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Updated: June 2, 2025
Many Mongolians betake themselves annually in large armed caravans to the holy city to pay homage to the Dalai Lama, and obtain a blessing from him and the Tashi Lama. Perhaps it was wrong of me to give myself out for a Lamaist pilgrim, but there seemed no other means of getting to the forbidden city. We left the main camp on July 27, and those we left behind did not expect ever to see us again.
And well within these is the most sacred spot of all, the lamassery where dwells enthroned Bogdo or the Gigin, the Living Buddha ranking after the Dalai Lama and the Tashi Lama only. To Bogdo the Mongol millions look up as a god; he is the living representative of the divine one; and the city where he lives is the goal of thousands of pilgrims each year.
In the great palace of the Bogdo a Lama showed me a special casket covered with a precious carpet, wherein they keep the bulls of the Dalai and Tashi Lamas, the decrees of the Russian and Chinese Emperors and the Treaties between Mongolia, Russia, China and Tibet.
This was a treasure filched from the garden of the Dalai Lama. It was snow-white, without the slightest nuance of any other colour, and of such full bloom that the original six petals were obliged to bend downwards. The Kapudan Pasha was enraptured by all this splendour.
Inquiring from the brigands about the caravan roads, we soon made our way out to one of the main routes and had the good fortune to meet there the caravan of the young Mongol Prince Pounzig, who was on a holy mission carrying a message from the Living Buddha in Urga to the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. He helped us to purchase horses, camels and food.
Such an one never knew the day or the hour when, in his yurta or beside his galloping horse on the plains, the strange and powerful friend of the Dalai Lama would appear. The stroke of a knife, a bullet or strong fingers strangling the neck like a vise accomplished the justice of the plans of this miracle worker.
If he is in agreement with it, he sends a secret letter to the Dalai Lama, who holds a special sacrifice in the Temple of the 'Spirit of the Mountains' and confirms the election by putting his great seal on this letter of the Tashi Lama.
The Red Caps were driven out of the country into Bhutan, where they still hold sway. After this success a new functionary, with both civil and military authority, was appointed to carry on the administration, under the orders of the Dalai Lama, who was supposed to be lost in his spiritual speculations and religious devotions.
I had been staying in Ranipur of the plains while I considered the question of getting to Upper Kashmir by the route from Simla along the old way to Chinese Tibet where I would touch Shipki in the Dalai Lama's territory and then pass on to Zanskar and so down to Kashmir a tremendous route through the Himalaya and a crowning experience of the mightiest mountain scenery in the world.
The high-handed action of China in Tibet, and, indeed, all along the north-eastern borderland of our Indian Empire, has introduced a fresh element of potential trouble which the Government of India cannot safely disregard, for we are bound not only to protect our own frontiers, but also to safeguard the interests of Nepal and Bhutan, where, as well as in Sikkim, the fate of Tibet and the flight of the Dalai Lama have caused no slight perturbation.
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