Three Years in Tibet/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX.
Beautiful Tsarang and Dirty Tsarangese.
At the foot of the mountain out of which we had emerged, and where the plain began, we came upon a stone-turreted gate about twenty-four feet in height. Standing by itself and entirely unprotected, the gate was not intended, as I was told, for any military purpose; but it was used for housing Buḍḍhas and other deities that would keep guard against the invasion of the locality by evil genii. About a mile and a half to the rear of the gate stood the town of Tsarang, at the entrance of which we were met by fourteen or fifteen men, who, as it appeared, anticipated our arrival. Serab Gyaltsan led me to the house of the Chief of the town, which was of considerable size. As in Tibet so in Tsarang, all well-to-do people generally have a separate chapel in their residence. When they have a visitor of rank and social position, they, out of respect, put him up in their chapel, and a person entitled to such distinction in these localities is generally a Lama. So it was that, as a Chinese Lama, I was given that privilege in the Chiefs chapel, which I found to be a typical one of its kind, with its image-crowned altar, a special depository for religious Texts, etc., and altogether much superior in its general finish and furnishings to the family dwelling. I may remark that these folk generally keep a good store of the Texts, not because they make use of them themselves, but more as a matter of form, the form showing their deep reverence for their religion; but it is apparently beyond their ken that volumes of Texts are but so many sheets of waste paper, if their possessors do not understand and live by them.
By the side of the chapel in which I was installed there was another small building, in which lived Serab Gyaltsan. My host was a widower, quiet and amiable, and living with two grown-up daughters, about twenty-three and eighteen years of age respectively, who between them managed the household and the family business, employing under them a number of servants, farm-hands and cattlemen. I could not but admire the two young women for the creditable manner in which they attended to their business. I also observed that the chief amusement of all the villagers consisted in spending evenings in dances and comic songs, except when they went to a sort of semi-religious meeting presided over by a Lama Maṇi, who would narrate the stories of ancient priests of great renown, or the biographies of the more famous monarchs of Buḍḍhist States, to the great delight of his audience.
The days I spent in Tsarang were, in a sense, the days of my tutelage in the art of living amidst filth and filthy habits. In point of uncleanliness, Tibetans stand very high among the inhabitants of the earth, but I think the natives of Tsarang go still higher in this respect. In Tibet people wash themselves occasionally, but they almost never do so in Tsarang. In the course of the twelve months that I lived there, I only twice saw a person wash himself, the washing being confined even then to the face and neck. Such being the case, the native's skin all over the body has on it a peculiarly repulsive shine of polished dirt, so to say. I often noticed women, whose complexion would have appeared quite fair if only an occasional scrubbing were administered to the skin; but what can they do when it is a custom, as it is among them, to laugh at persons who wash their faces nice and clean, and to deride them as being very dirty in their habits? Not only in their appearance, but in all that they do, the natives seem to have absolutely no idea of cleanliness. To say that they think nothing of making a cup of tea for you with the same fingers with which they have just blown their nose, is to give only a very mild instance of their filthiness, and I have no courage to dwell here on their many other doings, which are altogether beyond imagination for those who have not seen them done, and are too loathsome, even unto sickening, to recall to mind. As it was, my life among these slovenly people did one good thing for me, in that it thoroughly prepared me for what I had to endure in Tibet.
My work with Serab Gryaltsan consisted in this: a lecture on Buddhism for three solid hours in the morning, which required much preparation, and exercises in Tibetan rhetoric and penmanship for another three hours in the afternoon, which was, however, of a very easy nature, and gave me occasion to engage in discussions with my teacher.
There is in existence to this day in Tibet a sect of Buḍḍhists which believes in a teaching originated by a priest whose name may be translated into "born of the lotus flower" (Padma Sambhava) or Padma Chungne in Tibetan, and whom they regard as their savior and as Buḍḍha incarnate. His teaching is a sort of parody on Buḍḍhism proper, and an attempt to sanctify the sexual relations of humankind, explaining and interpreting all the important passages and tenets in the sacred Text from a sensual standpoint. Indeed, Padma's own life was simply his teachings translated into actual practice, for he lived with eight women whom he called his wives, drank intoxicants to his heart's content, and fed freely on animal food. Now in the Tibetan rhetoric in which I took lessons under Serab Gyaltsan I found this lewd and detestable teaching largely incorporated, and it was on this account that hot disputes not unfrequently arose between my instructor and myself. At times I felt sorry, as I feel sorry now, for my Serab, because, from what I was able to gather, he is one of those on whom (as the result of twenty years' study, maintaining well the while his undefiled priesthood) was conferred the title of Doctor by the great monastery of Sera, but who, because of having afterwards yielded to feminine temptation, lost his qualification to go back to Mongolia as a respectable Lama, while out of shame it became impossible for him to continue to live in Lhasa, so that he was compelled to pass his life in obscure seclusion. I felt sorry for him all the more, because I found him to be a profound and widely-read scholar, who could have risen in life but for his carnal weakness. Another thing I noticed about him to my pain was that he very easily became angry, like all the Mongols I came across, but, like them also, he was very quick in becoming reconciled.
