The penalties for political offenses are very strict. People still speak of the monks of Tengyeling, who forty years ago sought to come to terms with the Chinese. Their monastery was demolished and their names blotted out.
There is no organized system of law courts in Tibet. The investigation of offenses is entrusted to two or three persons of noble rank, but corruption is unfortunately very prevalent; in fact, very few nobles have a high reputation for integrity. The sums received as bribes are regarded by many as part of the perquisites of the feudal system. If a defendant considers that he has been unjustly condemned, he is allowed to appeal to the Dalai Lama. If he is thus proved innocent, he receives a free pardon, and if not his penalty is doubled.
In Lhasa the city magistrate officiates permanently as judge, except during the twenty-one days following the New Year, when all authority is exercised by the monks. The magistrate is assisted by a couple of assessors, and they are kept very busy, for, in addition to the pilgrims, many bad characters come to the capital.
AFTER THE DALAI LAMA had moved to his summer residence the weather became very warm, but not unpleasantly so. At this season the day temperature never exceeds 85 degrees Fahrenheit, and the nights are cool. The air is very dry, and rain falls seldom. Soon everybody is praying for rain. There are a number of springs around Lhasa, but almost every year they dry up. When that happens the people have to fetch their water from the river Kyichu, which runs down clear and cold from the glaciers.
When the springs have ceased to flow and the barley fields are dry and withered, the government decrees that every citizen must water the streets till the order is withdrawn. At once the whole town gets busy, and everyone hurries to the river with jugs and buckets and carries the water back to the city. The nobles send their servants to fetch the water, but when they have brought it, they take a hand in pouring it on the streets and on their neighbors. There is a regular water carnival in which all participate without distinction of rank or station. Streams of water flow from the windows and roofs onto the heads of the passersby, and it is bad form to take offense if one is wet through. The children have the time of their lives. For my part, being tall and conspicuous, I got more than my share of soaking. Everyone thought that the “German Henrigla” was fair game.
While the water fight is going on in the street, the Oracle of Gadong, the most famous rainmaker in Tibet, is summoned to the garden of the Dalai Lama. Here are gathered together the highest officers of the government, and the Grand Lama himself presides over the ceremony. The rainmaker, a monk, soon falls into a trance. His limbs begin to move convulsively, and he gives utterance to strange groans. At that moment, one of the monastic officials begs the oracle to vouchsafe rain and thereby save the harvest. The movements of the rainmaker become more and more ecstatic, and high-pitched words escape him. A clerk takes down the message and hands it to the cabinet ministers. Meanwhile, the body of the entranced medium, now no longer possessed by the divinity, sinks unconscious to the ground and is carried out.
After this performance everyone in Lhasa excitedly waits for the rain. And rain it does. Whether one believes in miracles or looks for a logical explanation, the fact is that soon after this drama is enacted, it always does rain. The Tibetans do not doubt that the protecting deity enters the medium’s body while he is in a trance, and hears and grants the prayers of the people.
This explanation naturally did not satisfy me, and I tried to find a more scientific solution. I wondered if perhaps the intensive watering of the streets had caused evaporation, or if the monsoon rains had spilled over into the highlands of Tibet. The British Legation had set up a meteorological station and measured the rainfall scientifically. It amounted to an average of about fourteen inches a year and mostly occurred at this season. Aufschnaiter later installed a water gauge on the Kyichu and recorded the first rise in the river level on almost the same day every year. Had he followed the rainmaker’s methods he could have instituted as a successful oracle.
In former times the rainfall in Lhasa must have been much heavier. There used to be great forests, which must have made for rainier and cooler weather. The deforestation of centuries had done its work in the provinces. Lhasa itself, with its meadows and groves of willows and poplars, was a green oasis in the treeless valley of the Kyichu.
IN LHASA we were constantly invited out and often consulted. Thus we came to know the life of the town from every angle. We had opportunities for studying the details of public administration and family life, viewpoints, manners, and morals. Something new turned up every day, and many mysteries became commonplaces, but not all. One thing had certainly changed in our situation. We were no longer outsiders. We belonged.
The bathing season had come. Old and young, great and small flocked to the gardens by the river and enjoyed themselves swimming and paddling in the shallow water. Smart people organized comfortable picnic parties and put up their own tents. You could see many young women who had studied in India proudly displaying their modern bathing dresses. In the intervals of splashing about in the water the bathers picnicked and played dice, and in the evening every party burned a stick of incense by the riverside in gratitude to the gods for a lovely day.
I was much admired for my prowess as a swimmer. Tibetans do not know much about swimming as the water is too cold for learning. Those who can swim at all can just keep themselves afloat. Now they had an expert among them. I was invited right and left, of course with the idea that I should show off my skill, but my sciatica made swimming a painful pastime, as the water was very cold—never above 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Sometimes I used to dive in order to give my friends pleasure, but not often. Still, there were times when my presence was of service. I managed to save three people from drowning, for there were some dangerous places in the river where obstructions had created whirlpools and undercurrents.
