields,
each with four iron bosses. On the outside of the monastery, which
fronts the holy mountain, rows of artistically sculptured slabs are
affixed. On six of them each of the holy characters is incised, and each
of the gigantic characters is again filled in with the invariable alpha
and omega of Lamaism, "Om mani padme hum." On other flagstones gods are
carved with wonderful dexterity, and one feels a vain desire to buy one
or two of them.
The view from the roof is indescribably beautiful. The icy summit of
Kang-rinpoche rises amid fantastic fissured precipitous rocks, and in
the foreground are the picturesque superstructure of the monastery and
its streamers (Illust. 265).
But time flies. After spending three hours in Nyandi, we say farewell to
the monks, descend the steep path zigzagging among rubbish and boulders,
and continue our journey to the north-north-east along the right bank of
the river. At every turn I could stand still in astonishment, for this
valley is one of the grandest and most beautiful in its wildness that I
have ever seen. The precipice on the right side of the valley is divided
into two stages with a terrace between them, and in the midst gapes a
dark ravine. On the left side the rock forms a single vertical wall, and
here the eyes fall on a succession of singular forms of relief, rocks
like congealed cascades, citadels, church towers, and embattled
fortifications, separated by cañon-like hollows. Water from melting
snowfields pours down the steep slopes. One such jet of water is quite
800 feet high and white as milk; the wind turns it into spray, but it
collects again, only to be split up against a projection. The rock
around it is wet and dark with spurted drops. A natural rock bridge
crosses a small cleft with vertical walls.
Immediately beyond the monastery the summit of Kailas is lost to view,
but soon a bit of it is seen again through a gap. We passed twelve
pilgrims, and soon after a second party resting on a slope. They put on
solemn faces and do not talk with one another, but murmur prayers,
walking with their bodies bent, and leaning on a staff--frequently, too,
without a staff. How they have longed to come here! And now they are
here and walk round the mountain, which is always on their right. They
feel no weariness, for they know that every step improves their
prospects in the world beyond the river of death. And when they have
returned to their black tents in distant valleys, they tell their
friends of all the wonders they have seen, and of the clouds, which sail
like the dragon ships of old below the white summit of Gangri.
Small conical cairns are everywhere. Tsering never omits to take up a
stone from the margin of the road and lay it as his contribution on
every such votive pile, and thereby he does a good deed, for he makes
the way less rough for those who come after him. The sun looks out
through a gap, and throws a bright yellow light into the valley, which
otherwise is in shadow. The icy peak again appears much foreshortened.
Several tributaries come in from the sides, and towards evening the
river rises, containing quite 280 cubic feet of water.
A man from Gertse has been going round the mountain for twenty
successive days, and now has just accomplished his tenth circuit.
Dunglung-do is a very important valley junction, where three valleys
converge--the Chamo-lung-chen from the north, 70° W., the Dunglung from
the north, 5° W., and the third, called in its upper course Hle-lungpa,
which we ascend. We now have granite on both sides. Kailas turns a sharp
edge to the north, and from here the peak resembles a tetrahedron more
than ever. Again the mountain is concealed by an elevation of the ring
which girdles it as Monte Somma encircles Vesuvius. The main river
swells up towards evening; the other two are spanned by bridges. Numbers
of boulders lie all about. All is granite, and therefore the mountain
forms are rounder and more lumpy (Illust. 267).
At length we see the monastery Diri-pu in front of us, standing on the
slope on the right side of the valley. A huge block of granite beside
the path up to it bears the usual sacred characters, and there also are
long _manis_, streamers, and cairns. All the pilgrims we have overtaken
in the course of the day turn into the monastery, where they can pass
the night free of charge. The convent is crammed full after the arrival
of a party of pilgrims belonging to the Pembo sect. These, of course,
wander round the mountain in the reverse direction, and the orthodox
cast contemptuous glances at them when they meet. I prefer to pitch my
tent on the roof, where the luggage of the pilgrims is piled up. Here
also there is a fine view of Kailas, raising its summit due south. With
a temperature of 40° at nine o'clock it is cold and disagreeable, for a
strong wind blows, and my tent, consisting only of the camera-stand
covered with a linen cloth, is too small to allow of a fire being
lighted (Illust. 268).
Since I had been successful in fixing the positions of the sources of
the Brahmaputra and Sutlej, my old dream of discovering the source of
the Indus was revived, and all my aspirations and ambition were now
concentrated on this object. When I now learned from the monks that the
point where the famous river issues forth from the "Mouth of the Lion"
was only three days' journey to the north-east beyond a lofty pass,
everything else seemed of trifling consequence compared to an advance
into the unknown country in the north. We held a council of war; we had
provisions only for two days more, and we had not brought enough money
with us, and, moreover, the state of affairs in Khaleb was too uncertain
to allow of greater hazards. I therefore decided to carry out my
original plan in the meantime and complete the pilgrimage, and
afterwards make the source of the Indus the object of a fresh excursion
from Khaleb, or, if the worst came to the worst, from Gartok.
[Illustration: 271. THE GOVA BY WHOSE HELP THE SOURCE OF THE INDUS WAS
DISCOVERED (SEATED) AND TIBETANS AT KAILAS.]
