The government refused to confirm or deny the rumors. Probably few people knew what had really happened. The late regent had made many enemies during his term of office. On one occasion he caused a minister who was plotting a rebellion to have his eyes put out. Now he had paid for this crime. As usually happens during political upheavals, innocent people often had to pay the penalty for the guilt of others. The former protégés of Reting were dismissed from their posts. One of the prominent men in his party actually killed himself. This was the only case of suicide that I heard of during all my stay in Tibet.
The prison had not room enough for all the condemned persons, so the nobles had to take the responsibility for lodging them and keeping them in custody. As a result, one found in almost every house a convict in chains with a wooden ring around his neck. It was not until the Dalai Lama officially assumed the power of a ruler that an amnesty was granted to political and common-law offenders. Most of the monks of Sera had fled to China. It usually happened that when there was a rising in Tibet the Chinese had a finger in the pie. All the property of the rebels was confiscated by the government and sold at public auction. The houses and pavilions of Reting Rimpoche were demolished, and his beautiful fruit trees transplanted into other gardens. The monastery was thoroughly ransacked by the soldiers, and for many weeks afterward gold cups, brocades, and other valuable objects kept turning up in the bazaars. The sale of Reting’s property realized several million rupees for the treasure. Among the effects were hundreds of bales of English woolen goods and eight hundred costumes of silk and brocade. This shows how rich one could become in Tibet. Reting was a man of the people with no background. His career had started when as a boy he was recognized as an Incarnation.
13
Commissions from the Government
The religious ceremonies held in commemoration of Buddha’s birth and death during the fourth month of the Tibetan year gradually obliterated the memory of the rising. In the autumn we were invited by the government to draw up a new plan of the town. Aufschnaiter interrupted his work, and we began to make a survey. No proper plan of the city had ever been made. In the last century secret agents from India had brought some sketch maps home with them but they had been drawn from memory and were quite inaccurate. Now we were able to make use of Tsarong’s theodolite and with our measuring lines went through all parts of the Holy City. We could work only in the early morning for, as soon as the streets began to fill, we were surrounded by a swarm of curious people. We had been given two policemen by the government, as we could not keep the people off by ourselves. But even so we had difficulties. The passersby found it interesting to look into Aufschnaiter’s survey glass, from the wrong end, of course, and our operations were considerably hampered. It was no pleasure to trudge through the filthy streets in the biting morning cold, and we needed the whole winter to collect the material for our survey. We had to climb onto the roofs, so as to be able to mark out the houses in the different blocks, and I had to collect more than a thousand different names of householders, all in the Tibetan script. When the copies were ready for the Dalai Lama and all the important government offices, a new parlor game was introduced. People learned how to read the plan and amused themselves by spotting their own houses on it.
At this time the government had the idea of installing a modern drainage and electric system on which they wanted to employ Aufschnaiter and me. Neither of us had studied the technique of these subjects, but my comrade had an excellent knowledge of mathematics, acquired while studying to become an agricultural engineer and, of course, when in doubt we had recourse to the relevant textbooks. Aufschnaiter was already being paid a monthly salary in rupees, and I received my appointment as a salaried official in 1948. I have kept my letter of appointment and am still proud of it.
A few months after our audience with the Dalai Lama, I was summoned in the middle of the night to the Norbulingka Palace and informed that the rising waters of the river threatened to overflow onto the Summer Palace. The monsoon rains convert the gently flowing stream with uncanny speed into a rushing river, in places more than a mile wide. When I arrived on the scene, I found the old embankment on the point of giving way. In pouring rain and by the faint light of lanterns, the bodyguard, under my directions, set to work to build a new dike. We managed to strengthen the old dike sufficiently to keep it unbreached for the moment, and the next day I bought up all the jute sacks that were to be had in the bazaar and had them filled with clay and sods of turf. Five hundred soldiers and coolies worked at high pressure, and we were able to erect new defenses before the old dam burst.
