Bartering in Tibet.
The origin of the four rivers is given in the story just as I have
related it; but in reality there is not one of them that actually flows
directly out of the Lake. They have their sources in the mountains
which surround it, and the stories about the so-called ‘Horse’s’ and
‘Lion’s’ mouths are only legends, incapable of verification. The
head-waters of the Langchen Khanbab flow in a westerly direction;
those of the Mabcha Khanbab to the south; the sources of the Senge
Khanbab may be ascertained with tolerable accuracy; but those of the
Tamchok Khanbab have hitherto defied investigation. In India, the
river that flows from the Lake in an easterly direction is known as
the Brahmapuṭra, while the one that issues towards the south is the
Gaṅgā. The Sutlej flows away to the west, and the Siṭā, or Inḍus,
towards the north. It is, of course, possible that actual surveys of
Lake Mānasarovara have been made by European travellers, but in all
the maps that I have seen it is represented as being far smaller than
it actually is. It is, in truth, a very large body of fresh water, and
has a circumference of some eighty _ri_, or about two hundred miles.
The shape of the lake also, as it appears in the maps, is misleading.
It is in reality a fairly regular octagon with various indentations,
very much resembling a lotus-flower in shape. All the western maps, as
far as I know, give the student an idea of the Lake which is in many
respects misleading.
I arrived that night at a Buḍḍhist Temple known as Tse-ko-lo, on the
shores of Lake Mānasarovara, and in the evening heard from my host,
the superior of the Temple, a story which surprised me greatly. This
Lama, I should say, was a man of about fifty-five years of age; he was
extremely ignorant, but did not seem to be a man who would lie for the
mere pleasure of lying. He was very anxious to hear about the state of
Buḍḍhism in China (the reader will remember that I was supposed to be
a Chinese, Lama) and the readiness with which I answered his questions
warmed his heart and encouraged him to treat me to the following story.
He did not know, he said, how it might be with the priests in China,
but for himself he could not help feeling at times thoroughly disgusted
with his brethren in Tibet. In the immediate vicinity, for instance,
an ordinary priest might, he said, indulge himself in all manner of
excesses with impunity, and without attracting much attention, and
from time to time cases would arise of extreme depravity in a Lama.
For instance, there was the case of Alchu Tulku, a Lama supposed to
be an incarnation of Alchu, who had at one time been in charge of a
well-known temple in the vicinity of Lake Mānasarovara. This Lama
became so infatuated with a beautiful woman whom he took to himself
as his wife that he was betrayed into transferring the greater part
of the temple property as a gift to her father; and not content with
that crime he afterwards absconded from the temple, taking with him his
wife, and everything that he could carry away that was left of value in
the temple. He had heard rumors that this recreant priest was living
openly with his wife at Hor-tosho, and he asked me if I had not heard
anything about him when I was passing through the place.
The reader will be able to appreciate my astonishment when I tell him
that this absconding, dishonest priest was none other than he who had
induced the belle of the place to treat me with so much kindness! Truly
men are not always what they seem to be.
I did not conceal my astonishment from my host, but related to him all
the circumstances that had brought me within the reach of their kind
hospitalities, but he only smiled at what I told him.
“Ah! to be sure,” he said, “that’s just like the man; gentle and
lovable in outward demeanor, but at heart an arch-sinner, a very devil
incarnate, destroyer of the faith.”
It was a sad revelation to me. I had had every reason to be grateful
to the man and his wife for their hospitalities and I could have wept
to think that hypocrites of so black a dye should be found amongst the
followers of Buḍḍha. It was at least a comfort to think that things in
Japan were brighter than this.
The next morning I took a walk along the Lake, lost in admiration of
the magnificent mountain scenery that surrounded me on all sides, and
presently came across some Hinḍūs and Nepālese, apparently Brāhmaṇa
devotees, who had plunged into the Lake--it was about ten o’clock--and
were engaged in the performance of their religious ceremonies. To the
followers of the Hinḍū religion, Lake Mānasarovara is a sacred sheet
of water, and they worship Mount Kailāsa, which rises sky-high above
the lake, as being a material manifestation of the sacred Body of
Mahā-Shiva, one of the deities of the Indian Trinity. When they saw me,
they considered me to be a holy Buḍḍhist Lama, and pressed me to accept
from them presents consisting of many kinds of dried fruits.