One day I was the guest of Surkhang, the Foreign Minister, and his family, who had put up their tent beside the water. The minister’s only son Jigme (meaning “Dreadnought”) was there on a holiday from school in India. He had learned how to swim, more or less, at school. I was floating downstream when I suddenly heard cries and saw people gesticulating wildly on the bank and pointing to the water. I hurriedly swam to land and ran to the tent. From there I saw Jigme being whirled round in a swirling eddy. I at once dived in and though the whirlpool caught me, too, I was a strong swimmer and managed to get hold of the unconscious lad and bring him to the bank. As a former instructor, I knew how to revive him, and in a short time he was breathing again to the great joy of his father, who shed tears and overwhelmed me with expressions of gratitude. I had saved a life, and that was accounted a great merit.
As a result of this episode, my relations with the Surkhang family became intimate, and I had an opportunity to study a marital combination that even in Tibet was quite out of the ordinary.
The minister was separated from his first wife. The second, the mother of Jigme, was dead. Surkhang now shared the young wife of a nobleman of lower rank. In the marriage contract, Jigme was brought in as the third husband, because his father did not wish to leave all his fortune to his widow. Similar complications are found in many families. I once came across a case in which a mother was the sister-in-law of her own daughter. In Tibet one finds polygamy and polyandry, but most people are monogamous.
When a man has several wives, his relations with them are different from those that prevail in a Moslem harem. It is common practice for a man to marry several daughters of a house in which there is no son and heir. This arrangement prevents the family fortune from being dispersed. Our host Tsarong had married three sisters and had obtained permission from the Dalai Lama to take their family name.
In spite of the frequently unusual relationships created by these alliances, broken marriages are not commoner in Tibet than with us. This is largely due to the fact that these people are not inclined to let their feelings run away with them. When several brothers share the same wife, the eldest
is always the master in the household and the others have rights only when he is away or amusing himself elsewhere. But no one gets short measure as there is a superfluity of women. Many men live a celibate life in monasteries. There is a cloister in every village. The children of irregular alliances have no right to inherit, and all the property goes to the children of the legitimate wife. That is why it is not so important which of the brothers is the father of the child. The great thing is that the property remains in the family.
Tibet knows nothing about the drawbacks of overpopulation. For centuries the number of inhabitants has remained about the same. In addition to the practices of polyandry and monasticism, infant mortality contributes to this state of things. I calculate that the average expectation of life among the Tibetans is only about thirty years. A great number of small children die, and among the whole mass of officials there is only one septuagenarian.
I had read in many books about Tibet that the host is accustomed to offer his wife or daughter to his guest. If I had counted on that, I should have been badly disappointed. Sometimes it happened that a pretty young servant girl was lightheartedly offered to one, but the girls don’t give themselves without being courted. Of course, loose girls can be found in all parts of the world, and even in Lhasa there are certain beauties who make love on a professional basis.
In former times marriages were arranged by the parents, but today the young people choose their own partners. They marry very young, the girls at sixteen and the boys at seventeen or eighteen at latest. The aristocracy may marry only in their own class, and this rule is strictly applied. Relatives may not marry each other except after seven generations, in order to avoid inbreeding. The Dalai Lama alone may permit exceptions to these rules. Occasionally, capable men of the people are promoted to the nobility, and that brings a little fresh blood into the small circle of about two hundred families that constitute the aristocracy.
Divorces are rare and have to be approved by the government. Very drastic penalties are inflicted on unfaithful spouses, for example cutting off the nose. But, as a matter of fact, I never heard of a case where this punishment was carried out. They once showed me an old woman without a nose, who was alleged to have been detected in infidelity—but it might just as well have been a case of syphilis.
VENEREAL DISEASE is very common in Tibet. Many cases occur in Lhasa, but not much importance is attached to them. They are generally neglected, and the doctor is called in when it is too late to do much good. The ancient remedy of mercury is known to the monks in the schools of medicine.
What a lot could be done for the future of Tibet if medical and sanitary conditions were improved! Surgery is completely unknown in the country. Aufschnaiter and I used to have a panic at the thought of an attack of appendicitis. Every suspicious pain used to alarm us. It seemed absurd in the twentieth century to die of this illness. The Tibetans know nothing of operations on the human body except the lancing of boils. The use of instruments in confinements is likewise unknown. The only connection Tibetans have with surgery is in the activities of the people who dissect corpses, the Domdens. These often report to the relatives on the cause of death or inform interested students of medicine when they find any interesting feature in a corpse.
The schools of medicine are unfortunately opposed to all progress. The doctrines taught by Buddha and his apostles are an overruling law, which may not be tampered with. There are two schools, the smaller situated on the Chagpori or “Iron Mountain,” and the larger down below in the town. Every monastery sends a number of intelligent youngsters to these schools. The course lasts from ten to fifteen years. Learned old monks give instruction to the boys, who sit cross-legged on the ground with their tablets on their knees. Colored illustrations are often displayed on the walls. I was once present when a teacher was explaining by means of illustrations the symptoms of poisoning caused by a certain plant. The pupils were shown pictures of the plant, the symptoms, the antidotes and their reactions—just like the wall pictures in our schools.
