The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

by Jamyang Norbu

  'It is all very interesting, no doubt,' said Sherlock Holmes dryly, 'but I would be much obliged if you would tell me how you came to know of our presence in these hills, and why we have been so singularly honoured with a passport to Thibet?'

  'Certainly, Mr Sigerson, most certainly,' replied Asterman, a trifle abashed. 'I was just getting to that. But first some more tea.' He clapped his hands imperiously and one of his men padded over. 'More tea for our guests here. Their cups are empty. Have the sahib's servants had food and drink too? Very well, you may go.' He then turned to face us with a quizzical expression.

  'Well, Sir, as I have told you, there is very littie that surprises me now, but the whole business concerning you has been one big Chinese puzzle to me. Four months ago the Grand Lama's official — the same one who came to me for the 'thunderbolt,' and indeed the one who gave you and the babu your white scarves of welcome — provided me instructions to locate a certain chitingpa, or European, in whom they were greatly interested. This was the first time they had asked me to find a person, and I wasn't too sure what I was getting myself into. But they promised to pay me well if I found him. They could only give me a garbled version of your name, Mr Sigerson, but they provided me a full and accurate description of yourself, including the date and time your ship would dock at Bombay harbour.'

  I felt an uncomfortably prickly sensation at the back of my neck.

  'But how could they have known?' Sherlock Holmes muttered, his brow knitting into a puzzled frown.

  'Oh, but they did, Sir,' protested Asterman. 'God strike me if I am not telling the truth. They even mentioned your pipe and violin-case.'

  'And you followed Mr Sigerson from the harbour to the hotel,' I prompted, 'didn't you?'

  'Yes, I did, Babuji,' he replied, grinning in amusement, revealing yfellow, crooked teeth. 'Don't think that I didn't notice you on the carriage behind me. Though I will confess that I didn't think you had anything to do with Mr Sigerson, till much later. It was the murder at the hotel that told me I had let myself in for more than I had bargained for.' He shivered slighdy. 'I still have nightmares about the ghastly blood-covered figurelurching towards me in the hotel corridor. I fled the place in terror. Fortunately I had taken the precaution of retaining my carriage at the rear of the hotel. So I managed to get away quickly, just in the nick of time, for two policemen came after me from the service entrance.'

  So, Asterman had not recognised us in that dark alley.

  'Well, Sir,' continued Asterman, 'that night I returned to my lodgings determined not to involve myself any further in this dreadful business. But on further reflection during the night, I realised that I had a commitment to my employers and had to at least let them know of your whereabouts and plans. So the next day I hung about the vicinity of the hotel and watched your comings and goings; and when you left the hotel with your baggage late in the evening, followed you to the railway station. I baksheeshed the reservation wallah, who told me that you had purchased tickets to Umballa. I guessed then that you were going to Simla, and I was right.

  'I had to go to Darjeeling to make my report. The young official, whose name is Tsering, or "Long Life", seemed to think it of great consequence. He asked me a lot of questions about you, Mr Sigerson. He was, moreover, very upset to hear about the murder at the hotel. Finally I told him that I was very sorry, but that I could not go on any further with this dangerous commission. He told me that this business was extremely important and they would pay me whatever I wanted to see the thing through. I named a ridiculously high sum to discourage him, but, to my dismay, he readily agreed. Anyhow, if I survive this, my family and I are set up for life. Tsering then gave me my instructions. He said that you would make an attempt to enter Thibet in the spring, and that on the way your enemies would attempt to kill you. It would then be up to me to save you. He himself would cross the border from Tholing, which is just across the Shipki pass, with a contingent of armed troops and join me to assist you. He would also have an official passport for you to enter Thibet.

  'I'm afraid we cut it rather fine, Mr Sigerson. The troops only managed to get here a day ago, and though we scouted the whole area, and managed to locate the main body of bandits, we missed the three riflemen they had placed across the river. It is rather unusual for armed bandits to prowl these areas, and even more unusual that they should just be waiting for your small caravan. Why, just this morning a long mule train carrying merchandise passed along this road — but they just ignored it. You do seem to attract danger Mr Sigerson: first the murder at the hotel, and now these bandits. Why, Sir ...' he continued, putting a conspiratorial finger to his lips, 'there must be something terribly important behind all this. No? Maybe I ask too much ... I must really learn to mind my own business.'