On September 4 we take leave of the monks of Diri-pu, cross by a bridge
the river which comes down from the pass Tseti-lachen-la in the
Trans-Himalaya, from the other side of which the water flows to the
Indus, and mount in an easterly direction over rough steep slopes
thickly bestrewn with granite boulders. On our right is the river which
is fed by the glaciers of Kailas; it is quite short, but is very full of
water. The path becomes still steeper, winding among immense blocks of
granite, and leads up to the first hump, after which the ground is a
little more even to the next break. Here we have a splendid view of the
short truncated glacier which, fed from a sharply defined trough-shaped
firn basin, lies on the north side of Kailas. Its terminal, lateral, and
medial moraines are small but distinct. Eastwards from Kailas runs off
an exceedingly sharp, pointed, and jagged ridge, covered on the north
side with snow, and belts of pebbles in the snow give all this side a
furrowed appearance. From all corners of the ice mantle and the
snowfields foaming brooks hurry down to the river. On our left,
northwards, the mountains consist of vertical fissured granite in
wild pyramidal forms. Kailas is protected on the north by immense masses
of granite, but the mountain itself is in all probability of
conglomerate, as shown by the nearly horizontal bedding plainly
perceptible in the projecting ledges, sharply marked snow-lines, and
belts of ice. The summit rises above this sea of wild mountains like a
mighty crystal of hexagonal form.
A party of poor women and children climbed wearily up to the pass. An
elderly man, who was now making his ninth circuit, made no objection to
join our party; he knew the country and could give information about it.
On another rise in the ground, called Tutu-dapso, we saw hundreds of
votive cairns, 3 feet high--quite a forest of stone pyramids--like
innumerable gravestones in a churchyard (Illust. 270).
Slowly and laboriously we climbed up this arduous pass, one of the most
troublesome on the whole journey. Thicker and thicker lay the boulders,
exclusively of granite in all possible varieties, some pink and some so
light a grey as to be almost white. Between two boulders lay a
suspicious-looking bundle of clothes. We examined it, and found that it
contained the body of a man who had collapsed in making the tour of the
mountain of the gods. His features were rigid, and he seemed poor and
emaciated. No one knew who he was, and if he had any relations they
would never learn that his pilgrimage had launched him into new
adventures among the dark mazes of the soul's migrations.
Our old man stops at a flat granite block of colossal dimensions, and
says that this is a _dikpa-karnak_, or a test-stone for sinners. A
narrow tunnel runs under the block, and whoever is without sin, or at
any rate has a clear conscience, can creep through the passage, but the
man who sticks fast in the middle is a scoundrel. I asked the old man
whether it might not happen that a thin rogue would wriggle through
while a fat, honest fellow might stick fast; but he answered very
seriously that stoutness had nothing to do with the result of the trial,
which depended only on the state of the soul. Evidently our honest Ishe
was not certain which way the balance of his conscience inclined, for,
before we were aware, we saw him disappearing under the block, and heard
him puffing, panting, and groaning, scratching with his hands and trying
to get a foothold behind. But when he had floundered about inside long
and vigorously, he was at last obliged to call for help in a
half-strangled voice. We laughed till we could hardly keep on our feet,
and let him stay a while in his hole because of his manifest sinfulness.
Then the two other men dragged him out by the legs, and he looked
extremely confused (and dusty) when he at length emerged again into the
outer world, an unmasked villain. The old man told us that a woman had
become so firmly fixed that she had actually to be dug out.
Some 200 paces farther in this maze of granite boulders, among which we
wandered as in lanes between low houses and walls, stands a test-stone
of another kind. It consists of three blocks leaning on one another,
with two hollows between them. The task is to creep through the left
passage and return by the right, that is, in the orthodox direction.
Here Ishe made up for his previous discomfiture by crawling through both
holes. I told him frankly that there was no skill required here, for the
holes were so large that even small yaks could go through. However, the
sinner had in this second stone an opportunity of preserving at least a
show of righteousness.
Our wanderings round Kang-rinpoche, the "holy ice mountain" or the "ice
jewel," is one of my most memorable recollections of Tibet, and I quite
understand how the Tibetans can regard as a divine sanctuary this
wonderful mountain which has so striking a resemblance to a _chhorten_,
the monument which is erected in memory of a deceased saint within or
without the temples. How often during our roamings had I heard of this
mountain of salvation! And now I myself walked in pilgrim garb along the
path between the monasteries, which are set, like precious stones in a
bangle, in the track of pilgrims round Kang-rinpoche, the finger which
points up to the mighty gods throned like stars in unfathomable space.
