Journey to Nepal.
During my second and short stay in Calcutta I had the good luck of
being introduced to a Nepālese named Jibbahaḍur, who was then a
Secretary of the Nepāl Government, but who is now the Minister Resident
of that country in Tibet. He was kind enough to write two letters
introducing me to a certain gentleman of influence in Nepāl.
On the 20th of January, 1899, I came to the famous Buḍḍhagayā, sacred
to Holy Shākyamuni Buḍḍha, and there met Mr. Dharmapala of Ceylon, who
happened to be there on a visit. I had a very interesting conversation
with him. On learning that I was on my way to Tibet, he asked me to do
him the favor of taking some presents for him to the Dalai Lama. The
presents consisted of a small relic of the Buḍḍha, enclosed in a silver
casket which was in the form of a miniature pagoda, and a volume of the
sacred Text written on palm leaves. I, of course, willingly complied
with the request of the Sinhalese gentleman, who expressed himself as
being very anxious to visit Tibet, but thought it useless to attempt a
trip thither, unless he were invited to do so. The night of that day
I spent meditating on the ‘Diamond Seat’ under the Boḍhi-tree--the
very tree under which, and the very stone on which, about two thousand
five hundred years ago, the holy Buḍḍha sat and reached Buḍḍhahood.
The feeling I then experienced is indescribable: all I can say is
that I sat the night out in the most serene and peaceful extasy. I
saw the tell-tale moon lodged, as it were, among the branches of the
Boḍhi-tree, shedding its pale light on the ‘Diamond Seat,’ and the
scene was superbly picturesque, and also hallowing, when I thought of
the days and nights the Buḍḍha spent in holy meditation at that very
spot.
Whilst seated on the Diamond Seat, absorbed
In thoughtful meditation full and deep
The lunar orb, suspended o’er the tree--
The Sacred Bodhi tree--shines in the sky.
I wait with longing for the morning star
To rise, the witness of that moment high
When His Illumination gained the Lord
The Perfect Buddha, Perfect Teacher Great.
[Illustration: THE AUTHOR MEDITATING UNDER THE BODHI-TREE.]
After a few days’ stay in Buḍḍhagayā, I took the railway-train for
Nepāl, and a ride of a day and a night brought me to Sagauli, on the
morning of January 23. Sagauli is a station at a distance of two days’
journey from the Nepālese border. Here one boundary of the linguistic
territory of English was reached, and beyond neither that language nor
the Tibetan tongue was of any use--one had to speak either Hinḍūsṭāni
or Nepālese to be understood, and I knew neither. So it became a
necessary part of my Tibetan adventure to stop a while at Sagauli,
and make myself master of working Nepālese. It was like forging the
chain after catching a criminal. But up to then, my time had been all
taken up in learning Tibetan, and I had had no moment to spare for
anything else. By good fortune, however, my stay there was not to
be a long one. I found the postmaster of Sagauli, a Bengālī, to be
proficient both in English and Nepālese. As the thing had to be done
in the most expeditious way possible, I started my work by noting down
every Nepālese word the postmaster would teach me. The next day after
my arrival at Sagauli, while I was out on a walk near the station with
my note-book in hand, I noticed, among those who got off a train, a
company of three men, one of whom was a gentleman, apparently of forty
years of age and dressed in a Tibetan costume, another a priest about
fifty years old, and the third unmistakably their servant. Thereupon a
thought flashed on me that it would be a good thing for me if I could
travel with these Tibetans, as I took them to be, and I immediately
made bold to go up to them and ask whither they were going. I was told
that their destination was Nepāl, that they had not just then come
from Tibet, but that one of them was a Tibetan. It then became their
turn to question me, their opening enquiry being as to what country
I belonged. I replied that I was a Chinese. “Which direction did you
come from then?--did you travel by land or by sea?” was the rejoinder
sharply put to me next. That was a question I had to answer with
caution. For the rule then in force in Tibet was to admit into that
country no Chinaman coming by the sea. So I answered: “By land.” As we
conversed, so we walked, and presently we came in front of where I was
lodging. In that part of the world there is no such smart thing as a
hotel or an inn; all the accommodation one can get in this respect is a
shanty of a rather primitive type, with bamboo posts and a straw roof.
