the following day to see the Grand Lama dance, or cham.[1] On my observing that I feared the whips of the stage guards (djim-gag-pa) if I mixed with the crowd, he promised to have seats reserved for our party.
Early the next morning men and women dressed in their best began streaming into the monastery to see the cham. Accompanied by the Tung-chen, the Deba Shika, and a lama friend, we went our way towards the Nyag-khang, in the courtyard of the Tsug-la khang, in which the dances were to begin. On the way we stopped to visit an old chapel containing several inscriptions relating to Gedun-dub, the founder of Tashilhunpo, and the mark of a horse’s hoof impressed on a rock, which passers-by touch with their heads.[2]
Then we took our seats on the balcony of the second floor of the Nyag-khang building, and watched the preparations for the dance. Twenty-four sacred flags of satin, with embroidered figures of dragons and other monsters worked in threads of gold, were first unfurled at the top of long and slender poplar poles, and square parti-coloured flags were also hung all around the Tsug-la khang. About a dozen monks wearing coats of mail had masks which, for the most part, represented eagles’ heads. The dancers entered one after the other, and then followed the abbot of the Nyag-pa Ta-tsan, Kusho Yon-djin Lhopa by name, holding a dorje in his right hand, and a bell in his left. He wore a yellow mitre-shaped cap, with lappets covering his ears and hanging down to his breast. He was tall and fair; he looked intelligent, his manners were most dignified, and he performed his part most cleverly.
After a while the flag-bearers, the masked monks, and all the cortége repaired to the great Tsug-la khang of Tashilhunpo, which is about 300 yards long and 150 feet broad. Round this courtyard are
- ↑ Speaking of the dances of Tibet, our author says elsewhere that Padma Sambhava, in the eighth century, a.d., is the reputed originator of religious dances in Tibet. He introduced the war-dance and the famous masqued dance, or bag chams (hbag hchams), the former being but a modification of the latter. At present the great religious dance of Tibet is the black-hat dance (Dza nag cham), which was introduced in the eleventh century, a.d., to commemorate the assassination of the iconoclast King Langdarma by Lama Lhalun Paldor, the murderer having disguised himself in black when seeking to approach the king. The ordinary dance of Tibet (dzabs bro) is performed by men and women on all or any occasion of rejoicing. Sometimes they dance in pairs, sometimes in a ring, and at others the women hand-in-hand on one side, the men in like fashion on the other. (S. C. D.) Cf. Markham, 'Tibet,' p. 92; E. F. Knight, 'Where Three Empires Meet,' p. 202 et sqq.; Waddell, 'Buddhism of Tibet,' pp. 34, 477, 515 et sqq.
- ↑ Cf. infra. p.116.
