White Mountain

by Robert Twigger

  One was destined to be a soldier, one an engineer, one a miner and one a monk. Ghonkar was said to be the most promising. After Rugby he went to the Woolwich ‘shop’ and trained with the Royal Engineers. He fell in love with an English girl, but when he asked permission to marry her the Dalai Lama refused. Instead of making use of him on his return, the lamas sent Ghonkar to the far frontiers, to the Chinese border. It was said that he died of a broken heart, pining away in the far north.

  According to Chapman, Mondo was already a monk when he went in 1913 to England; it was said that he behaved always like a perfect gentleman, though he appeared to learn nothing except English and cricket. He was a very keen cricketer, but gave it up on his return. After he had served his banishment for riding his noisy motorbike through the streets of Lhasa, he was allowed to move to a village at the foot of the Potala. He was given charge of all the parklands of Lhasa. Spencer Chapman described him as ‘a large genial man with a loud ringing laugh and the extraordinary consideration and politeness that is so strong a characteristic of the official class’.

  Kyipup was not successful at Rugby; in fact, he liked it the least. He rose to neither games nor academe and after two years left to study surveying. But in this he had no success either. Back in Lhasa they saw fit to put him in charge of developing the telegraph system, the first section of which, to Gyantse, had been laid during the Younghusband expedition. Then, under British supervision, it was extended to Lhasa. Kyipup found that, as he knew nothing about telegraph systems, there was little for him to do. So he retired to his family estates. The lamas dragged him back, made him a city magistrate and put him in charge of the Lhasa police. Chapman asked him what would happen if there was a smash-and-grab raid in a Lhasa shop. He replied that the policeman would blow his whistle, on which signal others would appear, and having restored order with their truncheons, they would handcuff the malefactors and take them to prison. This shut Chapman up, perhaps even stung him, because, later, he saw fit to inquire of others whether the police had such equipment. He discovered they had neither whistles, truncheons nor handcuffs. Imaginary tools to solve an imaginary problem; what Chapman failed to grasp is that smash-and-grab raids were as unknown in Lhasa at that time as truncheons and whistles.

  The last of the Rugby lads was the most successful in every sense; he was also the youngest when he arrived in England. This was Ringang, also known as Kusho Chango Pa. He stood in very high favour with the Dalai Lama and spent longer in Britain than any of the others. He spoke ‘the most perfect idiomatic English’.* At that time he was a sixth-rank official and therefore could only wear silk in private. In his official dress as a city magistrate he wore a scarlet broadcloth gown with a sky blue lining.

  After Rugby he took additional courses in engineering. On his return, he was given the difficult task of supplying the whole of Lhasa, plus the Dalai Lama’s summer palace, with electricity. For a young chap just out of college, that was quite a demand. But Ringang was a worker and he set to with tremendous gusto. Six miles from Lhasa he built a hydro-electric power station driven by a fast-running mountain stream. The generator was brought in pieces from Calcutta, up to Darjeeling and then carried by yak over the Himalayas. Cables and solenoids, accumulators, condensers and insulators all had to be ordered and carried from far Calcutta. When a piece of equipment arrived that was battered and broken, Ringang would sit for hours meticulously repairing it. He laid a powerline to the city and stored the accumulators in the basement of his own house. After several months the Dalai Lama became impatient and demanded his electric light. Ringang was working as hard as he could and no one understood just how much was involved in bringing power to a place from scratch. But eventually it was finished and it all worked perfectly. By the 1930s the streets were all lit, as well as the Potala and many private houses. Except in winter, when the stream froze hard – but no one begrudged him that. After a while, Ringang was able to train some Tibetans to run the power station and the service for him. This gave him more time to be the official cabinet interpreter: to translate important items in the Indian papers and be present when any Europeans visited Lhasa.

  F. S. Chapman wrote, ‘Ringang is a very busy man and has every hope of one day being a Shap-pe; but he has the harassed air of one who is not quite high enough up in the scale of official-dom to feel secure from the calumnious attacks of his rivals.’