There are a number of these simple structures there, standing on the
roadside and intended only for travellers, who have, however, nothing
to pay for lodging in them--they only pay the price of eatables and
fuel, should they procure any. It was in one of these shanties that I
was stopping, and when I excused myself from the company of my newly
made acquaintances, the latter betook themselves into another on the
opposite side of the street. After a while the gentleman and the priest
came out of their shanty and called on me, evidently bent on finding
out who, or rather what, I was. For the first question with which they
challenged me was to what part of China I belonged. “To Fooshee,” I
replied, realising full well that I was to go through the ordeal of an
inquisition. “You speak Chinese, of course?” then asked the gentleman.
My reply in the affirmative caused him at once to talk to me in quite
fluent Chinese, which put me in no little consternation in secret.
Compelled by necessity, I ventured calmly: “You must be talking in the
official Peking dialect, while I can talk only in the common Fooshee
tongue, and I do not understand you at all.” He was not to let me
off yet. Says he next: “You can write in Chinese, I suppose.” Yes, I
could, and I wrote. Some of my characters were intelligible enough to
my guests, and some not, and after all it was agreed that it was best
to confine ourselves to Tibetan. As our conversation progressed, my
principal guest came to the crucial part of the inquisition and asked:
“You say you have come from the landward side: well, from what part
of Tibet have you come?” “In sooth, from Lhasa, sir; I have been on a
pilgrimage through Darjeeling to Buḍḍhagayā, and from thence here,”
I replied. I was requested to say, then, in what part of the city of
Lhasa I lived. Being informed that I was in the grand Sera monastery,
he wanted to know if I was acquainted with an old priest who was the
Tatsang Kenpo (grand teacher) of that institution. I was bold enough
to say that I was not a perfect stranger to the priest in question,
and made a right good use of what I had learned from Lama Shabdung at
Darjeeling. So far I managed to keep up my disguise, but each moment
that passed only added to my fear of being trapped, and compelled to
give myself away. To avoid this danger, I felt it important to head
off my inquisitorial visitors by dispelling their suspicion, if they
entertained any, about me. I was remarkably successful in this, the
information obtained from Lama Shabdung again doing me excellent
service. For, when I told my guests, in a most knowing way, all about
Shabbe Shata’s intrigue against the Tangye-ling, which was designed to
increase his own power, and the secret of which affair was not then
generally known, the recital seemed to make a great impression on them,
and to have had the effect of convincing them that I was the person I
pretended to be. So my ordeal was at an end; but there was yet in store
for me the most unexpected discovery I was to make about these men.
No longer curious as to my antecedents, my gentleman guest now asked
me: “You say you are going to Nepāl: may I ask you who is the person
you are directed to, and if you have ever been in that country?” I
had never been there before, but I had a letter of introduction with
me. From whom, to whom, could that be? The letters, I said--for I
had had two given me--were written in favor of me by Mr. Jibbahaḍur,
an official of the Nepālese Government, then residing in Calcutta,
and addressed to the Lama of the Great Tower of Mahāboḍha in Nepāl,
whose name, though I just happened to forget it, was on the letters.
This piece of information seemed greatly to interest the gentleman,
who could not help saying: “Why, that is strange! Mr. Jibbahaḍur is a
friend of mine: I wonder who can be the person to whom the letters are
addressed; will you permit me to look at them?” And the climax came
when I, in all willingness, took out the letters and showed them to my
guest, for he ejaculated: “Well, whoever would have thought it? These
are for me!”
I may here observe that in Nepāl, as I found out afterwards, the word
friend conveys a much deeper meaning, probably, than in any other
country. To be a friend there means practically the same thing as
being a brother, and the natives have a curious custom of observing
a special ceremony when any two of them tie the knot of friendship
between them. The ceremony resembles very much that of marriage, and
its celebration is made an occasion for a great festival, in which the
relatives and connexions of the parties concerned take part. To be
brief, the ceremony generally takes the form of exchanging glasses of
the native drink between the mutually chosen two, and they each have
to extend their liberalities even to their servants in honor of the
occasion. It is only after the observance of these formalities--which
signify a great deal to the natives--that any two Nepālese may each
call themselves the friend of the other.
It so happened that my erstwhile inquisitor proved to be the official
owner and Lama-Superior of the Great Tower above mentioned, who stood
in the relationship of a ‘friend’ to Mr. Jibbahaḍur. It was most
unexpected, but the discovery was none the less welcome to me, and I
besought him to take me, henceforth, under his care and protection.
Thus I came to be no longer a stranger and a solitary pilgrim, but a
guest, a companion, to a high personage of Nepāl. My newly acquired
friend, as I should call the Lama in our language, proposed that we
should start for Nepāl the next morning. This proposal was agreeable to
me, as was another that we should go afoot instead of on horse-back,
so that we might the better enjoy each other’s company, and perchance,
also, the grand scenery on the way. I say that all this was agreeable
to me, because, in addition to the obvious benefit I was sure to derive
from being in the company of these men, I entertained a secret hope
that I might learn a great deal, which would help me in executing the
main part of my adventures, yet to come.
