From Lhasa caravans wended southwest to Lunpo; they swung onto the route the lama would take. Their passage could be traced. Countless prayer flags hung on strings from tree to tree, from post to post; they erected tumuli of stones with the six blissful syllables om mane padme hum. On passes and mountains they laid the shoulderbones of sheep. They pulled out their own teeth and stuffed them as sacrifices in cracks in the cliffs, cut off locks of hair, tied them with string and hung them to flutter beside bright rags.
Then the train filled the narrow streets as it left the monastery buildings with their crimson breastwork, the purple of their window bays, steep walls, the up and down of rockcut steps, the roofs and cells. The goldgleaming labrang looked from blackrimmed windows onto the departing caravan, like a widow whose tears were frozen. Bright flags flapped, horns blared. Lobsang Paldan Ishe, the Ocean of Wisdom and Virtue, had set off for Peking.
It was winter now. The enormous levy that accompanied the lama pope trudged ponderously forth. Treeless steppe stretched away endlessly. In the hard ground stood thorn bushes, wretched pines and spruce. Cold air blew. In a finely carved and painted palanquin with yellow curtains four monks bore the holy man, squatting motionless on tucked-in feet on a red cushion, shaven head bare. His ears were large, long. He wore a black silk gown embroidered in blue, with white fur sleeves. Pages of the Kandjur before him.
In the broil around him novices, consecrated priests, scholars, magicians, medicine men, all handpicked. The train grew as it proceeded; it was joined by learned men from Mongolia and India.
All the gloomy sanctity of the temple went with the lama. Along paths used to caravans laden with brick tea and bales of silk, priests swung their fearsome tambourines: two human skulls, joined at the crown and covered in hide.
In the lama’s palanquin, on his right, a wonderful skull goblet inlaid in gold with a bulging gold lid. It stood on a triangular base of black marble; at its three corners the goblet was supported by little stone human heads in red, blue and black.
From time to time when they made a halt for prayers, trumpets of human bones blew that ended in bronze fittings with flared nostrils. Their tone recalled the whinnying of the horse that carries souls to paradise.
In front of the itinerant men of learning who walked along in pointed yellow hats of felt with fleecy tassels hanging down behind, enormous yaks pulled huge, ineffably intricate prayer wheels on carts.
A small contingent of native Tanguts and fifteen hundred Imperial soldiers guarded the train. They pushed on to the northeast, past the blue lake called Tsomawang where the god dwells on the lake bottom in a turquoise tent.
The icy summit of Kailas, the holy mountain, towered vast above them. After many days they reached the snowfields and mountains that lead to Kokonor. Then the dreaded northern gales set in. The holy train, descending to valleys, winding over ridges, met at every turn traces of the white death, animal carcasses, human skeletons. Here on every pass supplicating pennants, bones were laid out for the terrible gods.
And the terrible gods gave escort to the pious travellers from Tashilunpo. Yamantaka, most frightful of spirit gods, shrieked voracious in a storm across the boundless solitude of the paths and fell on yaks, mules and men, he of the bull’s horns and the pyramid of nine heads, sixteen legs, thirty-four arms. Iron spears hissed from his flailing arms, he tore the flesh from human bodies, devoured their hearts, guzzled their blood, he who spread terror from the fastness he could leave through sixteen gates. He could do nothing to the priests and holy men: the Dragsed, women of Hell, conjured by the magicians gave him combat.
They trudged slowly through these frightful regions. With prayers of thanksgiving they crossed into the province of Amdo, close to the frontier with the Imperial province of Kansu. Then they arrived at the marvellous monastery town of Kunbum nestling in its valley. The house of the reformer of the Yellow Hat church, the holy Tsong Kapa, founder of the Sect of Virtue, still slumbered under the lovely sandalwood tree. To the east a rampart of ice and snow.
The yellow god dallied here through the winter. The world had a new pivot. The streams of pilgrims and caravans terminated here. A Mongol chieftain on whose head Paldan Ishe laid a hand presented him with three hundred horses, seventy mules, a hundred camels, a thousand bolts of brocade, a hundred and fifty thousand taels of silver. For the poorest and the poor he placed his hand a thousand times a day on saffron-coated paper. The land lapped blissfully at this God who spent himself so lavishly on it.
