of the hills which flank the plain on the north. It is one of the
largest monasteries in the world, having some 8000 monks. In the
middle of the convent buildings rises a kind of pavilion, brilliant with
colour and gilding, which is occupied by the Dalai Lama when he
visits Debung once a year and expounds to the inmates. The place
is frequented by the Mongol students who come to Lhasa to graduate,
and is known in the country as the Mongol convent; it has also
been notorious as a centre of political intrigue. Near it is the seat
of the chief magician of Tibet, the Nachung Chos-kyong, a building
picturesque in itself and in situation.
2. Sera is 3 m. north of the city on the acclivity of the hills and close to the road by which pilgrims enter from Mongolia. From a distance the crowd of buildings and temples, rising in amphitheatre against a background of rocky mountains, forms a pleasing picture. In the recesses of the hill, high above the convent, are scattered cells of lamas adopting the solitary life. The chief temple of Sera, a highly ornate building, has a special reputation as the resting-place of a famous Dorjē, i.e. the Vajra or Thunderbolt of Jupiter, the symbol of the strong and indestructible, which the priest grasps and manipulates in various ways during prayer. The emblem is a bronze instrument, shaped much like a dumbbell with pointed ends, and it is carried solemnly in procession to the Jokhang during the New Year’s festival.
The hill adjoining Sera is believed to be rich in silver ore, but it is not allowed to be worked. On the summit is a spring and a holy place of the Lhasa Mahommedans, who resort thither. Near the monastery there is said to be gold, which is worked by the monks. “Should they ... discover a nugget of large size, it is immediately replaced in the earth, under the impression that the large nuggets ... germinate in time, producing the small lumps which they are privileged to search for” (Nain Singh).
3. Galdan.—This great convent is some 25 m. east of Lhasa, on the other side of the Kyichu. It is the oldest monastery of the “Yellow” sect, having been founded by Tsongkhapa and having had him for its first superior. Here his body is said to be preserved with miraculous circumstances; here is his tomb, of marble and malachite, with a great shrine said to be of gold, and here are other relics of him, such as the impression of his hands and feet.
Samyé is another famous convent intimately connected with Lhasa, being said to be used as a treasury by the government, but it lies some 36 m. south-east on the left bank of the great Tsangpo. It was founded in 770, and is the oldest extant monastery in Tibet. It is surrounded by a very high circular stone wall, 112 m. in circumference, with gates facing the four points of the compass. On this wall Nain Singh, who was here on his journey in 1874, counted 1030 votive piles of brick. One very large temple occupies the centre, and round it are four smaller but still large temples. Many of the idols are said to be of pure gold, and the wealth is very great. The interiors of the temples are covered with beautiful writing in enormous characters, which the vulgar believe to be the writing of Sakya himself.
Population and Trade.—The total population of Lhasa, including the lamas in the city and vicinity, is probably about 30,000; a census in 1854 made the figure 42,000, but it is known to have greatly decreased since. There are only some 1500 resident Tibetan laymen and about 5500 Tibetan women. The permanent population embraces, besides Tibetans, settled families of Chinese (about 2000 persons), as well as people from Nepal, from Ladak, and a few from Bhotan and Mongolia. The Ladakis and some of the other foreigners are Mahommedans, and much of the trade is in their hands. Desideri (1716) speaks also of Armenians and even “Muscovites.” The Chinese have a crowded burial-ground at Lhasa, tended carefully after their manner. The Nepalese (about 800) supply the mechanics and metal-workers. There are among them excellent gold- and silversmiths; and they make the elaborate gilded canopies crowning the temples. The chief industries are the weaving of a great variety of stuffs from the fine Tibetan wool; the making of earthenware and of the wooden porringers (varying immensely in elaboration and price) of which every Tibetan carries one about with him; also the making of certain fragrant sticks of incense much valued in China and elsewhere.
As Lhasa is not only the nucleus of a cluster of vast monastic establishments, which attract students and aspirants to the religious life from all parts of Tibet and Mongolia, but is also a great place of pilgrimage, the streets and public places swarm with visitors from every part of the Himalayan plateau,[1] and from all the steppes of Asia between Manchuria and the Balkhash Lake. Naturally a great traffic arises quite apart from the pilgrimage. The city thus swarms with crowds attracted by devotion and the love of gain, and presents a great diversity of language, costume and physiognomy; though, in regard to the last point, varieties of the broad face and narrow eye greatly predominate. Much of the retail trade of the place is in the hands of the women. The curious practice of the women in plastering their faces with a dark-coloured pigment is less common in Lhasa than in the provinces.
