The Amchi advised me to carefully abstain from drinking cold water, especially as the water of the lake was injurious to many persons even when in good health. He also forbade me drinking buttered tea.
By agreeing to pay my host a daily sum of four annas, I managed to rent his two miserable rooms. They were about six feet by eight, and six feet high. In the bedroom were a couple of little tables, half a dozen books, and a couple of boxes; in a corner there was a little altar and two images of gods.
The next day there was a new moon, and the monks assembled early in the congregation hall to perform religious services, as on the morrow began the fourth month (saga dao),[1] the holiest of the year.
At the conclusion of the ceremonies Tsing-ta again saw the Dorje Phagmo, and, presenting her with a khatag and a couple of tanka, obtained another sacred pill. The doctor and his assistant impressed upon me the importance of only taking such medicines as experience had shown were efficacious in the Yamdo country. They also insisted that it was essential to my recovery that I should not sleep in the daytime. I felt so weak and ill that towards midnight I called my companions to my side, and wrote my will in my notebook. Later on some medicine given me by the doctor’s assistant, Jerung, brought me some relief.
May 18.—Tsing-ta again gave the lamas a mang ja and money to read the sacred books to my intent, and got still another sacred pill from the Dorje Phagmo. On his way back to our quarters he saw the ex-incarnate lama of the Tse-chog ling of Lhasa. He had been degraded for having committed adultery.
Seeing no pronounced improvement in my condition, my faithful follower went again in the afternoon to see the Dorje Phagmo, presented her a khatag and ten tanka, and got her to perform the ceremony known as "propitiating the gods of life" (tse dub). She also gave him a long list of religious rites, which, according to her, it was imperative that I should immediately get learned lamas to perform to insure my speedy recovery.
These rites were the following: 1. Reading the Pradjna paramita in 8000 shlokas, together with its supplements—twelve monks could
- ↑ Sa-ga is the name of the 15th lunar mansion (gyu-kar), and also of a month of the year. Dao is Da-wa, "a month." On the new moon festivals, see Waddell, op. cit., 501.