I spent the next night at the same temple, and on the following morning
made my way to the range of mountains that stands like a great wall
to the north-west of the Lake. A zigzag climb of ten miles or so
brought me within view of Lake Lakgal-tso, in Tibetan, or, as it is
more commonly called, Rakas-tal. It is in shape something like a long
calabash, and in area smaller than Mānasarovara. Another seven and a
half miles brought me to a spot whence I could see the whole of its
surface, and here I made a further discovery. A mountain, some two and
a half miles round at the base, stands like a wall of partition between
the two lakes, and where this mountain slopes into a ravine it looks,
for all the world, as though there were a channel of communication for
the water from one lake to the other. I found, however, that there
was actually no such channel, but I discovered that the level of Lake
Lakgal is higher than that of Mānasarovara, and I was subsequently told
that, on rare occasions, every ten or fifteen years, after phenomenally
heavy rains, the waters of the two lakes do actually become connected,
and that at such times Lake Lakgal flows into Mānasarovara. Hence
arises the Tibetan legend that every fifteen years or so Lakgal, the
bridegroom, goes to visit Mānasarovara, the bride. This will account
for the statements of the guide-books to Kang Tise and Mount Kailāsa
that the relations between the two lakes are those of husband and wife.
Keeping Lake Lakgal in view, I now proceeded easily down hill for some
thirteen miles or so, until I arrived at a plain through which I found
a large river flowing. The river was over sixty feet wide, and was
known as the Mabcha Khanbab, one of the tributary sources of the Gaṅgā.
It is this river that, further south, flows through the city of Purang
on the borders of India and Tibet, and then, after winding through many
a defile and cañon of the Himālayas, eventually joins the main stream
of the Gaṅgā flowing from Haldahal. Modern Hinḍūs revere the Haldahal
branch as being the main stream of their sacred River, but in ancient
times it was mostly this Mabcha Khanbab that was considered to be the
principal source.
On the banks of this river we pitched our tent for the night. In the
neighborhood I found four or five similar encampments, occupied by
traders from Purang. Great numbers of nomads and pilgrims come to this
place in July and August of every year, and at these times, a very
brisk trade takes place which presents many curious and interesting
features.
Tibet is still in the barter stage, and very little money is used
in trade. The people from the interior bring butter, marsh-salt,
wool, sheep, goats, and yaks’ tails, which they exchange for corn,
cotton, sugar and cloth, which are imported from India by Nepālese
and Tibetans, living in the region of perennial snow on the Indian
frontier. But sometimes, especially in selling wool and butter, they
will take money, generally Indian currency, the reckoning of which
is a great mystery to them. Ignorant of arithmetic and possessing no
abacus to count with, they have to do all their reckoning with the
beads of a rosary. In order to add five and two, they count first five
and then two beads on the string, and then count the whole number thus
produced to make sure that the total is really seven. It is a very
tedious process, but they are incapable of anything better. They cannot
do calculations without their beads, and they seem to be too dense to
grasp the simplest sum in arithmetic. Thus business is always slow:
when it comes to larger deals, involving several kinds of goods and
varying prices, it is almost distractingly complicated.
For such calculations they arm themselves with all sorts of aids,
black pebbles, white pebbles, bamboo sticks, and white shells. Each
white pebble represents a unit of one; when they have counted ten of
these they take them away, and substitute a black pebble, which means
ten. Ten black pebbles are equivalent to one bamboo stick, ten bamboo
sticks to one shell, ten shells to the Tibetan silver coin. But there
is no multiplication or division; everything is done by the extremely
slow process of adding one at a time, so that it will take a Tibetan
three days to do what a Japanese could do in half an hour. This is no
exaggeration. I stayed on the banks of this river for three whole
days and watched the traders doing their business, and I saw the whole
painful tediousness of the transaction.
These three days were memorable for another reason. The pilgrims who
had come with me became such warm admirers of my supposed virtues and
sang my praises with so much fervor that a pilgrim girl fell in love
with me.