From the highlands of Kham in the remotest east, from Naktsang and Amdo,
from the unknown Bongba, which we have heard of only in vague reports,
from the black tents which stand like the spots of a leopard scattered
among the dreary valleys of Tibet, from Ladak in the mountains of the
far west, and from the Himalayan lands in the south, thousands of
pilgrims come hither annually, to pace slowly and in deep meditation the
28 miles round the navel of the earth, the mountain of salvation. I saw
the silent procession, the faithful bands, among which all ages and both
sexes are represented, youths and maidens, strong men with wife and
child, grey old men who would before their death follow in the footsteps
of countless pilgrims to win a happier existence, ragged fellows who
lived like parasites on the charity of the other pilgrims, scoundrels
who had to do penance for a crime, robbers who had plundered peaceful
travellers, chiefs, officials, herdsmen, and nomads, a varied train of
shady humanity on the thorny road, which after interminable ages ends in
the deep peace of Nirvana. August and serene Siva looks down from her
paradise, and Hlabsen from his jewelled palace, on the innumerable human
beings below who circle, like asteroids round the sun, in ever fresh
troops, round the foot of the mountain, going up through the western
valley, crossing the Dolma pass, and descending the eastern valley.
We soon discover that most of these simple pilgrims have no clear idea
of the benefits their journey is supposed to confer on them. When they
are questioned, they usually answer that after death they will be
allowed to sit near the god of Gangri. But what they all believe most
firmly and obstinately is that the pilgrimage will bring them a blessing
in this world. It will ward off all evil from their tents and huts, will
keep away sickness from their children and herds, protect them from
robbers, thieves, and losses, will send them rain, good pasturage, and
increase among their yaks and sheep, will act like a talisman, and guard
themselves and their property as the four spirit kings protect the
images of the temple halls from demons. They march with light elastic
step, they feel neither the icy-cold cutting wind nor the scorching sun;
every step is a link in a chain which cannot be broken by the powers of
evil which persecute and torment the children of men. They start on
their way from Tarchen-labrang, and every new turn in the road brings
them a step nearer to the point where the ring closes. And during the
whole peregrination they pray "Om mani padme hum," and every time this
prayer is uttered they let a bead of the rosary pass through the
fingers. The stranger also approaches Kang-rinpoche with a feeling of
awe. It is incomparably the most famous mountain in the world. Mount
Everest and Mont Blanc cannot vie with it. Yet there are millions of
Europeans who have never heard of Kang-rinpoche, while the Hindus and
Lamaists, all know Kailas, though they have no notion where Mont Blanc
lifts up its head. Therefore one approaches the mountain with the same
feeling of respect as one experiences in Lhasa, Tashi-lunpo, Buddh Gaya,
Benares, Mecca, Jerusalem, and Rome--those holy places which have
attracted to their altars countless bands of sin-burdened souls and
seekers after truth.
Our volunteer guide said that he was on his ninth circuit of the mountain.
He took two days to each, and intended to go round thirteen times. He
called the track Kang-kora, the Gangri circle. Many years before, he had
performed the meritorious feat called _gyangchag-tsallgen_, which consists
in measuring the length of the way by the length of the pilgrim's body.
One such pilgrimage is worth thirteen ordinary circuits on foot. My
pilgrimage was of no value at all, because I was riding, the old man said;
I must go on foot if I wished to derive any benefit from it.
[Illustration: 272. _Gulam Razul beside Bales of Chinese Brick-Tea._]
When we came a second time to Diri-pu some days later, we saw two young
lamas engaged in the prostration pilgrimage round the mountain. They
were from Kham, and from that part of the country "where the last men
dwell," and had been a year on the way to Kailas. They were poor and
ragged, and had nothing to carry, for they lived on the alms of the
faithful. They had come in nine days from Tarchen to Diri-pu, and
reckoned that they had still eleven days to finish their round. I
accompanied them for half an hour on foot to observe their procedure.
This consisted of six movements. Suppose the young lama standing on the
path with his forehead held slightly down and his arms hanging loosely
at his sides, (1) He places the palms of his hands together and raises
them to the top of his head, at the same time bending his head a little
down; (2) he lays his hands under his chin, lifting up his head again;
(3) he kneels upon the ground, bends forwards and lays himself full
length on the ground with outstretched arms; (4) he passes his hands
laid together over his head; (5) he stretches his right hand forwards as
far as it will reach, and scratches a mark in the soil with a piece of
bone, which shows the line which must be touched by his toes at the next
advance; and (6) he raises himself up with his hands, makes two or three
strides up to the mark, and repeats the same actions. And thus he goes
round the whole mountain.
It is slow work and they do not hurry; they perform the whole business
with composure, but they lose their breath, especially on the way up to
the pass. And on the way down from the Dolma-la there are places so
steep that it must be a gymnastic feat to lie down head foremost. One of
the young monks had already accomplished one round, and was now on the
second. When he had finished, in twelve days, he intended to betake
himself to a monastery on the Tsangpo and be there immured for the rest
of his life. And he was only twenty years old! We, who in our superior
wisdom smile at these exhibitions of fanaticism and self-mortification,
ought to compare our own faith and convictions with theirs. The life
beyond the grave is hidden from all peoples, but religious conceptions
have clothed it in different forms among different peoples. "If thou
lookest closely, thou wilt see that hope, the child of heaven, points
every mortal with trembling hand to the obscure heights." Whatever may
be our own convictions, we must admire those who, however erroneous
their views may be in our opinion, yet possess faith enough to remove
mountains.
[Illustration: OM MANI PADME HUM]