  One out of four a conspicuous success. The others, certainly no worse for the experience. What if forty had been sent? Or four hundred? Going abroad was the key, perhaps rather than the nature of the establishment attended. This is what the Japanese did in 1868, and by 1904 they had transformed their country, for better or for worse, into a modern one capable of defeating Russia in a war; 1904 again.

  * Frederick Spencer Chapman, Lhasa: The Holy City

  8

  How to Choose a Dalai Lama

  To take revenge, give an enemy the gift of an elephant; his greed will thank you and then will be ruined trying to feed it.

  Nepalese proverb

  Rather more useful in Tibet than good schooling was being of the right spiritual stock. And spiritual capabilities are notoriously egalitarian. Usually the Dalai Lama is from a peasant background. For a while though, Mongolian aristocrats or royalty supplied Dalai Lamas – when Tibet and Mongolia were going through a phase of close cooperation. (In fact, ‘Dalai Lama’ is a Mongolian-conferred title; in Tibet he is known as Gyalpo Rinpoche, which means Precious King. His family tend to just call him Kundun, which means ‘Presence’.) There was naturally something expedient about such worldly choices as the above, but they carry risks. A Dalai Lama who represents an existing power base and carries baggage of this kind may be difficult. The peasant origin of a Dalai Lama reduces his power, initially at least, and makes for an easier distinction between secular and monastic forces. For a long run in the nineteenth century no Dalai Lama lasted much beyond his twentieth birthday. The real power, then, being in the hands of the regent. But this can change if a Dalai Lama manages, through accident or design, to exert himself successfully and shoulder aside, decorously of course, the power brokers in the monastery. The thirteenth Dalai Lama (1876-1933) was such a man – and so is the fourteenth, the current Dalai Lama, despite being absent from his country.

  The Chinese representatives or Ambans sometimes had a say in choosing the Dalai Lama, but only when Chinese stock was high with the lamas. The current authoritarian-materialist government is not in favour, but they still seek to influence the choice of the next Dalai Lama some time in the twenty-first century. Naturally the Tibetans are somewhat suspicious of professed non-believers having a hand in religious matters.

  There is no particular hurry to find a new Dalai Lama once the old one has died. Logically, the world beyond time and space does not conform to our clock-watching fantasies. The people have to wait until a propitious sign is observed. Meanwhile, the regent rules, and, since power (though potentially corrupting) is delightful and absolute power is absolutely delightful,*he is usually in no hurry to give up his job. It is an efficient system in its own way, with all sorts of checks and balances. The regent cannot rule for ever because then the people will become suspicious and angry. Moreover, lacking a spiritual leader, the power of the monasteries will wane in favour of the aristocratic trading families, so the regent, a lama himself, has an incentive to find a new Dalai Lama.

  The signs must be propitious – actually, there must be many signs. One of the first may be observed during meditation by the regent – or perhaps another lama who has been incarnated (there are quite a few at any one time, all picked at birth as being special in some way, a unique system that seems just as efficient as inheritance, voting, favouritism or bribery – the other preferred methods of getting power). The meditation is special – it occurs while gazing out over Lake Cho Khor Gye near Lhasa. If a vision reveals where the child Dalai Lama is to be found – good. Following this, various highly placed lamas, including, in the past, the Panchen Lama
, not to mention the abbots of the big monasteries, all inwardly regard their dreams and visions to get a closer picture of the date and place of birth of the new child king. The state oracle is frequently consulted to clarify matters further. More and more information comes to hand – the occupation of the parents, the topography of the country where the lad lives, the state of the local neighbourhood.