At the same time, the weather oracle was summoned from Gadong, and during the following days he was my neighbor in one of the houses in the palace grounds. Both of us had the same mission—to control the floods. It was fortunate that we had not to rely solely on the oracle and that we had an alternative force of a thousand hands at work. Just as we were throwing the last spadefuls of earth on the dam, the oracle tottered onto the bank and went through his dance. On the same day, the rain stopped, the floods receded, and we both received the commendation of the Dalai Lama.
I was afterward asked if I could do something of a permanent nature to dam the floods that threatened the Summer Palace every year. I willingly agreed, as I felt confident that with Aufschnaiter’s help I could find some means of controlling the floodwater. I knew that the Tibetans always built their dikes with perpendicular walls and realized that that was why they breached so easily.
We began to work in the spring of 1948, and had to complete it before the monsoon. I was given a force of five hundred soldiers and a thousand coolies. No contractor in Tibet had ever had so many hands. I insisted on another innovation and convinced the government that the work would be completed much more quickly if forced labor were not employed. So every man received his pay daily, and good humor reigned in the works. Of course one cannot compare the productivity of Tibetan workers with that of Europeans. The physical strength of the natives was much inferior to that of our workmen. They looked with astonishment at me when I impatiently took a spade and showed them how to dig. And there were many interruptions and pauses. There was an outcry if anyone discovered a worm on a spade. The earth was thrown aside and the creature put in a safe place.
The low productivity of the people must be due to their insufficient diet. The poor man lives generally on tsampa, butter tea, and a few radishes with some paprika. The whole day long they were brewing butter tea in the works: everyone got his portion, and soup was served out at midday.
In addition to my soldiers and coolies I had a fleet of forty yak-skin boats. The boatmen—who are associated with the skins of animals and are, consequently, in conflict with the tenets of Buddhism—are regarded, like the leatherworks, as second-class citizens. An example of the way in which they are treated remains in my recollection. One of the Dalai Lamas on his way to the monastery of Samye had crossed a pass over which the boatmen always used to go on their way to the river. The pass became sanctified by the passage of the God-King, and from that time onward no boatman was allowed to use it. With their boats on their backs they were obliged to climb over a much higher and more difficult pass with a corresponding waste of time and energy. The boats weigh over two hundred pounds and the passes are always higher than 16,000 feet. That gives one an idea of the extraordinary power of religion in Tibet over the daily life of the people. It always saddened me to see men trudging by with their boats on their backs. They marched upstream along the bank with slow and measured steps; they could never have rowed against the current. Every boatman was followed by a sheep with a pack on its back. The sheep, as well trained as a dog, needed no lead, and when its master took to the water again it would jump into the boat by itself.
The forty boats employed on the building of my dam had to bring granite from a quarry that lay upstream from us. This was no easy task for the boats; their sides had to be strengthened with boards to prevent the stones from breaking through. Th
e boatmen were men of fine physique, and their pay was higher than that of the other workmen. I noticed that they were not so humble as other “second-class citizens.” They had formed a guild of their own and were proud to belong to it.
A happy chance ordained that the bönpo of Tradün should be one of my collaborators. His duty was to pay the wages every evening. We had the best recollections of each other and often talked about the time when we were in Tradün—a wretched time for me! Today I could laugh about it. When we first met he was on a tour of inspection with twenty servants and treated us with courtesy and friendship. Who would have thought that one day we should be working side by side and that I should be, more or less, his chief? I often could not realize that four years had passed since our first meeting. Four years in which I seemed to have become half a Tibetan! I often caught myself making typical Tibetan gestures, which I saw a hundred times a day and came unconsciously to imitate. As my work served to protect the garden of His Holiness, my chiefs were monks of the highest rank. The government, too, took great interest in my activities. On several occasions the whole cabinet rode out to see the works with their secretaries and servants, and complimented both of us on our success, besides giving us scarves of honor and presents of money. On these occasions the workers were also given money and were granted a half-holiday.
