Currency and Printing blocks.
Commodities are either bartered or bought with regular coins. I should
more strictly say _the coin_, there being only one kind of coin, and
that is a twenty-four _sen_ silver piece. That is the only legal tender
current. Transactions have to be conducted therefore in a rather
complicated manner, inasmuch as that coin admits of being divided in
two ways only. In the first place it may be cut into two, thereby
producing two twelve-_sen_ pieces; or it may be divided into a 2/3
piece and a 1/3 piece, the former passing at sixteen _sen_ and the
latter at eight. The cutting is far from being exact, and cut pieces
are in most cases perforated in the centre or worn down at the edges.
These however are passed and received without complaint.
In Lhasa and other prosperous places the unit of transactions is four
_sen_, but there being no four-_sen_ piece one must take with him in
making a purchase of four _sen_ one 2/3 piece valued at sixteen _sen_,
and receive in return for it one 1/2 piece valued at twelve _sen_. When
the seller happens not to possess this one-half piece, the buyer then
produces one 1/2 piece and one 2/3 piece, and receives in return for
the two one whole piece called a tanka which is valued at twenty-four
_sen_. For a purchase of eight _sen_ a buyer produces one tanka and
receives a 2/3 piece in change.
The unit of transaction being four _sen_ there are six gradations of
value between this minimum and a tanka, each possessing a distinct
denomination. Thus four _sen_ is called a _khakang_, eight _sen_ a
_karma_, twelve _sen_ a _chyekka_, sixteen _sen_ a _shokang_, twenty
_sen_ a _kabchi_ and twenty-four _sen_ a _tanka_.
In less prosperous places, and indeed everywhere except in Lhasa and
Shigatze, it is impossible to make a purchase of less than one tanka,
owing to be the absence of divided pieces of smaller value.
In some places are found silver pieces which are locally circulated,
as in the north-western steppes which form the boundary line between
Tibet and India. These pieces are semi-circular in shape, but are not
accepted in the Grand Lama’s dominions.
Here I should like to recount what occurred to me in my monetary
dealings. It was not an ordinary transaction, but a sort of blackmail
carried out at my expense.
I have spoken before of the prodigal son of the house of Para. One day
this man sent his servant to me with a letter and asked for a loan
of money, rather a large sum for Tibet. Of course he had no idea of
repaying me, and his loan was really blackmail. I sent back the servant
with half of what he had asked, together with a letter. I was told
that he was highly enraged at what I had done, exclaiming that I had
insulted him, and that he had not asked for the sum for charity, and so
on. At any rate he sent back the money to me, probably expecting that I
would then send him the whole sum asked for. But I did not oblige him
as he had expected, and took no notice of his threat. A few days after
another letter reached me from that young man, again asking for the sum
as at first. I decided to save myself from further annoyance and so I
sent the sum. Like master, like servant; the latter, having heard most
probably from his spendthrift master that I was a Japanese, came to me
for a loan or blackmail of fifty _yen_. I gave that sum too, for I knew
that they could not annoy me repeatedly with impunity.
About that time I chiefly devoted my leisure to collecting Buḍḍhist
books, for I had a fairly large amount of money. I must remark here
that Buḍḍhist works not in ordinary use are not sold by booksellers in
Tibet; they are kept in the form of blocks at one monastery or another,
and any person who wishes to get a copy of any of such works must
obtain from the owner of the copyright permission to get an impression
of it. In return for this permission an applicant has to forward
some fee and some donation to the monastery which owns and keeps the
particular set of blocks from which he wishes to get an impression
or impressions, this donation generally consisting of a quantity of
tussore silk. The fee, more or less differing in rate according to
monasteries and kind of blocks, ranges from about twenty-five _sen_
to about one _yen_ twenty _sen_ per hundred sheets. The permission
obtained, the applicant next engages either three or six printers,
two printers and one assorter forming a special printing party, so to
say. Wages for the men are generally fifty _sen_ a day without board,
and as they work in a very dilatory manner, the cost of printing is
rather heavy. The paper used in printing is of native origin, made of a
certain plant, the leaves and roots of which are poisonous. The roots
are white and produce excellent tough fibres. The Tibetan paper is
therefore sufficiently strong and durable, but is not white, owing to
bad bleaching.
Booksellers in Tibet, at least so far as I observed at Lhasa, do
not sell their books at their own houses, but at open stalls in the
courtyard in front of the western door of the great temple-shrine of
the Buḍḍha Shākyamuni, called Cho Khang. I saw ten such bookstalls
in Lhasa and two or three at the bazaar in Shigatze, and those
stallkeepers arranged their stock in trade in heaps instead of leaving
their books open to invite inspection, as booksellers of other
countries do.
The books which I collected either through purchase, or by getting
special impressions from the original blocks, were at first kept in
my room at the Sera monastery, and my collection was a subject of
wonder and curiosity to the priests who were quartered in the rooms
not far from my own. The collection, they were heard saying to each
other, contained three times as many books as even a learned doctor
possessed in Tibet, and they could not but wonder how I, a student from
a remote country, could carry home so many books. I therefore kept all
my subsequent purchases in my room at the house of my host, in order to
avoid suspicion.
Meanwhile the end of the month of December drew near and at last the
New Year’s eve arrived. I made an arrangement to keep the day according
to the Japanese custom. Accordingly I sent my boy to the Sakya Temple
in the city with clarified butter to make an offering of light to the
Buḍḍha enshrined in the edifice. This is done by putting clarified
butter into the gold lamps placed before the tabernacle. Any one who
wishes to make this offering has simply to pay in the usual charge
of two tanka to the keepers of the edifice, and on that particular
occasion I therefore sent my boy with two tanka pieces.
I arranged my own room in a manner suitable to the occasion. I hung
a roll on which was painted an image of Buḍḍha, set in front of it a
tiny sacred tabernacle, then three stands of silver lamps, and lastly
various offerings. After the preliminary service had been concluded,
I began, after the hour of midnight, a regular service and kept it
up till four in the morning of the New Year’s Day. Then I performed
a ceremony in order to pray for the prosperity of their Imperial
Majesties the Emperor and Empress, H. I. H. the Crown Prince, and
also for the greater prosperity and glory of the Empire of Japan. I
thought that during the three thousand years that had elapsed since the
founding of the Empire this must be the first time that one of its own
subjects had offered such a prayer in that city of the Forbidden Land;
then a strange sensation came over me, and somehow I felt grateful
tears rising in my eyes.
[Illustration: NEW YEAR’S READING OF THE TEXTS FOR THE JAPANESE
EMPEROR’S WELFARE.]
As I turned my eyes outward, while continuing the service, I noticed
the New Year’s sun beginning to ascend in the eastern sky, reflecting
its golden rays on the snow that covered the surrounding hills and
plains. Nearer before my eyes and in the spacious court of the
monastery, several snow-white cranes were stalking at leisure, now and
then uttering their peculiar cry. The whole scene was exquisite and
quite captivating; how I should have liked to invite my own countrymen
to come and share this pleasure with me! The service, the thought about
my dear home, the snow-scene, the cranes, and the New Year’s Day--these
roused in me a chain of peculiar sentiments at once delightful and sad,
and this strange association of thoughts I embodied on that occasion in
a couple of awkward _utas_ freely rendered into prose thus:--
“Here on this Roof of the World and amidst the ascending dawn heralded
by the cry of the cranes, I glorify the long and prosperous reign of
our sovereign liege who reigns over his realm in the Far East.
“I hear in the garden of the holy seat the voice of the pure-white
cranes, glorifying the triumph of the Holy Religion.”