  Often there are several competing locations. Monastic expeditions are dispatched to these places to check the validity of the visions and predictions. These expeditions may last several years at a time. There is no hurry, and a mistake made through hastiness would be a disaster. The travellers look for places that conform to the descriptions they have been given, but they also closely question locals about any portents or extraordinary births that may have occurred in the target area of the boy’s predicted birth. Obviously there are many advantages to being the immediate family of the next Dalai Lama, so the travelling monks must be circumspect, low key and not a little crafty in their questioning. Before entering any possible house, they switch clothes with their servants, leaving the ‘officials’ outside. I like this move a lot. Imagine if the real power brokers in any Western negotiation were disguised as the teaboy and the cleaner, maybe the room service maid. What useful titbits they’d pick up that world leaders, insulated by all the pomp and glory, must miss! Anyway, eventually a short list of potential incarnates is drawn up; there is always a little uncertainty – indeed, there has to be until the tests of absolute authenticity are applied to find the next incarnation of the Chenrezi, another term for the Dalai Lama – which means god of grace – one of the thousand living Buddhas who have renounced Nirvana in order to help mankind, and, as such, the patron god of Tibet.

  Several good signs are:

  1. The next incarnation may recognise servants and officials who have served his previous incarnation.

  2. He will be able to pick out a teacup used by the previous Dalai Lama.

  3. He will also select the prayer wheel, bell and sacred thunderbolt.

  4. He may be able to recall events that happened to him in a previous life as a Dalai Lama.

  In the case of the fourteenth Dalai Lama, it went like this. When the previous Dalai Lama died in 1933 he had, just before dying, given a few cryptic clues about where his next incarnation might come from, but these were far from definitive in any sense. Then, when his body lay in state, it was noticed that his head, which had, by tradition, been laid turned to the south, was now turned towards the east. This was the first real clue and that very day the state oracle was consulted; while in a trance, he threw a white scarf towards the rising sun – confirmation. But nothing much happened for a few years. In Tibet, as in much of the ancient East, it was believed that information and time were intimately related. If too much information was uncovered at once, then a certain amount of time and living must pass before the world was in balance again and the information could be used. We are less sophisticated – though the ‘data diets’, ‘web fasts’ and ‘net holidays’ of the present era may be an indication that one can overdose on information just as surely as one can on sugar or other tasty but limited nutritional items.

  So everyone waited a while until the regent chanced to visit Cho Khor Gye – in whose waters the future, or a fragment of it, is sometimes revealed. In the waters he saw a three-storeyed peasant monastery with a golden roof. Next to it was a Chinese peasant house with carved gables. Search groups were sent out in 1937 in an easterly direction. Each group carried a selection of sacred objects for spot testing of any infant who might be a possible candidate. In the district of Amdo, outside Tibet in the Chinese province of Chinghai, where the Tibetan population lives in amicable accord with that of the Chinese Muslims, after much wandering and speculation and trials and tribulations a three-storeyed monastery was found. Next to it, just as in the regent’s vision, was a Chinese peasant house with carved gables. Though trembling with excitement, the monkish officials switched clothes with their servants and entered the house.

  A cheery two-year-old who lived there ran forward and seized the skirts of one of the lamas, who, though dressed as a servant, had the thirteenth Dalai Lama’s rosary around his neck. Then the child said several times, ‘Sera Lama, Sera Lama’ even though he couldn’t have known this was a disguised lama. When the lama bent down, the boy grabbed the rosary and wouldn’t let go until it was put around his own neck. Though they felt there was now no doubt, the searchers had to follow protocol so they paid their respects to the family and left.

  They returned a few days later in full monkish regalia to enter into negotiations with the family and to subject the two-year-old to more tests.

  It so happened that this family had already supplied one incarnation to the church (for a significant but lower kind of rebirth), so they were both informed, but also stunned, that another son was said to be divinely marked. Like winning the lottery twice, it must have been a lot to take in. Westerners get all suspicious when they hear that the searchers went back to the same house twice, but why shouldn’t fate favour the same family? In the worldly sphere you get families that excel in certain areas — Venus and Serena Williams in tennis, the families of Bach and Jackson in music.

