on the other hand, is unquestionably the most important
and interesting thing in Central Asia. It is
the treasure-house and kaabah, not of the country
only, but of the faith, and it is curious that, while the
magnificent Potala is a casket containing nothing
either ancient or specially venerated, the priceless
gems of the Jo-kang should be housed in a building
which literally has no outside walls at all. All round
the Cathedral the dirty and insignificant council
chambers and offices, in which the affairs of Tibet are
debated and administered, lean like parasites against
it for support, huddled together and obscuring the
sacred structure, to which they owe their stability,
in a way that seems mischievously significant of the
whole state of Tibet.
I From Chagpori the five great gilded roofs are
indeed to be seen blazing in the sun through the tree-
tops hard by the Yutok Bridge, but even this suggestion
of importance vanishes as one treads a way
through the filth of the narrow streets to the western
entrance. So crowded upon is the Jo-kang that this
is actually the only part of the structure which is visible
from the street which surrounds it.
‘ It is not strangers only against whom the great
doors of the Jo-kang have been barred. Exclusion
from its sacred precincts is officially pronounced against
those also who have incurred the suspicion, or displeasure,
of the ruling hierarchy of Lhasa, and it is a curious
proof of the autocratic power which is exercised with
regard to this Cathedral, as well as of the insignificance
of the suzerainty, that on August n , in this year, the
Viceroy himself, going in state to the Jo-kang to offer
prayer on the occasion of the Chinese Emperor’s birthday,
had the doors shut in his face. To this insult
the opportunity I have enjoyed of examining the temple
with a fulness that would otherwise have been im-
The Amban’s first secretary, who introduced us into the Jo-kang.
possible was due. Anxious to retaliate, the Amban
— who was on a subsequent day grudgingly permitted
to visit the ground floor only of the building— used
our presence in Lhasa to teach the keepers of the