A kind old Dame.
My call was responded to by an old woman who, coming out of the tent
and finding a tattered and tired wayfarer, said more to herself than
to me: “Why, it is a pilgrim, poor, poor.” Seeing no reason to suppose
that I appeared an object of suspicion to her, I ventured to inform her
that I was from the direction of Lhasa, bound for Kang Rinpoche, Mount
Kailāsa, and besought her to give me a night’s lodging in her tent,
as it was unbearably cold to sleep in the open air. My request was
cheerfully complied with and, inside the tent, the old dame expressed
her curiosity to know how I happened to be there, as the locality
was not one generally visited by pilgrims. She easily believed my
explanation to the effect that I had lost my way while heading for the
abode of Gelong Rinpoche, and then gave me a cup of tea out of a kettle
that stood boiling over the fire; accepting it with thanks, I declined
the baked flour offered immediately after. I may observe here that the
tea offered me was not brewed in the same way as we take it in Japan,
but it was more of the nature of a soup, the ingredients of which were
powdered tea-leaves, butter and salt, forbiddingly offensive in smell,
until one gets accustomed to it, when it is found to constitute a
very agreeable beverage. The Tibetan custom is to serve a guest with
a cup of this kind of tea first, and then to regale him with some
baked flour. I excused myself for declining the hospitality of my kind
hostess by informing her that I adhered strictly to the Buḍḍhist rule
of fasting hours, which piece of information produced a very favorable
impression on her as to my personality, as she seemed to respect me
all the more for it. Then, leading in the conversation that followed,
she told me that Gelong Rinpoche’s abode was at a day’s distance,
and that this Lama was the holiest of all the priests to be found
throughout the whole Jangthang (_Jangthang_, as I explained, literally
means ‘northern plain,’ but in Tibet itself the appellation is applied
to its western steppes). Continuing, the old hostess said that a visit
to the holy man always resulted in great spiritual benefit, and urged
me by all means to call on him. There was a river, she said, in my way,
the waters of which were too cold to be forded, and she offered me the
use of one of her yaks. Her son was away just then, but she expected
him back in the evening, and he could accompany me in the morning,
as she wanted him too to pay a visit to the holy man. All this was
very acceptable to me, but one thing that troubled me was the sorry
condition to which my boots had become reduced; and I asked the dame
if I could not mend them. Mending in this case meant, as I was told,
patching the worn-out places with yak’s hide, which required, however,
two days’ soaking in water before it became soft enough to be sewn. My
hostess said that they--she and her son--were to stay only one more day
in that particular spot where I had chanced upon them, and suggested
that I might make a stay of two or three days at Gelong Rinpoche’s,
so as to give myself the time to do some mending. She offered that I
should, on the morrow, put on her son’s spare pair of boots and proceed
to the holy Lama’s in them, saying that I might give them back to her
son after reaching my destination. In the night, just as I was going
to sleep, the son turned up, and more conversation ensued amongst us,
chiefly concerning the saintly man, of whom the mother and the son knew
no end of wonderful things, altogether superhuman in character.
Early the next morning, by order of the good old dame, the son busied
himself in getting a yak ready for me. The yak is a bovine somewhat
larger than our bull, though a little lower in height. Its hide is
covered all over very thickly with long shaggy hair, and its tail
terminates in a bushy tuft. The female yak is called _bri_ in Tibetan.
Its face looks very much like that of common cattle, but it has a
pair of piercing eyes, which give you a rather uncomfortable feeling
when turned full on you, while its horns are dangerously pointed and
threateningly shaped. A better acquaintance, however, shows the animal
to be a quiet and tractable one, even much more so than our cattle. I
may yet have occasion to tell what an invaluable beast of burden the
yak is for the Tibetan. My hostess’ son brought out three yaks, one for
me to ride, another for himself, and the third to carry his presents,
consisting of dried milk, butter and other things, to the holy man. As
for the good old dame, she proved to be the very essence of kindness,
and on my parting from her she loaded me with large quantities of baked
wheat-flour, dried milk, and butter, besides a farewell cup of tea, a
treatment which is considered great hospitality in Jangthang.