Then winter and the first spring days were past. An honour guard ten thousand strong made its way to the Tibetan holy man. Sixty days more it took for the miracle-bearing caravan with its escort of Imperial princes and the lama archbishop of the empire, the Changkya Hutuktu, to overcome the western provinces, the Great Wall, Dolonor and approach the marble-gleaming songfilled pleasure palace of Jehol. The great lama needed no parasol bearer once in the Imperial park: on low painted poles silk cloths, precious billowing embroideries were hung across the path down which the Most Reverend would proceed between black cypresses tall as the sky, slender thuyas. Red and white lotus flowers lay on the glistening brown earth that his feet must tread.
But the Tashi-lama remained standing at the iron gate. He declined to trample the flowers. He stood for almost half an hour in the balmy air in front of the open entrance. Everything was delayed. Hastily the paths inside were swept clear of petals. Paldan Ishe observed the work in sadness, and the abbots and learned men behind him stood there with bowed heads, pained at so barbarous a reception.
And then when the Tibetan pope saw a little heap of swept-up lily corpses by the side of the path next to a cypress trunk he could not forebear to halt in his tracks with a sort of horror, go over to the hillock and in sight of the glittering Imperial household, the singing, pennant-waving choirs to kneel down, stroke flower after flower with his blessing hands.
A broad avenue led directly to the palace. As the procession came into view, preceded by gongbeaters and trumpeters, a solitary man dressed in yellow silk hastened down marble steps from the terrace. The throng cleared a way as far as the Tashilama. Between two of the giant cypresses Ch’ien-lung and Lobsang Paldan Ishe came face to face, the lean, greybearded Lord of the Yellow Earth and the large, rather stout pope on whose face a shadow of sadness lay. On his head was the tall mitre; his ceremonial robe of gold thread was embroidered over and over with Buddhas and saints at prayer. At his breast were two padded sleeves with white false hands, folded. Ishe was the incarnation of a many-armed Buddha.
Forty paces Ch’ien-lung took towards the bronzehued man with the soft lips and gleaming calm eyes. They bowed to one another; the music fell silent.
Softly the Yellow Lord breathed thanks that Heaven had granted him the joy of this moment before he died, bade the holy man welcome, made to bow deeply before him.
But the Most Reverend took him by the elbows, stepped, so they might proceed, to the Emperor’s side. The Emperor was confused and stood there moving his lips. Then they walked on accompanied only by fan bearers, up three marble steps, across the terrace and into the room prepared for the spiritual lord, from whom Ch’ien-lung at once took his leave.
Days were crowded with visits, return visits, banquets, exchanges of presents. In one side wing of the palace a hall had been adapted, quite secluded, open on three sides, connected with the main building only by one wall with a door in it. In this airy room, in the centre of which three chairs rose out of a thick carpet, the conversations of the holy man with the Yellow Lord took place in the presence of the Changkya Hutuktu, twice without his attendance.
An altar with a gigantic statue of a sitting Buddha in gold gazed across at the three chairs. On the raised centre chair the Panchen Rinpoche, the most reverend and brightest jewel of learning from the Mountain of Mercy in Tibet, inclined now right, now left to whisper religious words of the utmost secrecy into the ear of the Emperor and the archbishop. One day the Changkya was called away by Mongolian caravans th
at had journeyed to the outskirts of Jehol, to act as judge of final appeal in some disputes; this was with Ch’ien-lung’s secret permission. The Emperor could tolerate an empty chair for two days.
As usual during these conversations the hall was surrounded at thirty paces by Imperial Life Guards; the three adjoining rooms were locked, sentries posted at the doors of the farther rooms. Ch’ien-lung turned his chair half away from the middle chair, so that he sat almost facing the Panchen Lama and with his back half turned on the altar by the window. Paldan Ishe let his head droop reflectively on his breast, with the fingers of his exposed right hand told off rosary beads: little irregular white balls of human bone, set with precious stones.
Before he emerged from his contemplation Ch’ien-lung, who had folded his arms, began to speak: “Your Holiness has granted me, unworthy as I am, so much; my soul is soothed. I am Emperor, to be sure, but only a man. I am the Son of Heaven, but the intimacy of your relations with the great powers that rule the world leaves me trembling. Sometimes I write poems; my academy, the brilliant Forest of Quills, has praised them. It is beyond my power, if Your Holiness will forgive me, to approach you on some human plane. The people in your land of herdsmen and black tents may be accustomed to you, your mildness, your overwhelming intellect; it is beyond me to dream, to turn into poetry, either you yourself or what you have said to me.”
