LHASA 499
Trasi-khang or "dancing house" (so Desideri; the word trasi cannot be identified).
Immediately west of the place stands the great temple and convent of Labrang (bLa-brang, "Lama-house"), regarded as the umbilicus and centre of all Tibet, and from which all the main roads are considered to radiate. This is not merely the great metropolitan convent, sanctuary, and church-centre of Tibet, the St Peter's or Lateran of Lamaism, but contains the palace of the government and seat of civil administration. It is believed to have been founded by the Tibetan Constantine, Srong-dsan-gampo, in the 7th century, as the shrine of one of those two very sacred Buddha images which were associated with his conversion, and with the foundation of the civilized monarchy in Tibet, From tins image, called Jo, or Jû, it is known to the Mongols as the Jo Erdeni ("the precious Lord") or Jo Shakyamuni (to the Chinese as Ta-shao-sz', "house of the great Jû"), and hence as Ju or Jo simply, a name used in eastern Turkestan (as already noticed) and probably in Mongolia, as a synonym of Lhasa. The temple appears to be known also as Lhasai Chhod-khang, "offering-house of Lhasa," and among Indian and Nepalese visitors as Mâchendra Nâth.[1] The Potala as a sacred centre is modern, whilst the Labrang attaches itself to the whole thread of Tibetan history and religion. On one of the walls of this temple is a picture of the famous "Master of the Law," Hwen T'sang, the travelling doctor of Buddhism (see vol. xii. p. 418), whose journeys have in the revolution of the ages become so familiar to European students, as a mine of information on the geography and history of India during a period so clouded as the 7th century. He is represented with three of his disciples. And before the gate of the Labrang stand several monuments of antiquity, especially that famous obelisk spoken of below, which bears the inscribed record of the treaty of peace concluded in 822 between Thi-de-srong-tsan, king of Tibet, and the emperor Mo-tsung of China. Before this obelisk the apostate from Lamaism, Langdharma, brother and successor of the last-named king, was standing in proud contemplation, when a fanatic recluse, who had been stirred by a vision to avenge his persecuted faith, shot him with an arrow in the forehead.
The main building of the Labrang is three stories high. The entrance, facing eastward, forms a portico supported on six great timber columns, richly carved and gilt, whilst the walls are painted with the history of Sakya. Great folding-doors, covered with reliefs in bronze and iron, lead to the ante-hall, and from this a second gate to the cella (so to call it) of the temple. On each side of the gate, two and two, stand colossi of the spirit-kings of the four points of heaven. Within is a great basilica, divided into naves and aisles by many pillars, whilst along each wall, north and south, are chapels or sanctuaries, fourteen to a side.
At the west end steps ascend to a quadrangular choir or chancel, on each side of which also are three chapels, and at the extremity a rectangular apse (if it may be called so), and in it is the altar or graded throne, on which stands the great image of Sakya seen through a lattice of silver gilt, – the higher shelves or offsets of the altar being beset with small figures in precious metals of deotas and saints, and the lower ones with lamps burning josticks, platters holding offerings of butter and meal, flowers modelled from butter &c. In the choir to the right (i.e., looking from the altar) is the elevated and stepped throne of the Grand Lama, laid with splendid cushions, succeeded by the nearly equal throne of the Teshu Lama of Shigatzé, and then by the seats of other ecclesiastical potentates reborn and elected, in order; on the left of the Buddha throne opposite the Grand Lama's, and of equal height, there is said now to be a throne for the emperor of China, then, at a lower level, that of the so-called king of Tibet, whilst the ministers of state follow opposite the inferior lamas.
In a space shut in with silver lattice, on the south side of the chancel-steps, are seen fourteen or fifteen great disks of silver, set with precious stones, on which are embossed fundamental Buddhist symbols, such as their system of cosmogony, the circle of transmigration, the births of Sakya, &c.
The great nave or central aisle of the basilica is truly hypæthral, but on the second and third apparent floors it is encompassed with colonnades or verandas, from which the women and the laity look down upon the lamas engaged in chanting the services or in other functions. The sanctuary or chancel itself towers above the rest of the building, and is crowned with a rectangular canopy or pavilion of gilt metal, which rises to a ridge serrated with fantastic figures. This canopy rests on columns which are also gilt, and from its eaves and angles hang bells that tinkle with every breeze, whilst the pillars beneath the eaves are crowned with a great frieze of bas-reliefs embossed in gilt metal.
This ancient temple contains a vast accumulation from the ages of gold and silver vessels, lamps, reliquaries, and precious bric-a-brac of every kind, which is annually exposed to view in the spring festivities. The daily offices in the Labrang are attended by crowds of worshippers, and a sacred way which leads round it is constantly traversed by devotees who perform the circuit as a work of merit, always in a particular direction.
Besides the convent-cells, halls of study, and magazines of precious lumber, buildings grouped about the Labrang are occupied, as we have said, by the civil administration, e.g., as treasuries, customs office, courts of justice, &c.; and there are also private apartments for the Grand Lama and other high functionaries. No woman is permitted to pass the night within the precinct.
Another great and famous temple is the Ramo-chhé ("large pen or fold"), at the north end of the city. This is also regarded as a foundation of Srong-dsan-gampo, and is said to contain the body of his Chinese wife, and the second of the primeval palladia, the image that she brought with her to the Snow-land; whence the Mongols and Chinese call it the temple of the little Jû. The lamas of this convent, as well as of that next to be mentioned, are noted for their pretensions to and practice of magical arts, one of the degrading characteristics of the lama forms of Buddhism. The orthodox "yellow" sect indeed profess to distinguish between lawful and unlawful magical formulæ, and to give degrees only in the former. The lamas of Ramo-chhé have also the ill repute of cultivating that species of doctrine which is connected, like their magic, with Tantric mysticism, and which professes to destroy sensual passion by the contemplation of its representations. The walls of the convent are defiled with a series of sculptures of gross obscenity.[2]
Another convent within the city is that of Moru, also near the north end, remarkable for its external order and cleanliness, and, though famous like the last as a school of orthodox magic, noted aho for the printing-house in the convent garden, Lastly we notice the Garmakhia, the inmates of which are sorcerers of the ruder kind, who seem really to represent the rude medicine-men of the superstitions which preceded Buddhism in Tibet. As the vulgar will not dispense with their marvels (knife-swallowing, fire-breathing, cutting off their own heads, and the like), every great orthodox monastery in Tibet keeps one of these conjurors, who does not belong to the fraternity of the house, but lives in a particular part of it, bearing the name of Choi-chong (Ch'hos-skyong) or "protector of religion," and is allowed to marry. These practitioners of the black art possess no literature, but hand down their mysteries from father to son. Their fantastic equipment, their frantic bearing, and their cries and howls seem to identify them with the grossest Shamanist devil-dancers, – strongly remote in externals from the gentle and cultivated persons in the higher ranks of the Lama Church, of whom we read in Turner or Huc. Other monasteries in or near the city are the Chumuling at the north-west corner; the Tankyaling
- ↑ So in Nain Singh's narrative. But the word is properly Matsyendranâth, which is the name of a saint adored by the Nepalese Buddhists, and identified with Padmapani, the fourth Dhyâni Bodhisatva of their system (see Hodgson in Journ. Roy. As Soc., xviii. 394).
- ↑ It was in this convent that P. Desideri studied the religion of the lamas. "From March to July," he says, "I set myself, I will not say to read, but rather to devour the chief books of the Kua-n-ghiur, and to take in a complete knowledge of all that pertains to that false religion."
