Three Years in Tibet/Chapter 5
THE AUTHOR MEDITATING UNDER THE BODHI-TREE.
CHAPTER V.
Journey to Nepal.
During my second and short stay in Calcutta I had the good luck of being introduced to a Nepālese named Jibbahaḍur, who was then a Secretary of the Nepāl Government, but who is now the Minister Resident of that country in Tibet. He was kind enough to write two letters introducing me to a certain gentleman of influence in Nepal.
On the 20th of January, 1899, I came to the famous Buḍḍhagayā, sacred to Holy Shākyamuni Buḍḍha, and there met Mr. Dharmapala of Ceylon, who happened to be there on a visit. I had a very interesting conversation with him. On learning that I was on my way to Tibet, he asked me to do him the favor of taking some presents for him to the Dalai Lama. The presents consisted of a small relic of the Buḍḍha, enclosed in a silver casket which was in the form of a miniature pagoda, and a volume of the sacred Text written on palm leaves. I, of course, willingly complied with the request of the Sinhalese gentleman, who expressed himself as being very anxious to visit Tibet, but thought it useless to attempt a trip thither, unless he were invited to do so. The night of that day I spent meditating on the 'Diamond Seat' under the Boḍhi-tree — the very tree under which, and the very stone on which, about two thousand five hundred years ago, the holy Buḍḍha sat and reached Buḍḍhahood. The feeling I then experienced is indescribable: all I can say is that I sat the night out in the most serene and peaceful extasy. I saw the tell-tale moon lodged, as it were, among the branches of the Boḍhi-tree, shedding its pale light on the 'Diamond Seat,' and the scene was superbly picturesque, and also hallowing, when I thought of the days and nights the Buddha spent in holy meditation at that very spot.
Whilst seated on the Diamond Seat, absorbed
In thoughtful meditation full and deep
The lunar orb, suspended o'er the tree—
The Sacred Bodhi tree—shines in the sky.
I wait with longing for the morning star
To rise, the witness of that moment high
When His Illumination gained the Lord
The Perfect Buddha, Perfect Teacher Great.
After a few days' stay in Buddhagayā, I took the railway-train for Nepāl, and a ride of a day and a night brought me to Sagauli, on the morning of January 23. Sagauli is a station at a distance of two days' journey from the Nepālese border. Here one boundary of the linguistic territory of English was reached, and beyond neither that language nor the Tibetan tongue was of any use—one had to speak either Hinḍūsṭāni or Nepālese to be understood, and I knew neither. So it became a necessary part of my Tibetan adventure to stop a while at Sagauli, and make myself master of working Nepālese. It was like forging the chain after catching a criminal. But up to then, my time had been all taken up in learning Tibetan, and I had had no moment to spare for anything else. By good fortune, however, my stay there was not to be a long one. I found the postmaster of Sagauli, a Bengali, to be proficient both in English and Nepālese. As the thing had to be done in the most expeditious way possible, I started my work by noting down every Nepalese word the postmaster would teach me. The next day after my arrival at Sagauli, while I was out on a walk near the station with my note-book in hand, I noticed, among those who got off a train, a company of three men, one of whom was a gentleman, apparently of forty years of age and dressed in a Tibetan costume, another a priest about fifty years old, and the third unmistakably their servant. Thereupon a thought flashed on me that it would be a good thing for me if I could travel with these Tibetans, as I took them to be, and I immediately made bold to go up to them and ask whither they were going. I was told that their destination was Nepāl; that they had not just then come from Tibet, but that one of them was a Tibetan. It then became their turn to question me, their opening enquiry being as to what country I belonged. I replied that I was a Chinese. "Which direction did you come from then? — did you travel by land or by sea?" was the rejoinder sharply put to me next. That was a question I had to answer with caution. For the rule then in force in Tibet was to admit into that country no Chinaman coming by the sea. So I answered: "By land." As we conversed, so we walked, and presently we came in front of where I was lodging. In that part of the world there is no such smart thing as a hotel or an inn; all the accommodation one can get in this respect is a shanty of a rather primitive type, with bamboo posts and a straw roof. There are a number of these simple structures there, standing on the roadside and intended only for travellers, who have, however, nothing to pay for lodging in them—they only pay the price of eatables and fuel, should they procure any. It was in one of these shanties that I was stopping, and when I excused myself from the company of my newly made acquaintances, the latter betook themselves into another on the opposite side of the street. After a while the gentleman and the priest came out of their shanty and called on me, evidently bent on finding out who, or rather what, I was. For the first question with which they challenged me was to what part of China I belonged.