“Your Majesty is the protector of my wretched little land of snow. We occupy a tiny corner of the house which Your Majesty protects. Sakyamuni ended his life’s course in the southern lands. It has been given to my country, sealed behind its gates of ice, to tend his eternal doctrines. The spirits are with us. The reincarnations of our precious Buddha are witnessed by barren mountains that spit out death and exhale cold like one of the prophesied icehells.”
“Earth does not shake at this exhalation. All mouths gasp for the air that emanates from these deathspitting mountains.”
“Your Majesty is a wise, pious warrior. You seek to win lands that belong to you. Tibet has long had sincere and peaceful relations with the Pure Dynasty.”
“I am not pious. I have striven to think as Your Holiness says. It has been hard for me: one can’t be Emperor and pious at the same time. No, be easy; I assure you it is so. I should have been murdered long ago had I been pious in your sense for only half an hour. I strive. And that’s why I entreated you to come and talk to an old man.”
“I am devoted to the eastern lord. The snares he has fallen into are great. I weep with him when he is beset with fears.”
“Panchen Rinpoche, what was that wealthy Indian almsgiver called, of whom you told the learned Hutuktu and me yesterday? The pious man approached the Victorious Completed One, had a monastery built for him near She-wei, the City of Hearing; there, you said, the son of Sakya wrote countless holy books.”
“I spoke of Anathapindika.”
“I am called Ch’ien-lung, and am a thousand times richer than Anathapindika of She-wei. You couldn’t count all the things I possess. I lay before you, Panchen Rinpoche, whatever you will. I’ll build monasteries for you such as you’ve never seen; my masons, architects, painters will give their all. I’ll transfer to you possession of neighbouring cities, the entire province in which you dwell. Stay a little while in my country. Your Tibet can spare you; that land is full to bursting with holiness. Others who need you go hungry. I don’t need to paint the beauty of my provinces for you. You too are old, Panchen Rinpoche; the Lobsang Paldan Ishe whose body you now inhabit could warm himself in the land of the Dragon’s Son. The victorious completed Gautama didn’t scorn such gifts. I think like one of you believers when I say: your Holiness blesses me in accepting my gift.”
“What does the Lord of the East want with the body of Paldan Ishe?”
“Don’t look so darkly, Panchen Rinpoche. You’re not about to be detained. My government is quite convinced of your country’s friendly disposition. This is not politics: believe me, Your Holiness.”
“I trust in Ch’ien-lung’s forbearance.”
The Emperor looked at the pale red pattern of the carpet. The holy man’s ardent gaze rested on his face; chasms yawned beneath its lines.
“Sit up straight, Ch’ien-lung. Speak more plainly.”
“It is easy to speak of. In the Eighteen Provinces, as everywhere, there are charlatans. A man from Shantung, a fisherman’s son from some village on the coast, has founded a sect he calls Wu-wei. This Wang Lun has committed many crimes: murders, robberies. He quarrels with a part of his following, who give themselves an immodest name, raise rebellion in a northern province, are defeated in part, in part immure themselves in a quarter of a western town. It is here, Paldan Ishe, Panchen Rinpoche, that the crime occurred from which I am still reeling, still can find no peace. Before troops reached the town the thousands of people, men and women, shut up in the Old Town were slain one night in a manner more horrible than this land’s history has ever known. How it happened, whether they drank poisoned water or demons fell on them, I have no idea. It seems that the criminal Wang Lun murdered his former adherents in a confusion of revenge and arrogance. My officers haven’t been able to catch the egregious man. I have to ask myself, however, what I have done that such horrors should appear in the evening of my reign. I must know what I stand accused of by such an obvious indictment.”
“Ch’ien-lung, you have grown old. In earlier days the death throes of whole populations failed to reach your ears. Now the cries of a few thousand dying people are enough to give you sleepless nights.”
“I do not ask for indictments from you.”
“I’m not indicting you. You live in the world of the flesh. It gives me pleasure to hear of your sleepless nights.”
