Scholastic Aspirants.
First, to speak of the nationalities of the aspirants; the students
in the three great colleges are not solely natives of Tibet; they
comprise Mongols proper, and also Khams, who belong to a somewhat
different race. In fact it is customary to place Mongols first in point
of numbers, then Tibetans, and last of all Khams. These three groups
of students are as distinct in their characteristics as they are in
their nationalities. Tibetans, generally speaking, are a very quiet,
courteous, and intelligent set of students, but are not at all inclined
to be diligent--indeed they are as a rule as lazy as they can be.
The fact that they are very dirty in their habits seems to come from
this their national weakness of being extremely and eternally idle.
During winter days, for instance, a Tibetan bonze who possesses the
ordinary means of living will simply do no work, beyond attending to
the routine of chanting the sacred text in the service-hall, and making
trips to the monastery kitchen for his ration of tea. When the weather
is fine he spends all his leisure hours basking in the warm sun and
squatting naked in front of his cell. Nothing can be more significant
of his instinctive indolence than the sight of him as he sits dozing
there the whole day long, putting on his head to dry a waste scrap of
some woollen stuff, with which he occasionally blows his nose. Such
behavior, excusable only in an old or decrepit person, is nothing
unusual in many of the young Tibetan priests. How lazy and sluggish the
average Tibetans are, it is almost beyond the power of Westerners to
imagine.
Not so with the Mongols: one never sees them enjoying themselves in
such an indolent fashion. They study very hard and always take a very
active part in the catechetical exercises, principally because they
are alive to the purpose for which they have come so far from their
home and country. Four hundred out of the five hundred Mongols are
generally fine students; while the ratio has to be inverted in the case
of Tibetans, four hundred and fifty out of five hundred of whom are
but trash. In consequence of this, the bulk of the “students militant”
or warrior-priests of whom I have already spoken are Tibetans, Khams
and Mongols being seldom found among them. Mongols are studious and
progressive, but one common fault with them is that they are very
quick-tempered, so that the slightest thing causes them to flare up
in tremendous rage. Being always conscious of the fact that they are
the most assiduous of the students, and that the largest number of the
winners of the doctor’s degree always come from amongst them, they are
very proud and uppish. This Mongolian pride makes most Mongols, even
those that try to be calm and well-balanced, to be pitied for their
narrow-mindedness and petulance, in spite of all their other numerous
good qualities. A Mongol has it in him to become a great leader
like Genghis Khan; but the career of that great conqueror was but a
meteoric burst of short-lived splendor, and, like him, the Mongols as a
nation seem to be incapable of consolidating their national greatness
on anything like a permanent basis, or of carrying out any schemes
calculated to secure the permanent progress and improvement of their
country.
The Khams, on the other hand, are infinitely superior in this respect
both to the Mongols and the Tibetans, and this in spite of the fact
that their country is generally supposed to be no better than a den
of thieves and robbers. A Kham is excitable, but he does not lose
his temper like a Mongol: indeed, he can be admirably patient and
persevering when he wills. In point of physique, too, he is far ahead
as a rule of both the others. The Khams are chivalrous men, blunt
and outspoken, and averse to flattery. My observations among the
students of Sera lead me to infer that more open-hearted, unaffected
students are to be found among the Khams than among any other of the
nationalities represented there. Mongols will occasionally demean
themselves by fawning upon others in order to gain some object dear
to their hearts, but the worst sinners in this respect are the
Tibetans--so much so that the Khams, unless they are thoroughly
Tibetanised Khams, are unwilling to enter into friendship with them. It
is said to the honor of the Khams that even their robbers are honorable
and will often give a helping hand to the poor and weak, and rescue
those who stand in imminent peril. The Kham women and children, as a
rule, share in the apathetic appearance of the men. They are often very
unbecomingly dressed and have none of the attractiveness of the Tibetan
women, who, like their husbands, fathers, and brothers, are generally
well-spoken and affable in outward demeanor, however full of thorns and
brambles their innermost hearts may be.
