LHASA 501
15,000; Nain Singh states them at 7700, 5500, and 3300 respectively; the former numbers seem excessive, the latter artificial; but no doubt the real numbers are large. In the Labrang they show a copper kettle holding more than one hundred buckets, which was used to make tea for the lamas who took part in the daily temple service.
The three great convents in the vicinity, all claiming to be foundations of Tsongkhapa, the mediæval reformer and organizer of the modern orthodox Lama Church, are the following: –
1. Bre-bung (written Bras-sPungs, "the Rice-Heap," so called from the shape of the hill on which it stands), called by Nain Singh Debang, is 5 or 6 miles from Lhasa, west of the city, at the entrance to the plain from the side of Shigatzé and Nepal. In the middle of the convent buildings rises a kind of pavilion, brilliant with colour and gilding, which is reserved for the Dalai Lama, when he visits Brehung once a year, and expounds to the inmates. The place is greatly frequented by the Mongol students who come to Lhasa to graduate, and is known in the country as the Mongol convent.
2. Sera ("The Golden") is 2 or 3 miles from the city on the acclivity of the hills which border the valley on the north, and close to the road by which pilgrims enter from Mongolia. The hill is planted with holly and cypress, and from a distance the crowd of buildings and temples, rising in amphitheatre against a background of trees, forms a pleasing picture. In the recesses of the hill, high above the convent, are scattered cells of lamas adopting the solitary life. There are three great temples rising in many stories, the walls of which are entirely covered with gilding, whence the convent's name. In the chief of these temples is preserved the famous Dorjé of Buddha, i.e., the Vajra or Thunderbolt (of Indra properly), or Adamant, the symbol of the strong and indestructible, which the priest grasps and manipulates in various ways during prayer. From this dorjé, according to one etymology at least, comes the name of the Himalayan sanatarium Dorjiling or Darjeeling. The emblem is a bronze instrument, shaped much like a dumb-bell with pointed ends, and it is said by Koeppen to have been one of the later lama borrowings from Sivaism. The original is carried solemnly in procession to Labrang during the New Year's festival. In Sera P. Desideri found shelter during the capture of the city by the Dzungar Khan in 1717, spoken of below.
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 Mohammedans, who resort thither. Near the convent 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 10 or 12 miles east of Lhasa, on the other side of the Kichu Tsangpo river. 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, and here are other relics of him, such as the impression of his hands and feet in hard butter.
Samayé (bSam-yas) is another famous convent intimately connected with Lhasa, but it lies some 36 miles south-east on the left bank of the great Tsangpo. It was founded by Pachna Sambhava (Ur-ghien of the Tibetans), the apostle who came from Udayâna in the 8th century as the great reviver of Buddhism, and was at the head of the old Red sect. It is visited by the Dalai Lama once a year. It is surrounded by a very high circular stone wall, 1½ miles in circumference, with gates facing the four points of the compass. On this wall Nain Singh, who was here on his last journey (1874), counted 1030 chaityas of brick. One very large temple (Lha-khang) occupies the centre, and round it are four smaller but still very large temples. Many of the idols are of pure gold, and the wealth is very great. The interiors of the temples are covered with beautiful writing in enormous Nagari characters, which the vulgar believe to be the writing of Sakya himself.
Lhasa Festivities. – The greatest of these is at the new year. This lasts fifteen days, and is a kind of lama 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 2d 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. And 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, etc., 2d ed., p. 198).
The most remarkable celebration of the new year's festivities is the great jubilee of the Monlam (sMon-lam, "prayer"), instituted by Tsongkhapa himself in 1409. 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, and carrying with them their breviaries and their cooking-pots. They descend like swarms of bees upon the city, and 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, and the town is abandoned to these crowds of monks. Unspeakable confusion and disorder reign, whilst gangs of lamas parade the streets, shouting, singing, and coming to blows. The object of this great disorderly gathering is, however, supposed to be devotional. Vast processions take place, with mystic offerings and lama-music, to the Labrang and Moru convents; the Grand Lama himself assists at the festival, and from an elevated throne beside the Labrang 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 Labrang 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 away. On other days horse-races take place from Sera to Potala, and foot-races from Potala to the city. On the 27th of the month the holy Dorjé is carried in solemn procession from Sera to the Labrang, and to the presence of the Lama at Potala.
Of other great annual feasts, one, in the fourth month, is assigned to the conception of Sakya, but appears to connect itself with the old nature-feast of the entering of spring, and to be more or less identical with the Hûlî of India. A second, the consecration of the waters, in September-October, appears, on the confines of India, to be associated with the Dasehra.
On the 30th day of the second month there comes off a strange ceremony, akin to that of the scapegoat (which is not unknown in India). It is called the driving out of the demon. A man is hired to perform the part of demon (or victim rather), a part which sometimes ends fatally. He is fantastically dressed, his face mottled with white and black, and is then brought forth from the Labrang to en-
