Three Years in Tibet. Ekai Kawaguchi
butter, fried peaches—all in various quantities—while some gave me kata and silver coins. At three in the afternoon of that 10th of March I left my residence on horse-back, with my volumes of Buḍḍhist Texts and other baggage loaded on two pack-ponies. The books I have just referred to were given to me by one Nyendak, Lama-Superior of the principal Buḍḍhist temple of Tsarang, in exchange for my white horse, which had proved such a faithful animal on my journey from Nepāl, and to which the priest had taken a great fancy. The books were chiefly in manuscript, penned by a Sakya Paṇdiṭ, and altogether were worth at least 600 rupees.
On reaching the outskirts of the village, I found about one hundred persons waiting for me, and to each of these I gave the ‘double-handed blessing’. The parting was not easy, and time sped on. It was now five o’clock, and I left my well-wishers in tears behind me. Reaching the village gate, by which I had come in some eleven months before, I turned round to take a last look at Tsarang, and prayed in silence for the safety of the villagers and their ever-increasing faith in Buḍḍhism. Before the darkness set in I arrived at Kimiyi, and there put up for the night. The next day’s journey brought me back to Tsuk, a village on the Kālīgaṅgā, where I spent the evening in preaching at the request of the inhabitants. At my departure the following morning about twenty people came forward and asked me to give them the ‘hand-blessing,’ which they obtained with perfect willingness on my part. My instructor, Serab Gyaltsan, had left Tsarang a little time previous to my departure, but I had the good fortune to come upon him at Tsuk, and to have an opportunity of thanking him for what I owed him as a pupil of nearly a year’s standing before I bade him a most heartfelt farewell.
The close of the third day after leaving Tsarang brought me to the mountain-village of Malba and to the residence of Adam Naring, who happened, however, to be away from his home just then. But the village Chief’s father, Sonam Norbu by name, who probably had heard of me from his son, was there to welcome me, and I was given the freedom of the family chapel, which consisted of two neatly furnished apartments, the innermost of which contained a fine set of Buḍḍha images, as well as the Tibetan edition of the Sacred Text and other volumes of ecclesiastical writings, while the windows of the front room commanded a charming view of a peach orchard. I may note here that the altitude of Malba being much lower than that of Tsarang, the soil in the former place yields two different crops in the year, wheat coming first and then buckwheat. Adam Naring owned a fine tract of land for these crops. Five or six hundred yards beyond his residence was the Kālīgaṅgā river, gliding serenely along with a fresh green wall of small pine-trees to set off its waters. Towering behind and above the emerald grove stood a range of snow-capped peaks, the tout ensemble making a view delightful for its primitive joys and natural beauty.
My old friend expressed his desire that I should make my stay indefinitely long, so that he might have the benefit of my reading for him the whole of the Sacred Texts; but I could only encourage him with an ambiguous reply, as I had come to Malba only to wait for the time when the snow-covered mountains should become passable. In the meantime I spent my days in reading, and making extracts from the Sacred Texts, and in so doing I could not help often recalling, with a deep sense of gratitude, the six hours a day which for nearly one year I had devoted to my study of Tibetan, under the rigid instruction of Serab Gyaltsan at Tsarang.
About a fortnight after my arrival in Malba I received a letter from Rai Saraṭ Chanḍra Ḍās, through a trader of Tukje, with whom I had become acquainted while in Tsarang, and to whom I had entrusted a letter to my friend at Darjeeling, as well as others to my folks at home, on the occasion of his going down to Calcutta on business. Along with his letter Saraṭ Chanḍra Ḍās sent me a number of the Mahāboḍhi Society’s journal, which contained an account of an unsuccessful attempt by a Buḍḍhist of my nationality to enter Tibet, and a well-meant note of his in pencil to the effect that I must not lose my life by exposing myself to too much danger. So far so good; but next something which was not so good happened. The Tukje man, my whilom messenger, had apparently formed an opinion of his own about my personality, and set the quiet village of Malba astir with rumors about myself. Chanḍra Ḍās was an official of the English Government, with a salary of 600 rupees a month, and, as such, a very rare personage among Bengālīs; and it was with this person that I corresponded; ergo, the Chinese Lama (myself) must be a British agent in disguise, with some secret mission to execute. So went the rumor, and the public opinion of Malba had almost come to the conclusion that it was undesirable to permit such a suspicious stranger in the village, when Adam Naring, who by that time had come home, sought to speak to me in secret, with indescribable fear written on his face. Poor honest soul! What he said to me, when by ourselves, was of course to the effect that if there were any truth in the rumor, he and his folks would be visited with what punishment heaven only knew. I had expected this for some time past, and had made up my mind how to act as soon as Naring approached me on the subject. I turned round and, looking him squarely in the face, said: “If you promise me, under oath, that you will not divulge for three full years to come what I may tell you, I will let you into my secret; but if you do not care to do so, we can only let the rumor take care of itself, and wait for the Nepāl Government to take any steps it may deem fit to take.” I knew Adam Naring was a man of conscience, who could be trusted with a secret: he signified his willingness to take an oath, and I placed before him a copy of the sacred Scripture and obtained from him the needed promise.
Producing next my passport, given me by the Foreign Office in Japan, which had on it an English as well as other translations of the Japanese text, I showed it to my host, who understood just enough English to follow out the spelling of some words in that language, and explained to him the real object of my journey into Tibet. I did more. I said to him that now that he possessed my secret, he was welcome to make of it what use he liked; but that I believed him to be a true and devoted Buḍḍhist, and that it behoved him well to assist me in my enterprise by keeping silence, for by so acting he would be promoting the cause of his own religion. In all this, I told my host nothing but truth, and truth triumphed; for he believed every word I said and approved of my adventure. Then we talked over the route I was to take, and it was arranged at the same time that I should restart on my journey in June or July.
This taking of my host into my confidence seemed to have greatly appeased his mind; withal, I did not think it right for me to tax his hospitality by prolonging my stay at his residence, and immediately after the above incident I moved into the temple of the village, where, nevertheless, I remained the object of his unswerving friendship, in that he provided for me, while there, all travelling requisites, from wearing apparel to provisions, which altogether made luggage weighing about seventy-five pounds. At my request he also secured for me a guide and carrier, who was to convey my packages as far as Khambuthang, or the ‘land of Genii,’ in the valley of Dhavalagiri, while my part of the load was to consist only of my collection of religious works. Thus equipped, I left Malba on June 12th, 1900. By taking the direct route, the North-west Steppe of Tibet may be reached from Malba in ten days, but as I was to take in my way places sacred to Buḍḍhist pilgrims, besides making other observations, I set aside twenty-three days for the journey, which I began by traversing trackless wilds for three days. At my departure I made an uta:
My roof will be the sky; my bed, the earth;
The grass my downy pillow soft at night;
Thus like the hovering clouds and wandering streams,
These lonely wilds alone I must traverse.
Once on the road, I found, however, that the sentiment of this effusion applied more to what I had come through than to what followed, for there was for days nothing but snow for my bed and rock for my pillow.
CHAPTER XI.
Tibet at Last.
After leaving Malba my route lay north-west, up a gradual ascent along the banks of the river Kālīgaṅgā. We walked, however, only two and a half miles on the day of our departure, the rain preventing our further progress. Starting at about seven o’clock on the following morning, we made a climb of about five miles up a narrow path, the bed of which