My dikes were actually ready in June; just in time, as the first floodwater came down soon after. That year the river was very high, but the dikes did their job. On the land that used to be flooded we planted willows, whose fresh green leaves gave an added beauty to the Summer Garden.
WHILE I WAS AT WORK erecting embankments to protect the Garden of Jewels, I was often invited by high monastic officials to supper and to stay the night. I was certainly the first European who was permitted to stay in the Potala and the Summer Garden Residence. Thus I had more opportunities to admire the beautiful grounds and the splendid fruit trees and conifers that had been brought from all parts of Tibet. A host of gardeners looked after the flowers and trees, and kept the paths in order. The park is surrounded by a high wall, but it is accessible to visitors wearing Tibetan dress. Two men of the bodyguard inspect arrivals at the gate and see to it that no European hats or shoes find their way into the park. They obligingly exempted me from this rule except for the garden parties, when I used to sweat under the weight of a fur-lined hat. The guard presents arms to nobles of the fourth rank and upward, and I also got a salute.
In the middle of the park is the private garden of the Living Buddha, surrounded by a high, yellow wall. It has two gates strongly guarded by soldiers through which, apart from His Holiness, only the abbots appointed as his guardians may pass. Not even cabinet ministers are admitted. Through the foliage one can glimpse the golden roofs of temples, but the cry of the peacocks is the only sound that escapes to the outside world. No one knows what happens in this inner sanctuary. Many pilgrims come to visit this wall and follow a path that leads clockwise around it. At short intervals there are dog kennels built into the wall, whose savage, long-haired tenants bark when anyone comes too near. The yak-hair leashes prevent the dogs from attacking, but their hoarse growling sounds a discordant note in this peaceful world. Afterward, when I was privileged to enter the secret garden through the gates in the yellow wall, I made friends, as far as one could, with these rough fellows.
Every year dramatic performances are given on a great stone stage outside the inner garden. Vast throngs of people come to see the plays, which go on for seven days from sunrise to sun-down. They are performed by groups of male actors and are almost entirely of a religious character. The actors are not professionals. They come from the people and belong to all sorts of professions. When the drama week is over they go back into private life. The same plays are performed year after year. The words are sung in a kind of recitative, and an orchestra of drums and flutes sets the rhythm for the dances. Only the comic parts have spoken lines. The beautiful and valuable costumes belong to the government and are kept in the Summer Palace.
One of the seven groups of actors, the Gyumalungma, is famous for its parodies. It was the only group that I was really able to appreciate. One could not but be astonished at their frankness. It is a proof of the good humor and sanity of the people that they can make fun of their own weaknesses and even of their religious institutions. They go so far as to give a performance of the oracle, with dance and trance and all, which brings down the house. Men appear dressed as nuns and imitate in the drollest fashion the fervor of women begging for alms. When monks and nuns begin to flirt together on the stage, no one can stop laughing, and tears roll down the cheeks of the sternest abbots in the audience.
The Dalai Lama witnesses these performances from behind a gauze curtain at a window in the first floor of a pavilion in the inner garden, behind the yellow wall. The officials sit in tents on either side of the stage. At noon, on their way to a common meal prepared in the kitchen of the Dalai Lama, they file past the window of the ruler.
When the drama week in the Summer Garden is over, the actors are invited to play in the houses of noblemen and in monasteries. In this way the theatrical season lasts for a month. The performances are besieged by the public, and the police often have to intervene to keep order.
DURING THIS YEAR my personal circumstances had improved very greatly. I was self-supporting, and thought myself entitled to a house of my own in which I could live an independent life. I never forgot my indebtedness to Tsarong, who had opened his house to us and helped us to get a footing in Lhasa. Since I had been earning money, I had paid him rent. Recently I had received many offers from friends temporarily transferred to the provinces to let me their houses and gardens with some of their servants thrown in.