So equipped, we started on our trip in quest of the holy man of the
plain. After a ride of about two and a half miles, involving ascent and
descent of equal length towards the north-west, we were overtaken by
a hail-storm, and had to make a halt of two hours until it had blown
over. During the halt, we took down our luggage from the backs of the
yaks, so that it might not get wet, and I utilised that interval quite
profitably to myself by pumping the young man for information regarding
the routes and geography of the regions I was to go through before I
could reach my final destination. Resuming our ride, we soon came to
a river which was sixty yards wide, and easy to ford for men riding
on yaks, as we were. Crossing two more rivers of the like width, and
making an ascent of a little over six miles, we came in sight of a
large white cliff, which, as my companion informed me, was the dwelling
place of Gelong Rinpoche. Continuing the ascent and approaching nearer,
I found out that what had appeared like a huge and solid piece of rock
was really a hollow cliff forming a large cave, and that there was
another concave cliff in front of it, which was not white but greyish
in color, and was inhabited by one of Gelong Rinpoche’s disciples,
as I came to discover afterwards. It was about three o’clock in the
afternoon that we arrived at the entrance of the front cave, where
my companion asked if he could see Gelong Rinpoche, though he knew
that he was considerably behind the regular hour, setting forth the
hail incident as an excuse for his delay. The answer he received was
absolutely in the negative; so he took down the presents and entrusted
them to the disciple, to be sent up to Gelong Rinpoche as from Pasang
(his mother’s name), saying that he could not wait till the next day to
see the Lama, as he was going to strike his tent and move away there
and then.
Left alone with the occupant of the grey cliff, I found him to be an
ordinary Lama of rather good parts. In the cave, put away in proper
places, were articles of daily use for devotional practices, bedding,
the kitchen utensils, etc. Having obtained the Lama’s permission to
make a few days’ stay, I commenced my mending work by soaking in
water a piece of yak’s hide which the kind dame Pasang had given me
on parting. On my asking for information as to how I could reach Kang
Rinpoche, the answer I got was very discouraging. It was to the effect
that two or three days’ journey, after leaving the cave, would bring me
to a region inhabited by nomads; for another two or three days I should
be in the same region, and then, for the next fifteen or sixteen days,
I should have to go through a wilderness entirely destitute of human
kind. I was very fortunate, said my host, in that I had chanced upon
that ‘kind old dame,’ who was noted for her charity; otherwise I should
have had little possibility of obtaining even lodging accommodation,
still less of securing a companion to the cliff; and it was out of
the question for me to secure anything like a guide for my onward
journey; human beings were too scarce in those parts for such a luxury.
Furthermore he assured me that I should be pounced upon by robbers as
soon as I should reach the inhabited parts, as I seemed to be loaded
with luggage worth taking. I had nothing to fear on that score, I told
my host, because all I should do would be to hand over all I had. My
host then told me that he had been to Kang Rinpoche two or three times
himself, and gave me a minute description of the route I was to take
for that destination. After a meditation exercise, in which my host
joined, we both went to sleep at about midnight.
When I re-opened my eyes, I saw the Lama already making a fire outside
the cave. It should be remembered that I passed myself off as a pilgrim
from Lhasa, here as elsewhere, and I had to be ‘Lhasan’ in all I did.
That morning, therefore, I got up and set about reading the Sacred Text
without rinsing my mouth. How foul I felt in the mouth then! but then
it was ‘Lhasan,’ you see! When the usual tea, butter, and salt soup was
ready, my host gave me a bowlful of it, and then we breakfasted on the
regulation diet of baked flour, salt and pepper, all with uncleansed
mouths! After that, we whiled away the morning in religious talk until
eleven o’clock, when the hour for being presented to Gelong Rinpoche
had arrived.