I said I had disputes with my Serab. It was on one of these occasions that I differed from him with regard to the real merits of a certain Buddhist saint. Thereupon, flying into a terrible rage, he caught hold of my clothes near my throat with one hand, and, with the other picking up a bar belonging to a table that stood between us, was about to visit me with a blow. The situation was very humorous, and I broke out into loud laughter, saying the next moment that I had always thought a little better of him than to suppose that he was capable of such an exhibition as he was thus making of himself, in defiance of the teachings of the saint he revered so much. This took him aback, but he did not let go his grasp. I saw him grind his teeth, and fire glared in his eyes; he then removed his grasp and withdrew as if too wroth to be near me. But reconciliation followed. So time passed on, I spending seven to nine hours a day in preparation, besides the six hours of the regular daily lessons. Out of the twenty-four hours, thirteen to fifteen were thus taken up for purposes of study every day, with the exception of Sundays, my other occupation being to take one meal a day with some tea, and to go out for a walk. Sundays I invariably spent in mountaineering of a somewhat unusual character. I had an idea that I should never be able to compass the arduous journey before me, toiling on in a rare atmosphere through trackless wildernesses at great heights while burdened with heavy luggage on my back, unless I had a thorough training beforehand for the purpose. Guided by these thoughts, I made a point of carrying on my back a heavy load of stones when making my Sunday climb, and of making the ascents with all possible speed. I was in excellent health then, and I felt that the mountaineering made it still better, especially with regard to my lungs. Such was the life I led for awhile, and I shortly became quite a famous man in the locality. It was in this way.
The natives hereabouts are merely, it may be said, creatures of animal instincts. True, they engage in agricultural work to some extent, which keeps them occupied during the summer months, but at the other seasons they think of nothing but eating, drinking and sleeping, their minds being otherwise filled with thoughts pertaining to sensual love. They occasionally spend their evening in listening to a Lama Maṇi preaching or lecturing, but only occasionally. They change their clothing but once a year, casting off the old for the new; but if any of them is brave enough to wear the same suit for two years, that person is made an object of high praise. And as they never wash their wearing apparel, it is always shining with grease and dirt. Indifferent as they are to their appearance, they are very painstaking in preparing food, as also in making their sleep comfortable. But their ruling passion is that of carnal love, and that applies to all ages, from the young to the very old. But as human beings they are subject to illness, and like all uncivilised people they are intensely superstitious. To them a Lama is omnipotent, for they believe that he can cure diseases and divine all future events. So it came to pass that the Chinese Lama—I myself—became an object of great esteem and reverence among them. For it was not long before my presence in Tsarang became known among the inhabitants, and my doings in the mountain on Sundays began to attract their attention. Especially my altercations with Serab Gyaltsan, which were often loud enough to be heard outside, furnished them with no end of material for gossip, while the fact that the medicines I gave away at their pressing request occasionally proved of good effect contributed greatly to my fame. I knew not of these things myself at first, but heard of them from my host's daughters, who frequently called to favor me with tea and sweets, when they would inform me of what people were saying of me. The most ridiculous of all was their interpretation of the quarrels between Serab and myself; they made out that these disputes originated in Serab's objecting to my giving away, to the poor, things sent to me as presents, instead of giving them to him, or to my giving some cash to beggars! Idle tales as these were, they seemed to find ready ears among the natives, who looked on me as a being of a higher order.
While treating of Tsarang, I may dwell a little on the natural beauties of that place. Tsarang has but two seasons, namely, summer and winter, and many are the natives that do not know even the names of the other seasons. In summer, simple as is the contrast between
the verdant fields of luxuriant wheat, interspersed with patches of white and pink buckwheat, and the majestic 
TSARANGESE VILLAGE GIRLS.
down, keeping time, as it were, to the stirring melody of sky-larks, which is now and then softened by the clear notes of a cuckoo, while the fields below are resonant with the rustic melodies of joyous damsels, and the tout ensemble becomes at once as enchanting as it is archaic; and this is the picture of Tsarang in summer, when the day is bright and warm. But more sublimely spectacular is the view on its winter's eve. The moment the sun begins to descend behind the snow-covered mountains that rise about ten miles to the west of the town, the equally snow-robed peaks that tower above the eastern range become luminous masses of coral-red, as the last rays of the sinking sun strike them. The ruby color gradually changes into a golden-yellow, but that only for a moment, and it fades away to reveal huge pillars of silver-white, shining out majestically against the cloudless clear blue sky. The scene once more changes as the dusk deepens, burying the peaks in faint uncertainty, and the moon in her glory rises slowly from behind them, to spread again an indescribable lustre of cold—if coldness has a color of its own—over the mountain tops, which now look like a vision of celestial seas hung in mid-air.
But Tsarang has its horrors as well as its charms, as when a snow storm rages. The wind is often so strong that it blows away the tilled surface of a farm, and in time changes it into a barren field of sand, while the snow comes down in such abundance that it drifts itself into huge mountains here and there on the plain. The cold is, of course, intense on such occasions and nobody dares to go out. But the scene on a moonlight night after a blizzard is worth seeing. The sky is filled with clouds of dusty particles of snow, moving ever onward like phantom armies, now thickening into ominous darkness and then thinning into vapory transparency, through which one sees struggling, the lustre of the grey steely moon. No scene so weirdly harrowing can be seen anywhere else.