During December especially traders arrive from western China by way of Tachienlu bringing every variety of silk-stuffs, carpets, china-ware and tea; from Siningfu come silk, gold lace, Russian goods, carpets of a superior kind, semi-precious stones, horse furniture, horses and a very large breed of fat-tailed sheep; from eastern Tibet, musk in large quantities, which eventually finds its way to Europe through Nepal; from Bhotan and Sikkim, rice; from Sikkim also tobacco; besides a variety of Indian and European goods from Nepal and Darjeeling, and charas (resinous exudation of hemp) and saffron from Ladakh and Kashmir. The merchants leave Lhasa in March, before the setting in of the rains renders the rivers impassable.
The tea importation from China is considerable, for tea is an absolute necessary to the Tibetan. The tea is of various qualities, from the coarsest, used only for “buttered” tea (a sort of broth), to the fine quality drunk by the wealthy. This is pressed into bricks or cakes weighing about 512 ℔, and often passes as currency. The quantity that pays duty at Tachienlu is about 10,000,000 ℔, besides some amount smuggled. No doubt a large part of this comes to Lhasa.
Lhasa Festivities.—The greatest of these is at the new year. This lasts fifteen days, and is a kind of lamaic carnival, in which masks and mummings, wherein the Tibetans take especial delight, play a great part. The celebration commences at midnight, with shouts and clangour of bells, gongs, chank-shells, drums and all the noisy repertory of Tibetan music; whilst friends exchange early visits and administer coarse sweetmeats and buttered tea. On the second day the Dalai Lama gives a grand banquet, at which the Chinese and native authorities are present, whilst in the public spaces and in front of the great convents all sorts of shows and jugglers’ performances go on. Next day a regular Tibetan exhibition takes place. A long cable, twisted of leather thongs, is stretched from a high point in the battlements of Potala slanting down to the plain, where it is strongly moored. Two men slide from top to bottom of this huge hypothenuse, sometimes lying on the chest (which is protected by a breast-plate of strong leather), spreading their arms as if to swim, and descending with the rapidity of an arrow-flight. Occasionally fatal accidents occur in this performance, which is called “the dance of the gods”; but the survivors are rewarded by the court, and the Grand Lama himself is always a witness of it. This practice occurs more or less over the Himalayan plateau, and is known in the neighbourhood of the Ganges as Barat. It is employed as a kind of expiatory rite in cases of pestilence and the like. Exactly the same performance is described as having been exhibited in St Paul’s Churchyard before King Edward VI., and again before Philip of Spain, as well as, about 1750, at Hertford and other places in England (see Strutt’s Sports, &c., 2nd ed., p. 198).
The most remarkable celebration of the new year’s festivities is the great jubilee of the Monlam (s Mon-lam, “prayer”), instituted by Tsongkhapa himself in 1408. Lamas from all parts of Tibet, but chiefly from the great convents in the neighbourhood, flock to Lhasa, and every road leading thither is thronged with troops of monks on foot or horseback, on yaks or donkeys, carrying with them their breviaries and their cooking-pots. Those who cannot find lodging bivouac in the streets and squares, or pitch their little black tents in the plain. The festival lasts six days, during which there reigns a kind of saturnalia. Unspeakable confusion and disorder reign, while gangs of lamas parade the streets, shouting, singing and coming to blows. The object of this gathering is, however, supposed to be devotional. Vast processions take place, with mystic offerings and lama-music, to the Jokhang and Moru convents; the Grand Lama himself assists at the festival, and from an elevated throne beside the Jokhang receives the offerings of the multitude and bestows his benediction.
On the 15th of the first month multitudes of torches are kept ablaze, which lighten up the city to a great distance, whilst the interior of the Jokhang is illuminated throughout the night by innumerable lanterns shedding light on coloured figures in bas-relief, framed in arabesques of animals, birds and flowers, and representing the history of Buddha and other subjects, all modelled in butter. The figures are executed on a large scale, and, as described by Huc, who witnessed the festival at Kunbum on the frontier of China, with extraordinary truth and skill. These singular works of art occupy some months in preparation, and on the morrow are thrown
- ↑ Among articles sold in the Lhasa bazaars are fossil bones, called by the people “lightning bones,” and believed to have healing virtues.