  The tests were carried out in the altar room. Four rosaries were shown to the boy. The most worn was the old Dalai Lama’s – he chose this without hesitation and reportedly danced round the room wearing it. He selected, from several proffered drums, one that had also been owned by the previous incarnation and used to summon his servants, no doubt a much-used item. He picked a plain walking stick – and didn’t so much as glance at several competing ones with enticing silver and ivory handles. Naturally this was the right choice too.

  Finally came the matter of checking for bodily signs of true Dalai Lamahood. These are reportedly

  1. Marks as of a tiger skin on his legs.

  2. Eyes and eyebrows that curve upwards on the outside and are rather long.

  3. Large ears.

  4. Two pieces of flesh near the shoulder blades indicating the two other hands of Chenrezi.

  5. An imprint like a conch-shell on one of the palms of his hand.

  The thirteenth Dalai Lama had scored on the last three. The choice was so certain they missed out the next stage, which is picking out the name with golden chopsticks. The fourteenth Dalai Lama only scored with (3) and (4) which still made it a certainty.

  To avoid intrigues, everything now had to be done in the utmost secrecy. No one was told of the discovery and a solemn oath of silence was taken in front of a thanka on which a likeness of Chenrezi was embroidered. As the little lad was in Chinese territory, extra caution needed to be observed. The searchers then went off to inspect other boys in other districts as a blind.

  However, the governor of the province knew something was up when they asked permission to take the young boy to Lhasa to test if he was an incarnation or not. Being canny, the governor asked for 100,000 Chinese dollars. The monks paid up straight away – which is the kind of error other-worldly monks are prone to make. The governor immediately asked for 200,000 more for the boy to be surrendered. In a compromise, some money was borrowed from Muslim moneylenders, with the rest to be paid after they had reached Lhasa. The governor finally agreed.

  Once in Lhasa, the boy received an official letter confirming he was, indeed, the next Dalai Lama. His parents, who only knew at this point that he was a high incarnation, were told this – the first time they knew their son was the chosen one. Two incarnations and one a Dalai Lama – imagine!

  In 1940, seven years after the old Dalai Lama died, the new one, aged five, was enthroned. Everyone was astonished at the natural dignity of the child and the gravity with which he followed the ceremony, which lasted for hours. With his predecessor’s servants he was trusting and affectionate – as if he had always known them.

  Which of course he had.

  The God who made the mouth will provide the food.

  Nepalese proverb
/>   * Idries Shah, Reflections

  9

  Himmler’s Himalayas

  Whatever joy you seek it can be achieved by yourself, whatever misery you seek it can be found by yourself.

  Bhutanese proverb

  There is no getting away from it, Nazi types seem drawn to Tibet. Whereas the Chinese communists sought to change the place and impose their own ideology, the national socialists wanted to extract its secrets to bolster their nutty ideas about race. But to enter Tibet they needed to negotiate with its British gatekeepers, some of whom were keener than others on helping the Germans. The British consul, Hugh Richardson, saw aiding the 1938 Nazi expedition as a form of appeasement. But he had been ordered by the highest authority in India – the Viceroy – to help the Germans in their ‘scientific’ work. To Richardson it was repellent nonsense: measuring the temple, nose width and eye height with tape and calliper, and, when lucky, making exact plaster masks of the native’s head. Hadn’t Franz Boas disproved the Aryan claims of craniometry in 1910?

  Bruno Beger, the anthropologist on the expedition, had worked out a good routine to make his inquiries acceptable. He offered medical help wherever he went. The British had been fooled. What harm could the well-stocked German medical chest do?

  Beger was a solid, well-built blond with a good sense of humour. He’d end his career in anthropology as he’d started – measuring heads and making masks – but somewhere far removed from Sikkim.

  The first victim they managed to entice was Passang, a Sherpa attached to the expedition. The technique of mask making would be tested upon him. Passang had been injured in the head only a week earlier. The Germans were in a hurry and brushed aside suggestions that the process might exacerbate his injuries. Why, it was little more than a beauty treatment, like placing a mud mask on a lady’s face. Passang acquiesced in the hope, no doubt, of being rewarded.