  'Well, Mr Asterman,' Sherlock Holmes said with a smile,'seeing that my companion and I owe our lives to you, it would be churlish of me not to relieve your curiosity. I regret that it is not possible, at the moment, to let you know everything about myself or my companion, but I can tell you that a dangerous criminal organisation has, of late, made a number of attempts on my life. The murder at the hotel was one of the particularly interesting ones. You see ...'

  Without revealing his true identity or the exact nature of the criminal organisation behind the crime, Sherlock Holmes told the story of the brass elephant lamp and the giant killer leech. Even with the modifications, it was an exciting tale. Asterman was entranced. I noticed that Mr Holmes was careful to credit the police force with the solution of the case, and appoint himself in the role of the confused victim.

  'What a story, Sir! What a story!' exclaimed Asterman. 'It terrifies me to think how close I was to death in that hotel corridor. Pity the police could not apprehend the mastermind behind the crime. Would have saved me a lot of trouble too, with these bandits — I suppose he must have employed them.'

  'Most certainly,' replied Mr Holmes, filling his pipe from a grey leather pouch.

  'It was most reprehensible laxity on my part, Sir,' I remarked apologetically, 'but for the bally life of me I cannot understand how they could have known of our journey. I made sure that our preparations aroused no one's interests or suspicions.'

  'I'm sure you did, Huree. But we are not dealing here with ordinary criminals, as I have had occasion to point out before. This organisation is unique in the annals of crime.' Asterman scratched his pink pate and remarked cheerfully, 'Well, Mr Sigerson, you need not worry about them once you enter Thibet. I doubt if these criminals, unique though they may be, can succeed in entering this country when hardened explorers have failed. But it still puzzles me as to why the Thibetan authorities gave you and the babu here a pass to enter Thibet. Ah, well, Tsering will explain it to your sooner or later. He will be escorting you to Lhassa.'

  'Why do you think they gave us a road pass, Mr Holmes?' I enquired that night, in our small tent. I was warmly ensconced inside my sheep-skin sleeping sack, but the memories of the events and revelations of that exciting day prevented sleep. Sherlock Holmes was half inside his sleeping sack, and, leaning back against his rolled up poshteen, was smoking his pipe.

  'It is a piquant question, is it not?' A blue spiral of smoke rose from his pipe. 'But it will have to remain a mystery, at least till we get to Lhassa, for I do not have any answers. Still, we could possibly venture to discount any malevolence in their intentions, for if they were laying any kind of trap for us, why go about it in such a deuced round-the-corner way? Why send Asterman to rescue us from Moran's hired ruffians, and then lure us into something else? No, it cannot be that. Anyhow, there is insufficient data for the problem to be capable of an immediate solution. We shall just have to trust in a merciful providence, Huree, when we cross our Rubicon — that pass — tomorrow.' He put away his pipe and leaned over to blow out the candle. 'Good night.'

  'Good night, Mr Holmes.' I could see that we were going to get into a good many dam'-tight places before all this was over. I sighed and pulled the top of the sleeping sack over
my head.

  1. Asterman was not exactly wrong. Tibetan tantric ceremonies require many strange objects for their efficacy. The meteorite iron was probably used to cast ritual implements like 'ghost daggers' (phurba), bells (drilbu) and Adamantine sceptres' (dorjee).

  14

  On the Roof of the World

  The next day we set out for Shipki la. We were to be escorted to Tholing, the chief town of the first Thibetan district across thefrontier, by the soldiers and the young official, Tsering. Tsering wore his hair long in a top-knot and disported the long turquoise earring that denoted his status as an official and a gentleman. He was a conscientious young man, ever alert to our needs, but rather nervous. No doubt the responsibility of looking after the guests of the Grand Lama himself was an onerous one. Mr Holmes was also the first European he had ever met, socially, apart from Asterman, who in any case was not really a sahib.

  Asterman bade us farewell. He was thankful to have concluded his part in the affair and looked forward to setting up a prosperous business with the rich reward he had received. As far as Mr Holmes and I were concerned, he had earned every pie of it, and more. We wished him well in his proposed venture, and watched him trotting off on his goose-rumped mare, down the long winding road back to Simla.