"To Fooshee," I replied, realising full well that I was to go through the ordeal of an inquisition. "You speak Chinese, of course?" then asked the gentleman. My reply in the affirmative caused him at once to talk to me in quite fluent Chinese, which put me in no little consternation in secret. Compelled by necessity, I ventured calmly: "You must be talking in the official Peking dialect, while I can talk only in the common Fooshee tongue, and I do not understand you at all." He was not to let me off yet. Says he next: "You can write in Chinese, I suppose." Yes, I could, and I wrote. Some of my characters were intelligible enough to my guests, and some not, and after all it was agreed that it was best to confine ourselves to Tibetan. As our conversation progressed, my principal guest came to the crucial part of the inquisition and asked: "You say you have come from the landward side : well, from what part of Tibet have you come?" "In sooth, from Lhasa, sir; I have been on a pilgrimage through Darjeeling to Buḍḍhagayā, and from thence here," I replied. I was requested to say, then, in what part of the city of Lhasa I lived. Being informed that I was in the grand Sera monastery, he wanted to know if I was acquainted with an old priest who was the Tatsang Kenpo (grand teacher) of that institution. I was bold enough to say that I was not a perfect stranger to the priest in question, and made a right good use of what I had learned from Lama Shabdung at Darjeeling. So far I managed to keep up my disguise, but each moment that passed only added to my fear of being trapped, and compelled to give myself away. To avoid this danger, I felt it important to head off my inquisitorial visitors by dispelling their suspicion, if they entertained any, about me. I was remarkably successful in this, the information obtained from Lama Shabdung again doing me excellent service. For, when I told my guests, in a most knowing way, all about Shabbe Shata's intrigue against the Tangye-ling, which was designed to increase his own power, and the secret of which affair was not then generally known, the recital seemed to make a great impression on them, and to have had the effect of convincing them that I was the person I pretended to be. So my ordeal was at an end; but there was yet in store for me the most unexpected discovery I was to make about these men.
No longer curious as to my antecedents, my gentleman guest now asked me: " You say you are going to Nepāl: may I ask you who is the person you are directed to, and if you have ever been in that country?" I had never been there before, but I had a letter of introduction with me. From whom, to whom, could that be? The letters, I said — for I had had two given me — were written in favor of me by Mr. Jibbahaḍur, an official of the Nepalese Government, then residing in Calcutta, and addressed to the Lama of the Great Tower of Mahāboḍha in Nepāl, whose name, though I just happened to forget it, was on the letters. This piece of information seemed greatly to interest the gentleman, who could not help saying : " Why, that is strange! Mr. Jibbahaḍur is a friend of mine: I wonder who can be the person to whom the letters are addressed; will you permit me to look at them?" And the climax came when I, in all willingness, took out the letters and showed them to my guest, for he ejaculated: "Well, whoever would have thought it? These are for me!"
I may here observe that in Nepāl, as I found out afterwards, the word friend conveys a much deeper meaning, probably, than in any other country. To be a friend there means practically the same thing as being a brother, and the natives have a curious custom of observing a special ceremony when any two of them tie the knot of friendship between them. The ceremony resembles very much that of marriage, and its celebration is made an occasion for a great festival, in which the relatives and connexions of the parties concerned take part. To be brief, the ceremony generally takes the form of exchanging glasses of the native drink between the mutually chosen two, and they each have to extend their liberalities even to their servants in honor of the occasion. It is only after the observance of these formalities — which signify a great deal to the natives — that any two Nepālese may each call themselves the friend of the other.
It so happened that my erstwhile inquisitor proved to be the official owner and Lama-Superior of the Great Tower above mentioned, who stood in the relationship of a 'friend' to Mr. Jibbahadur. It was most unexpected, but the discovery was none the less welcome to me, and I besought him to take me, henceforth, under his care and protection. Thus I came to be no longer a stranger and a solitary pilgrim, but a guest, a companion, to a high personage of Nepāl. My newly acquired friend, as I should call the Lama in our language, proposed that we should start for Nepāl the next morning. This proposal was agreeable to me, as was another that we should go afoot instead of on horse-back, so that we might the better enjoy each other's company, and perchance, also, the grand scenery on the way. I say that all this was agreeable to me, because, in addition to the obvious benefit I was sure to derive from being in the company of these men, I entertained a secret hope that I might learn a great deal, which would help me in executing the main part of my adventures, yet to come.
