IN A TIBETAN CITY

Evening Star, Issue 18135, 27 November 1922, Page 9

IN A TIBETAN CITY

GRUESOME CUSTOMS OF THE LAMAS A RECENT VISIT TO GYANTSE, On the return of the Mount Everest expedition I was sent by General Brace to Grantee in order to make a base there to developing the kinematograph climbing on Everest, and also to produce oilier films illustrating Tibetan hie, ciulouis, and religion (Captain J. B. Noel, ot ti, o Mount Everest expedition, writes in * The Times’). , , The mountainous country traversed y the expedition was sparsely populated. (July, one important town, Shekar Dyon_, was seen. Shekar, with its fortified ioc c towers on the summits of needle crags, and its great monastery built on tno ledges of the precipitous mountain sulc, 18 tvpical of Tibetan monasteries and _ torts. Gyanlse is much the same. The imposing Jong, on the crest of a rock rising 500 ft out of the plain, instantly commands attention when you debouch from the lied Idol Gorge affthe end of the hundred miles of rond from Chari. But Gvantse is greater than Shekar. It is one of the only three cities of Tibet. At first yen see only tbo Jong and its rock, but, approaching nearer and passing round the rock, you find the city and the huge monastery. Tiers of gompas and fine massive dwelling-houses of the Lamas, the lords of the land, terrace the hillside, and the whole is surrounded by a battlomciiled wall a mile in circumference. The most interesting object in the Temple is the main idol in the _ inner shrine. This fantastic imago, with its golden, bejewelled face and its huge body of sheet brass, as it sits cross-legged and Bhuddalike, measures 15ft in height. In the portico of the Temple is painted, on the wall, one of the oldest original specimens oi that , most ingenious invention of Buddhism —the Wheel of Life. But in the darkness it is difficult to see it and to distinguish all the pranks-and contortions of the spirits that wander in its heavens and in its hells. Above the Wheel of Life hang four mummied Yaks, rotten with age. They have guarded the Temple entrance from evil spirits for centuries past. HUNTING THE EVIL. At the Tibetan New Year is enacted at the Temple the annual ceremony of purifying the oitv'ef the evils of the outgoing year. The Lamas produce a beggar man who is willing, through fanaticism and promise of eternal merit, to risk his life in the strangest of ceremonies. Naked, ho clothes himself in the putrid entrails of animals, with the vile, bloody intestines toiled round his head, necks, arms, and body. lie represents the evil, the disease, the ill-luck, and the bad things of last year. He runs out of the Temple door, and the mad populace beat drums and blow trumpets to frighten away the devil in him. They hurl stones and beat the beggar with sticks. They chase him through the streets out into the open country, if ho does not get killed before! After they have disposed dims of the troubles of last year ’the people seek omens for good fortune- in the coming year. Each man kids his ipony to a, starling point outside the city. The ponies find their own way home without udders, and those that make their way istiuight home bring good fortune with them. Last year the .Huong—one of the high officials of Lhasa—was in Gytantee. Nobody could dream of 'allowing -his hors© to go astray, so it was helped in foy faithful servants, who ran behind it filing guns and yelling. ■So the hens© came in all right, and good ■luck was assured to (the Coong. The most gruesome custom on© can see H t Gyantse is the disposal of the dead. /At daybreak tbo body is carried to the crest of a low hill a mil© from the city. (Aftei a Lama has said prayers and incantations over the naked corpse, the. professional butchers slice the body up with knives, cutting off separately the legs and firms, and 'lastly the bead. FEEDING THE VULTURES. They ha'ck and smash each member into aulp on a rock with hatchets and throw It to tho vultures, who stand waiting only pit away. The birds consume ovc'ry partide of the flesh and the crushed hone. 'Uhc man stands by to beat off the havens, for the. raven *9 unclean to the Tibetan, pud only the vulture may eat his flesh. Although I had my kinematograph with me when I saw this burial, I refrained from photographing this custom. The ttiing was simply too awful and soulstirring to photograph. But the Tibetans thought nothing of ft. .The dead aro naught to them, since the epirit has left and become reborn in .another being, following its Wheel of Life pud its eternal weary path to far-off jvarma. The relatives of the doad man consimicd thong afterwards, and all became drunk.

A subject, however, that, provided a' moot interesting moving picture was the J/unsi devil dancing at Tcnjcliu Monaslery. nebr Gyantse. Once a-year it is .the custom of the Lamas to hold these 'dance festivals, in carder to acquaint and /familiarise the populace with the gods and )Mio demons of the Lamaist mythology which ,they will sec and meet when they idio. The Lamas, dressed in 'beautiful tClune.se silks and wearing fantastic masks, dance io the character of the different tgods and demons. They wear aprons of human bones: and they carry a ceremonial scarf (Khada) in one hand and) a drum made from a human skull in the iother.

A weird, deep, droning, monotonous music from thigh-bone trumpets, conch o hells, drums, and clashing cymbals accompanies the dance. The head Lama presides, sitting the whole day long, Buddhalike, on his throaty and the populace, in their gala dress, sib around awe-inspired, •wondering, chattering, and drinking the •eternal Littered tea.