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Updated: June 3, 2025
Or consider Henry Savage Landor's account of Thibet: In Lhassa and many other sacred places fanatical pilgrims make circumambulations, sometimes for miles and miles, and for days together, covering the entire distance lying flat upon their bodies.... From the ceiling of the temple hang hundreds of long strips, katas, offered by pilgrims to the temple, and becoming so many flying prayers when hung up for mechanical praying in every way is prominent in Thibet.... Thus instead of having to learn by heart long and varied prayers, all you have to do is to stuff the entire prayer-book into a prayer-wheel, and revolve it while repeating as fast as you can four words meaning, "O God, the gem emerging from the lotus-flower.". . . . The attention of the pilgrims is directed to a large box, or often a big bowl, where they may deposit whatever offerings they can spare, and it must be said that their religious ideas are so strongly developed that they will dispose of a considerable portion of their money in this fashion.... The Lamas are very clever in many ways, and have a great hold over the entire country.
These particular Lamas are said to relish human blood, which they drink out of the cups made from men's skulls. When I left the Gomba my new friends, the Lamas, bowing down to the ground as I departed I walked about the village to examine all there was to be seen. Along the water's edge at the east end of the village stood in a row a number of tumbling-down Choktens of mud and stone.
Regarding the state of the people here, he told me that each house paid a tax of seven rupees per annum to the Maharajah. This, for the entire village, would only give 105 rupees per annum towards the enrichment of the Treasury. The Lamas, who have no ground of their own, appear to be a further burden on the population.
Insults of all kinds were showered upon me by the crowd of Lamas and soldiers. I was hustled to the execution-ground, which lay to the left front of the tent. On the ground was a long log of wood in the shape of a prism. Upon the sharp edge of this I was made to stand. Several men held me by the body while four or five others, using their combined strength, stretched my legs wide apart.
Then all the gates of the palace are shut and all the Lamas are sunk in solemn, mystic fear; all are praying, telling their rosaries and whispering the orison: "Om!
The habit of the Lamas is a red cassock, without sleeves, leaving their arms bare, girt with a piece of red cloth, of which the ends hang down to their feet. On their shoulders they wear a striped cloth, which they say was the dress of the Son of God; and they have a bottle of water hung at their girdle.
When lamas get weary, it is said they will stop, and scarcely any severity can compel them to go on. Some of the accounts of these singular animals represent them as having a bad trick of spitting, when they do not like their treatment.
Again they led me behind the mud house, from where I could distinctly hear the angry cries of the Lamas cross-examining Chanden Sing and those dreadful sounds of the lash still being administered on my poor servant. It began to rain heavily. This was lucky for us, for in Tibet, as in China, a shower has a great effect upon the people.
On that day a piece of paper is inscribed with prayers and requests to the soul to be quiet, and this is burned by the lamas with suitable ceremonies; and rites of a more or less elaborate kind are afterwards performed for the repose of the soul, accompanied with prayers that it may get 'a good path' for its re-birth, and food is placed in conspicuous places about the house, that it may understand that its relatives are willing to support it.
The group consisted of a stout, ruddy-faced woman with close-cropped hair, hung with many necklaces of coral and turquoise, and waited on by her three meek and submissive husbands, all brothers for this is a land of polyandry. She invited the fugitives to share their meal, and bade her dutiful spouses serve the supposed lamas.
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