While our talk was progressing in this fashion, two servants of the Lama's came in, running and all pale, with the unwelcome piece of news that a thief had broken into their shed. This caused my callers to take precipitate leave of me. I afterwards learned that the Lamas had had three hundred and fifty rupees in cash, and some books and clothes, stolen between them. I was in luck on that occasion, for the owner of my shed told me subsequently that the thief, who caused such a loss to the Lamas, had been on the look-out for a chance to loot my lodging, and, as it happened, he finally made my newly made friends suffer for me; I felt exceedingly sorry for them.
In the meantime I learned that the gentleman Lama's name was Buddha Vajra (Enlightened Diamond), and that the old priest, whose name was Mayar, and who was full of jokes, was a Doctor of Divinity of the Debon monastery in Lhasa.
Early on the 25th of January we started on our journey, and proceeded due north across the plain in which Sagauli stands. The next day we arrived at a place called Beelganji, where stood the first guarded gate of the Nepalese frontier. There I was given a pass, as for a Chinaman living in Tibet. We passed the night of the following day in a village situated a little way this side of the famous Dalai Jungle, which may be regarded as an entrance to the great Himalayas. On the 28th we proceeded past Simla, a village at the outer edge of the great jungle, and thence, straight across the jungle itself, which has a width of full eight miles, until we came to a village on the bank of a mountain stream called Bichagori, where we took up our lodgings for the night. About ten o'clock that night, while writing up my diary, I hap- pened to look out of the window of my shanty. The moon in her pale splendor was shining brightly over the great jungle, and there was something indescribably weird in the scene, whose silence was broken only by a rushing stream. Suddenly I then heard a detonation, tremendous
in its volume and depth, which, as I felt, almost shook 
ON THE BANKS OF THE BICHAGORI RIVER.
The night sleeps still and cairn,
the moon shines bright,
What ho! — so loud a roar
the stillness breaks,
Vibrating — ah! It is a tiger fierce!
In ripples rough his roar terrific throws
The surface even of the mountain stream.
For two days more the road lay now through a dale on the bank of a river, then across a deep forest, and over a mountain, until we reached a stage station called Binbit. So far the road was up a slow, gradual incline, and horse-carriages and bullock-carts could be driven over it; but now the ascent became so steep that it could be made only on foot, or in a mountain-palanquin. We went on foot, commencing our climb as early as four o'clock in the morning. After an ascent of something more than three and a half miles, we came to a guarded gate named Tispance. Here was a custom-house and a fortress, garrisoned by quite a number of soldiers, and we had to go through an examination. Thence we climbed a peak called Tisgari, from the top of which I, for the first time, beheld with wonder the sublime sight of the mighty Himalayas, shining majestically with their snow of ages. The grandeur of the scene was so utterly beyond imagination, that the memory of what I had seen at Darjeeling and Tiger Hill came back to me only as a faint vision. Down Tisgari we came to Marku station, where we took lodging for the night.
Early on the 1st of February, we climbed up the peak Chanḍra Giri, or Moon Peak, whose sides are covered with the flowers of the rhododendron, the chief characteristic of the Himālayan Range. Thence I saw again the snow-covered range of Himālaya, ever grand and majestic. Just a little way down from the top of the peak, I saw, spread before me like a picture, Kātmāndu the capital of Nepāl and the country around. I saw also in that panorama two gilded towers rising conspicuously against the sky, and Lama Buḍḍha Vajra told me that one of them was the tomb of Kāṣyapa Buḍḍha, and the other that of Ṣikhī Buḍḍha. On coming down the steep slope of the hill, we were met by four or five men with two horses. They were men sent thither in advance to wait for the return of Buḍḍha Vajra, and I was given one of the horses, while my host took the other. We were met by about thirty more men on entering a village, not far from the foot of the hill. The distance from Sagauli railway station to this spot is roughly one hundred and twenty-five miles.