While our talk was progressing in this fashion, two servants of the
Lama’s came in, running and all pale, with the unwelcome piece of news
that a thief had broken into their shed. This caused my callers to
take precipitate leave of me. I afterwards learned that the Lamas had
had three hundred and fifty rupees in cash, and some books and clothes,
stolen between them. I was in luck on that occasion, for the owner of
my shed told me subsequently that the thief, who caused such a loss to
the Lamas, had been on the look-out for a chance to loot my lodging,
and, as it happened, he finally made my newly made friends suffer for
me; I felt exceedingly sorry for them.
In the meantime I learned that the gentleman Lama’s name was Buḍḍha
Vajra (Enlightened Diamond), and that the old priest, whose name was
Mayar, and who was full of jokes, was a Doctor of Divinity of the Debon
monastery in Lhasa.
Early on the 25th of January we started on our journey, and proceeded
due north across the plain in which Sagauli stands. The next day we
arrived at a place called Beelganji, where stood the first guarded gate
of the Nepālese frontier. There I was given a pass, as for a Chinaman
living in Tibet. We passed the night of the following day in a village
situated a little way this side of the famous Dalai Jungle, which may
be regarded as an entrance to the great Himālayas. On the 28th we
proceeded past Simla, a village at the outer edge of the great jungle,
and thence, straight across the jungle itself, which has a width of
full eight miles, until we came to a village on the bank of a mountain
stream called Bichagori, where we took up our lodgings for the night.
About ten o’clock that night, while writing up my diary, I happened
to look out of the window of my shanty. The moon in her pale splendor
was shining brightly over the great jungle, and there was something
indescribably weird in the scene, whose silence was broken only by a
rushing stream. Suddenly I then heard a detonation, tremendous in its
volume and depth, which, as I felt, almost shook the ground. In reply
to my query, I was told by our innkeeper that the sound came from a
tiger, which evidently had just finished a fine repast on its victim,
and, having come to have a draught of river-water, could not help
giving vent to its sense of enjoyment. So an _uta_ came to me:
The night sleeps still and calm,
the moon shines bright,
What ho!--so loud a roar
the stillness breaks,
Vibrating--ah! It is a tiger fierce!
In ripples rough his roar terrific throws
The surface even of the mountain stream.
[Illustration: ON THE BANKS OF THE BICHAGORI RIVER.]
For two days more the road lay now through a dale on the bank of a
river, then across a deep forest, and over a mountain, until we reached
a stage station called Binbit. So far the road was up a slow, gradual
incline, and horse-carriages and bullock-carts could be driven over it;
but now the ascent became so steep that it could be made only on foot,
or in a mountain-palanquin. We went on foot, commencing our climb as
early as four o’clock in the morning. After an ascent of something more
than three and a half miles, we came to a guarded gate named Tispance.
Here was a custom-house and a fortress, garrisoned by quite a number of
soldiers, and we had to go through an examination. Thence we climbed
a peak called Tisgari, from the top of which I, for the first time,
beheld with wonder the sublime sight of the mighty Himālayas, shining
majestically with their snow of ages. The grandeur of the scene was
so utterly beyond imagination, that the memory of what I had seen at
Darjeeling and Tiger Hill came back to me only as a faint vision. Down
Tisgari we came to Marku station, where we took lodging for the night.
Early on the 1st of February, we climbed up the peak C̣hanḍra
Giri, or Moon Peak, whose sides are covered with the flowers of
the rhododendron, the chief characteristic of the Himālayan Range.
Thence I saw again the snow-covered range of Himālaya, ever grand and
majestic. Just a little way down from the top of the peak, I saw,
spread before me like a picture, Kātmāndu the capital of Nepāl and the
country around. I saw also in that panorama two gilded towers rising
conspicuously against the sky, and Lama Buḍḍha Vajra told me that one
of them was the tomb of Kāṣyapa Buḍḍha, and the other that of Ṣikhī
Buḍḍha. On coming down the steep slope of the hill, we were met by four
or five men with two horses. They were men sent thither in advance to
wait for the return of Buḍḍha Vajra, and I was given one of the horses,
while my host took the other. We were met by about thirty more men on
entering a village, not far from the foot of the hill. The distance
from Sagauli railway station to this spot is roughly one hundred and
twenty-five miles.