against hail are large circular sheets, adorned, not in
the most delicate way, with figures of the four winds.
These figures are represented bound and shackled,
to signify the supernatural power exerted by the
magician; pointing at them from the inscribed centre are
the eight instruments of power. The Dorje, the bow and
arrow, the sword, the double purbu, the flame-like knife,
the sceptre, and one other thing that might be anything.
These magicians occupy a very curious position.
They are all now sanctioned by the Gelukpa hierarchy,
but this does not mean that they have always been
obedient and loyal members of the orthodox church.
As a matter of fact, many of them remain disciples
of the Beun-pa, or aboriginal devil worshippers of the
country. This sect is bitterly opposed in every way
to the tenets of Buddhism, and it is only on this point
that a truce has been proclaimed. The reason of this
is clear enough. Successful in all other ways, the Yellow
lamas have never been able wholly to transfer to themselves
by the exercise of wizardry the deepest awe of the
plain village peasants of Tibet. These men continued to
pay their tribute of terror to the old autochthonous
sorcerer, whose tradition and succession were undoubted.
The authorities of Lhasa were shrewd enough to recognise
the one case in which the invincible ignorance,
which they deliberately foster in their flock, has turned
to their own harm. They accepted and endorsed the
magicians of the countryside en bloc, making no distinction
of creed. By these means the sorcerer works hand
in hand with the lamas of the district, and thereout,
we may be sure, they both suck no small advantage.
There is in Lhasa the head of all these magicians, but it
is necessary at this moment to draw a sharp line of distinction
between him, a responsible and revered reincarnation—
whose authority is hardly less than that of the
Dalai Lama, and whose position, though different, is
scarcely less venerated— and these local magicians,
whose scope is very different from his.
To a small degree every great gompa in Tibet trades
upon the influence of occultism upon the Tibetan peasants.
Charms and written mantras are by no means issued
by the magicians alone. The katags, which lie sometimes
in heaped-up confusion over the shoulders of the
chief Buddha of a monastery, can afterwards be sold
in fragments, and few relics are more potent. These
little charms, to which reference has already been made,
are worn round the neck, in what the Tibetans call a
gau-o. These are little boxes, of silver as a rule, thickly
set with turquoise, and suspended round the neck by
necklaces of beads ; in the case of the rich, they may
be fronted with gold, but this metal is but rarely used
for the rest of these trinkets. It is used in Tibet in a singularly
pure state, and in the economical amounts with
which the Tibetans are obliged to be satisfied, would
not be strong enough. Men, especially when going on
some dangerous expedition, carry much larger gau-os
of copper, upon which the monogrammatic symbol of
the great mantra is embossed by repoussé work. These
also are always stuffed with relics and charms of
different kinds ; everything, it might almost be said,
in Tibet that is capable of being stuffed is full of these
little luck-bringing spells or charms. The biggest
idols are packed with paper and silk charms, interspersed
here and there with small brass images and occasionally
silver ones. To this façt unfortunately the destruction
of several of the larger idols— which were afterwards