“That’s no help to me, Panchen Rinpoche. You mustn’t let it rest with these few words. I am Emperor of the mightiest realm in the world; I haven’t sat on the throne like a puppet, but have striven for the fame and wealth of my dynasty. You mustn’t take me for a man like this one or that, seek to drag me along ordinary paths. Help is what I need from you, Panchen Rinpoche. You stand in a relationship of incomprehensible, unspeakable nearness to the world’s profoundest, most fearsome things; the spirit of a Buddha lodges in you; you’re the only one I have been able to touch, hold, see, hear and trust since my best son was taken from me. Think that I am nonetheless Emperor of the Middle Realm; don’t burden me with the impossible.”
“Majesty, what you say is music to my ears. You don’t need any help from a sceptre-bearing lama. You are emerging from the Samsara, having heard the call.”
“I am Emperor. I don’t live in a Samsara. I don’t seek a path to Buddha: my empire is good, to me it was never, and is not now, a Hell. Paldan Ishe, don’t stop up your ears. I am begging you.”
“Don’t stop up your ears, Ch’ien-lung! How can awareness rise in men if not from unease, anxieties, nocturnal wanderings, from the wringing of hands, cries for help to the four quarters.”
“Oh you are cruel. I thought you an ocean of gentleness and am disappointed.”
“Let me weep with you. And let me pray that you remain strong and that it doesn’t drain from you.”
Ch’ien-lung, in despair, had knocked his forehead against the golden chairarm. His shoulders and arms heaved jerking at the groaning expansion of his ribcage. He was no longer aware of the Tashi-lama’s presence. A sense of grey abandonment overwhelmed him.
The holy man took the mitre from his head. His shaven skull was dewed with fine drops of sweat. In the silence, broken only by the Yellow Lord’s snuffling breath, minutes grew to long hours. The quiet was preserved by no more than a little husk, thin as a rubber membrane; beyond it pressed a gaseous mixture that threatened at any moment to rip through the husk. Panchen Rinpoche rustled to the altar, grasped his prayer sceptre, threw himself down. When he stood and looked around, Ch’ien-lung’s piercing troubled gaze was fixed on him. The holy man stepped hesitantly back; slowly he put the mitre with its Buddha images back on his head. He bow
ed to the Yellow Lord, who sat bolt upright, face revealing the great warrior Emperor; said, “If it please Your Majesty, I go now to my devotions.”
“I beg Your Holiness to favour me tomorrow with instruction.”
“I shall devise a task and beseech the Changkya Hutuktu to occupy himself with the Mongolian caravans tomorrow as well.”
The next afternoon at the same hour Ch’ien-lung and Paldan Ishe entered the hall of the three chairs. A massive ornament gleamed in front of the holy man’s chair. Smooth black tripod of wood with a circular top painted green, wide as a man’s outstretched arm. On this disc the miniaturist’s art had built a wonderful city of glinting metal, precious stones and brightly coloured materials. Within the encircling wall houses crowded with upswung roofs. Memorial arches, temples; broad avenues quartered the city, in which a high holiday was being celebrated, numerous banners waved from painted poles, magnificent prayerwheels had been pulled into the streets. In the centre rose a hall with a dome of smooth crystal. Four steps led to a hushed, pillarfringed room: a golden deity kept silence within. It was a model of the City of Gods on the world mountain Sumeru.
After the formulaic exchange of greetings and thanks the two rulers sat down side by side. Yellow sunlight fell slanting through the hall.
The Yellow Lord appeared lively, expansive. Paldan Ishe’s breastpiece glittered: a Kalmuck present, a blue halfmoon-shaped brooch; little chains that hung from it supported two round plates of silver inlaid with coral, rock crystal and little pearls. The chains ended in long silken tassels that dangled in the great lama’s lap.
The Panchen spoke first: “The learned Changkya Hutuktu laments that his duties once again keep him from his appointment with you and me.”
Ch’ien-lung laughed. “I consider it quite disrespectful of the learned Hutuktu. Some other spiritual judge could perhaps be found for the caravans and cattleherds. Your Holiness will permit me to express sympathy at the presumption of such a servant, who has grown accustomed in my realm to too great an independence. You have only to say the word, and I’ll make arrangements for his punishment.”