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I found a fine slab of slate, inscribed with the Tibetan characters, "Om Mani Padmi hom," which Meepo allowed me to take away, as the reward of my exertions. I assume, therefore, that 19,000 feet at this spot is not below the mean level at which all the snow melts that falls on a fair exposure to the south: this probably coincides with a mean temperature of 20 degrees.
I had ascended behind the village, but returned down the "via sacra," a steep paved path flanked by mendongs or low stone dykes, into which were let rows of stone slabs, inscribed with the sacred "Om Mani Padmi om." "Hail to him of the lotus and jewel"; an invocation of Sakkya, who is usually represented holding a lotus flower with a jewel in it.
He was taught the Buddhist chants and how to drone them, how to carry his praying-wheel and finger a rosary to the murmured "Om mani padmi hung" of the Tibetans, and for he was something of an artist how to paint the Buddhist pictorial Wheel of Life, the Sid-pa-i Khor-lô or Cycle of Existence that the gentle Gautama, the Buddha, himself first drew and that hangs in the vestibule of every lamasery to teach priest and layman the leading law of their religion, Re-birth.
Campbell, who, like myself, has vainly sought its solution; it is probably a mixture of Tibetan and Lepcha, both as much corrupted as the celebrated "Om mani padmi boom," which is universally pronounced by Lepchas "Menny pemmy boom."
Descending by a very steep, slippery path, we came to a fine mass of slaty gneiss, thirty feet long and thirteen feet high; not in situ, but lying on the mountain side: on its sloping face was carved in enormous characters, "Om Mani Padmi om"; of which letters the top-strokes afford an uncertain footing to the enthusiast who is willing to purchase a good metempsychosis by walking along the slope, with his heels or toes in their cavities.
On the brow of the hill behind was the large red goompa of the Tupgain Lama, the late heir-apparent to the temporal and spiritual authority in Sikkim; and near it a nunnery called Lagong, the lady abbess of which is a daughter of the Rajah, who, with the assistance of sisters, keeps an enormous Mani, or praying-cylinder, revolving perpetually to the prayer of "Om Mani Padmi hom."
Throughout its length were innumerable inscriptions of "Om Mani Padmi om," with well carved figures of Boodh in his many incarnations, besides Lamas, etc. At the lower end was a great flat area, on which are burnt the bodies of Sikkim people of consequence: the poorer people are buried, the richer burned, and their ashes scattered or interred, but not in graves proper, of which there are none.
On the following morning we pursued a path to the bed of the river; passing a rude Booddhist monument, a pile of slate-rocks, with an attempt at the mystical hemisphere at top. A few flags or banners, and slabs of slate, were inscribed with "Om Mani Padmi om."
The paths were narrow and filthy; and the only public buildings besides the convents were Manis and Mendongs; of these the former are square-roofed temples, containing rows of praying- cylinders placed close together, from four to six feet high, and gaudily painted; some are turned by hand, and others by water: the latter are walls ornamented with slabs of clay and mica slate, with "Om Mani Padmi om" well carved on them in two characters, and repeated ad infinitum.
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