convent, where he studied under a learned Mongol lama. After a few years the Amdo lama’s tutor returned to his home, and on parting he left his pupil a couple of earthen pots, a khatag, and a bag of barley, the most valuable things he possessed, as he told him. The pupil, disappointed with these gifts, carried the pots to the market and sold them for half a tanka, with which he bought butter that he put in the lamps burning before the great image of the lord (Jo-vo), praying that if he ever became Regent of Tibet, he might be able to reform the social customs of the country.
In the course of time he rose to the dignity of a teacher in his convent; then he became its abbot, or khanpo; and finally he rose to the rank of regent. One of the first acts of his administration was to expel all public women from Lhasa, and to compel all women to cover their faces with a coating of catechu, so as to hide their comeliness from the public view.[1] Women were also made to wear a bangle cut out of a conch-shell on their right wrist, by which they could be held when arrested. From his time also dates the use by women of aprons (pang-den) and of the present style of headdress, or patug. The old style of patug is now only worn by the wives (or Lhacham) of the Shape (ministers). He was the first of the Tsomoling lamas, and his reincarnations still inhabit the lamasery of that name behind Ramoche.
On June 4 I again visited the Jo khang.[2] After paying reverence to the Jo-vo and circumambulating his sacred throne, the kunyer poured some holy water (tu) into my hand from a golden vessel. In a little chorten in one of the chapels on the south side of the temple is kept a statue of red bell-metal, or li-mar, made, so says tradition, in the days of King Kriki, when men lived 20,000 years. For many centuries it was kept by the kings of Nepal; but when a princess from that country married King Srong-btsan gambo, she brought it to Tibet, and placed it in this temple, where it is the object of constant worship.
But perhaps the most revered of all the images in the Jo khang
- ↑ Cf. Huc, 'Souvenirs d'un voyage dans la Tartarie et le Thibet,' vol. ii. p. 258; and 'Land of the Lamas,' p. 214.
- ↑ Georgi, op. cit., p. 406 et sqq., describes very fully and accurately this famous temple, of which he also gives a ground plan. He calls it the Lahpranga Lhassensi. This description agrees very closely with that of our author, and is highly interesting, as the analogies between its style of architecture and that of Christian churches are discussed.—(W. R.).