Astronomy is an integral part of medical science. The yearly lunar calendar is put together in the schools of medicine after old works have been consulted. Eclipses of the sun and moon are carefully recorded, and monthly and yearly weather forecasts prepared.
In the autumn the whole school goes off to search for herbs in the mountains. The boys enjoy the expedition tremendously, though they are kept very busy. Every day they camp in a fresh place, and at the end of their excursion they drive their heavily laden yaks to Tra Yerpa. This is one of the holiest places in Tibet. It contains a sort of temple in which the herbs are sorted and laid out to dry. In winter the youngest of these little monks have to grind the dried herbs into powders, which are kept in carefully labeled, airtight leather bags by the abbot in charge of the school. These schools serve at the same time as pharmacies from which anyone can get medicine gratis or for a small present. The Tibetans are really advanced in the knowledge of herbs and their healing properties, and I have often had recourse to them. Their pills did not do my sciatica much good, but I staved off many a cold and fever with their herb teas.
The abbot of the Medical School of Lhasa is at the same time the Dalai Lama’s personal physician—an honorable but dangerous charge. When the thirteenth Dalai Lama died at the age of fifty-four, all kind of suspicions were openly voiced, and the abbot of the time could consider himself lucky to have escaped with loss of rank. He might have been sentenced to a flogging.
In the towns and monasteries one can get oneself vaccinated against smallpox, but no other forms of inoculation are practiced, and many lives are lost needlessly in epidemics for want of prophylactic treatment. What saves Tibet is its cool climate and pure mountain air. But for them, the universal dirt and the wretched sanitary conditions would surely engender catastrophic plagues. In season and out we preached the necessity of better sanitation and had thought out a drainage scheme for Lhasa. Superstition is the enemy. We found that the people had more confidence in the laying on of hands and faith healing than in the ministration of the monks of the schools of medicine. The lamas often smear their patients with their holy spittle. Tsampa, butter, and the urine of some saintly man are made into a sort of gruel and administered to the sick. The wooden prayer stamps, which are dipped in holy water and then applied to the painful spot, do no one any harm. Nothing ranks higher as a remedy for illness than objects that have belonged to the Dalai Lama. All the nobles used to show me with pride relics of the thirteenth Dalai Lama carefully sewn up in little silk bags. Tsarong, as his former favorite, possessed many articles of personal use that had belonged to him, and it astonished me that Tsarong and his son, who had been educated in India, were superstitious enough to set store by these relics.
Many men and women live by fortune-telling and casting horoscopes. Characteristic of the streets of Lhasa are the little old women who crouch beside the pilgrims’ road and tell the future for a small fee. They ask you the date of your birth, make a small calculation with the help of their rosaries, and you go on your way consoled by the mysterious words. The greatest confidence is placed in the soothsaying powers of lamas and Incarnations. One does not do a thing without consulting the omens. No one would think of going on a pilgrimage or taking up a new office before ascertaining on what date it will be lucky to start.
Not long ago there lived in Lhasa a very celebrated lama, whose visits and consultations were booked up for months ahead. He used to travel with his disciples from place to place receiving hospitality. His patients gave him so many presents that he and his group lived very comfortably on them. He had such a reputation that even Mr. Fox, the English radio operator, who for years had been a victim of gout, arranged for the lama to visit him. But poor Fox missed his turn as the old man died before he could come.
The old lama had originally been a simple monk. After studying for twenty years in one of the greatest monasteries, he passed his examinations brilliantly and retired to a hermitage for several years. He lived
in one of the lonely cells that one finds scattered over the whole country and in which monks settle down to a period of meditation. Many of them have themselves walled in by their disciples and live on nothing but tsampa and tea. This monk became celebrated for his exemplary life. He never ate food which life had been taken to provide, and abstained even from eggs. He was reputed to need no sleep and never to use a bed. This latter detail I can confirm, as he once lived near me for three days. He was also said to perform miracles. Once his rosary caught fire from the powerful rays that emanated from his own hand. He presented to the town of Lhasa a great gilded statue of Buddha, which he paid for out of the gifts and contributions he had received from his patients and admirers.
There was only one female Incarnation in Tibet. Her name, as interpreted, was “Thunderbolt Sow.” I often used to see her at ceremonies in the Parkhor. She was then an insignificant-looking student of about sixteen, wearing a nun’s dress. However, she was the holiest woman in Tibet, and the people entreated her to bless them wherever she went. Later on she became abbess in a convent by Lake Yamdrok.
Lhasa was always full of rumors and stories about saintly nuns and lamas, and I would gladly have investigated some of their miracles. But one must not offend against people’s beliefs. The Tibetans were happy in their own convictions and had never tried to convert Aufschnaiter or me. We contented ourselves with studying their customs, visiting their temples as spectators, and making presents of white silk scarves as etiquette prescribed.
11
Life in Lhasa—II
Just as the people apply to lamas and soothsayers for advice and help in the cares of daily life, so the government consults the State Oracle before making important decisions. Once I asked my friend Wangdüla to take me to an official consultation, and so one morning we rode out to the Nechung Monastery. At that time a nineteen-year-old monk was the mouthpiece of the oracle.