horns and conch shells, play flutes, thump drums and
cymbals, and in this babel the liturgy is intoned by men
who drink tea and look about them and talk ; there is
no congregation that takes part in the service, though
the laity come and look on, and women bring their
babies for a blessing (we saw them at Khojarnath).
Above all, the hideous and obscene representations of
the deities and monster fiends, combined with the
black gloom which makes the recesses invisible and the
reek and stench which render the beholder faint, make
the shrine rather a temple of Satan and the Powers of
Darkness than of any deity of Light and Goodness : a
strange commentary on the religion of Buddha, which
one has been taught to admire for its beauty of conception
and chaste precepts of life.
The religion of Tibet is found in Manchuria, Mongolia,
Central Asia, Ladak, Nepal, Bhotan and Sikkim,
and even in China there are one million adherents and
a Lamaist shrine at Pekin, while there are Lamaist
colonies in Russia on the Volga and elsewhere. To all
these countries the Dalai Lama is a very sacred person
and his favour is a matter of great consideration. The
Bonpas, who are pre-Buddhist, are found in numbers east /
of Lhasa, but also exist throughout the whole country of
Tibet: in the west they are called Dubas and are much
feared by the people. They do everything in the reverse
way to the orthodox: they go round Lake Man-
sarowar and Mount Kailas opposite to the “ way of the
wine ” with us, and they even repeat “ Om Mani Padme
Hung ” beginning from the end. They are famous in
Western Tibet as exorcists and wizards, and are supposed,
with many more orthodox lamas, to possess
supernatural powers of invisibility and flying through
the air.
No account of Tibet would be complete without a
reference to the world-famous devil-dancing of that
country, which is practised by the lamas before a large
concourse of spectators with a view to impress upon
them the importance of a thorough familiarity in this
Stone engraved with “ Om mani padme hung ” : such stones are thrown in
thousands on to heaps
Prayer-wheels with chain and knob to assist the revolutions
Thunderbolts (dorje) for expelling demons
Ling-shaped mud image with Shiva’s trident (trisul) and streamer
Table for domestic use
Bowls made of human skulls in which water or blood is offered and
sometimes drunk
life with the dread monsters that will be met with by the
soul after it quits its earthly tenement. These devil-
dancers are a great feature of the monastery at Takla-
kot; in fact, that institution prides itself upon the
magnificence and the realism of the allegorical dances
that take place there. The shapes assumed are those
of the most terrifying monsters, such as indescribably
grotesque dragons, hideously malformed beasts of the
brute creation such as only the most diseased imagination
can conjure up, skeletons, devils, imps, &c., and the