I finally decided on one of the houses of the Foreign Minister Surkhang, which was, according to Tibetan ideas, one of the most modern buildings in the town. It had massive walls and a whole frontage of small glass windowpanes, but too many rooms for my needs. That problem was easily dealt with. I closed those I did not need and lived in the others. I chose the room with the most early morning sunshine for my bedroom. By my bed stood my radio, and on the walls I pasted colored illustrations from an Alpine calendar, which somehow—probably with a consignment of Swiss watches—had found its way to Lhasa. The cupboards and chests were brightly painted and carved, as one finds them in European peasants’ houses. All the floors were of stone, and my servant took pride in polishing them till they shone like a mirror. He used to smear them with candle grease and then slide about the rooms in woolen shoes, combining business with pleasure. There were colored rugs in every room. As in Lhasa the ceilings are all supported on columns, the individual carpets are generally small. There are in Lhasa celebrated carpet weavers who come to the houses of the nobles and weave carpets of the desired size and shape on the spot. They sit on the ground with a wooden frame in front of them and knot the brightly colored handspun wool into classic designs: dragons, peacocks, flowers, and the most varied forms of ornamentation grow under their practiced fingers. These carpets last for generations. The wool is incredibly durable, and the colors made from bark from Bhutan, green nutshells, and vegetable juices remain fresh for ages.
I had a writing table and a large drawing board made for my living room. The local carpenters are very clever at restoring old pieces of furniture, but when it comes to making anything new they are lamentably inadequate. In all crafts and professions creative capacity is neglected, and neither in schools nor in private enterprises are experiments encouraged.
In my living room there was a house altar, which my servants tended with particular devotion. Every day seven bowls were filled with fresh water for the gods, and the butter lamps were never allowed to go out. I lived in constant fear of burglars as the idols wore diadems of pure gold and turquoise. Fortunately, my servants were very trustworthy, and in all these years I never missed anything.
My roof, like all others, had a tree for prayer flags in every corner. I fixed the aeri
al of my radio onto one of these. Every house has a stove for incense and other luck-bringing appurtenances, and I used to take particular care that everything was kept in good order and no national customs infringed or neglected.
My house soon became a real home, and it was always a great pleasure to me to come back after work or paying visits. My servant Nyima would be waiting for me with hot water and tea, and everything was tidy, peaceful, and comfortable. I had some trouble to preserve my privacy, for in Tibet the servants are accustomed to remain within call or to come in without notice and pour out the tea. Nyima respected my wishes, but he attached himself very closely to me and whenever I went out at night, he used to wait for me at the house gate of my host, even though I had told him to go to bed. He feared that I might be set upon as I came home, and that was why he always turned up armed with a revolver and a sword and ready to risk his life for his master. I could not resent this devotion.
His wife and children lived in the house and gave me a fresh object lesson in love of the Tibetans for their children. If one of them fell sick, Nyima spared no expense to bring the best lama to his bedside. For my part, I did what I could to keep my servants in good health, as I liked to see cheerful faces around me. I was able to send them to the Indian Foreign Mission for vaccination and treatment, but I always had to be after them as Tibetans usually pay no attention to sickness in grown-up persons.
In addition to my personal servant, who received a monthly wage of about five pounds, the government gave me a messenger and a groom. Since I had been working at the Norbulingka, I was entitled to ride a horse from the royal stables whenever I needed one. Properly speaking, I was supposed to ride a different horse every day, as the master of the stables had to be careful to see that none of the horses was overworked. He would have forfeited his post if any of them had lost condition. As one may imagine, I found the continual change disagreeable. The horses were always out at grass on the beautiful pastures of the Norbulingka, and when they came into the narrow streets and traffic of the town, they shied at everything they saw. At last I got them to allow me to ride the same horse for a whole week and to ring the changes on three horses only, so that I and my mounts could get accustomed to each other. My horses had yellow reins—the royal color—and when mounted on one of them, I, theoretically, had the right to ride up into the Potala or around the ring, which was forbidden even to ministers.
Seven Years in Tibet Page 24