I have been able to give here only a brief and cursory notice of some
of the characteristic features of the principal tribes that inhabit
these unfrequented regions of Central Asia, with a few of the most
essential of the points of difference between them. I might carry
my subdivision much further, and speak of the Khams as Mankhams,
Bas, Tsarongs, etc., but that would involve a very long and not very
profitable discourse, and I therefore pass on to topics of greater
interest.
To interpret correctly the aspirations of Tibetan Lamas, their ideals,
or the final goal which they strive to attain, it may safely be said
that their main purpose in entering the priesthood is only to procure
the largest possible amount of fortune, as well as the highest possible
fame in that entirely secluded world of theirs. To seek religious
truth and to practise religious austerities with a view to acquiring
knowledge and character sufficient to carry out the noble work of
delivering men and leading them to salvation, is not at all what they
wish to do. If they study, they do so as a means of gaining reputation,
of extending their influence, and mainly of accumulating wealth. They
simply desire to escape from the painful struggle of life in the world
of competition, and to enjoy lazy and comfortable days on earth as well
as in heaven. Nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand seem to
have no conception of the problems of the future life, and there is
nothing deep in their religious life. “It is more blessed to receive
than to give” is their motto, and hence the monastic life, study and
service, in its fullest sense, goes in their eyes for nothing. The
reason why these priests and scholars, who ought to be the noblest and
most unselfish of all men, have been brought to this state of apostasy,
seems to be this.
In Tibet, the social estimation of priest and scholars is made, not
according to their learning or virtue, nor yet according to the amount
of good they have done for their fellow-men, but entirely according to
the amount of property which they possess. Thus, a priest who owns an
estate of a thousand dollars, however mean and ignorant he may be, is
much more influential and far more highly esteemed in society than a
learned and virtuous priest who lives on a small income. They believe
in the almighty dollar, and twist S. Paul’s saying: “Though I have the
gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and
though I have all faith, so that I can remove mountains, and have not”
money, “I am nothing.” They are earnest therefore in making money, in
whatever way they find profitable. Some of them, as I have said, are
engaged in trade or industrial enterprises, and others in agriculture
or stock-farming. Besides, it is their custom to appropriate to
themselves the remuneration which they receive when they visit laymen’s
houses for the purpose of chanting the Sacred Text for them, in
accordance with their priestly duty.
It is pitiful to contemplate the condition of the students who, without
scholarship or support, are preparing in the colleges for their
degrees. They live hard struggling lives of study in the midst of want,
and yet the only stimulus that encourages them is the expectation that
they will be able to enjoy the comfortable life of high priests, when
they have got through the prescribed course of study and have achieved
the Doctorate. They do really suffer, but their sufferings are not, so
far as I know, those of the man of self-denial who strives hard and
struggles against difficulties for the noble ambition of winning souls
to salvation, or for some humanitarian purpose; they are exceedingly
patient in suffering, simply with the hope of reaping ease and comfort
in the latter part of their lives. After a hard monastic life of some
twenty years when they have completed the whole course of study, these
poor students will have the honor of getting the Doctor’s degree, a
title implying the highest learning, but in undue proportion costly;
for besides spending nearly half their lives in toils and struggles to
get it, they have to give a grand feast to all their schoolmasters to
celebrate their graduation. It is true, the feast consists only of meat
gruel, a sort of porridge of meat mixed with rice, but the quantity
given is enormous, as there are many capacious stomachs to be filled.
To give a feast of this sort requires some five hundred yen at the
very least, each bowlful costing over twenty-five sen. Of course, the
poverty-stricken priests cannot possibly provide the money themselves,
but fortunately the diploma has its use this time; their credit has so
much improved that the wealthy priests who turned up their noses at
needy students are very willing now to supply them with the necessary
money, simply because they have the degree and chance to pay interest.
By the means of this convenient credit transaction they can procure the
means of giving the necessary banquet and the wealthy priests get not
only credit for their generosity, but also interest for their money.
But nothing is more disappointing than the future life of those poor
priests, who will probably never succeed in paying off the burden of
debt, or, if exceptionally fortunate, they may succeed in doing so only
after long and hard struggles. It is a sad thing to contemplate, but
such is the hard lot of most Tibetan priests.