  The Shipki pass is not a very impressive one, as far as Himalayan passes go, being only 15,400 feet above mean sea level, but the tightening I felt in my lungs, and the slight fibrillation in my heart told me that once again I was in a land where I really had no business to be. The pass was excessively windy and beastly cold. The Thibetans, alongwith Kintup and Jamspel, piled up stones on a cairn as an offering to the mountain gods, and shouted their salutations.

  'Lha Gyalol Victory to the gods!'

  The more pious ones strung coloured prayer flags of cheap cotton from wind-weathered poles stuck on the cairns. This custom of the Thibetans has been much misunderstood by European travellers to the Himalayan frontiers, some of whom have observed that the natives were wont to worship mountains and stones. In truth, the Thibetans consider such inanimate objects sacred only by virtue of their being a residence of a god or lha who is present as animus assistentis and not as animus animantis. Some of these lha have their counterpart in the Roman numina.

  Mr Holmes also laid a khatag on the top of a cairn. He noticed me looking at him and chafed me in a light-hearted way. 'Come on, Huree, pay your respects to the gods, like a good babu. We are in their provenance now. From here on, science, logic and Mr Herbert Spencer simply cease to exist. Lha GyaloV

  I had never seen him quite so cheerful and light-hearted before. It could have been the rarity of the air. Altitude affects people in strange ways. While it just gave me occasional headaches, it appeared to make Mr Holmes happy. He had also gradually stopped taking those injurious drugs.

  That night we halted at a little village at the foot of the pass. We pitched our tents by the side of a small brook, under an enchanting grove of apricot trees. Unfortunately it was not the right season for the fruit, but the sweet scent of the blossoms was sufficient to make our repose pleasurable.

  But from then on the land became increasingly waterless and desert-like, what geographers would describe as a dorsum orbis. After two days we reached the town of Tsaparang, once the capital of the ancient Thibetan kingdom of Guge, abandoned around 1650 because of incessant wars and a drop in the water table. The citadel of the kings, an impregnable fortress, stood on the top of the sheer cliffs that rose above the ruins of the city. I had learned from certain records in the archives of the Asiatic Society that the first Catholic mission station had been founded here in 1624. The Portuguese Jesuit, Antonio de Andrade, had formed a Catholic community and is reported to have built a church. I told Mr Holmes this strange story and both of us searched for traces of a Christian building in the ruins, but found nothing.

  'Did the good father succeed in converting many of the natives?' asked Holmes, knocking the ash out of his pipe against the side of a broken wall.

  'Not very many, I would think. Thibetans are notorious in missionary circles for their obstinacy in clinging to their idols and superstitions.'

  'They revel in their original sin, do they?' chuckled Mr Holmes. 'Anyhow, there is a surfeit of religion in this country already. Why should the missionaries want to bring in another?'

  Next day we rode into Tholing, the other capital of the kingdom of Guge. This town is more populated and relatively prosperous. It has a picturesque monastery with golden canopies and spires, and is considered to be the largest and the oldest monastery in western Thibet. Unfortunately we could not visit it as we had to meet the governor of the district.

  His servants were waiting for us outside our allocated quarters, a small whitewashed structure made of sun-dried bricks. As we dismounted they all doffed their caps and bowing low stuck out their tongues. It seemed to me to be an excellent example of the 'self surrender of the person saluting to the individual he salutes,' which Mr Herbert Spencer has shown to lie at the bottom of many of our modern practices of salutation. They had presents for us from the governor: entire carcasses of sheep, bags of cheese and butter, trays of eggs, and sacks of tsampa, which is the staple food of all Thibetans. After resting for a while and refreshing ourselves, we went to pay our respects to the governor at his official residence, a gloomy stone mansion on the edge of the town.

  His name was Phurbu Thondup or'Thursday Wish-Fulfilled', and he was a man of Falstaffian proportions, larger even than myself. He was dressed in yellow silk robes and wore the long turquoise earring and top-knot, like Tsering. But to indicate his superior rank — he was a fourth ranker to Tsering's sixth — he had a small gold amulet in his piled-up hair. The nobles in Thibet are ranked in seven classes, to the first of which only the Grand Lama belongs. Yet in spite of his apparent seniority, the governor was very deferential to Tsering and addressed him with great politeness. There was something more to our young friend than met the eye. Phurbu Thondup cleared his throat noisily and ceremoniously before relating the latest instructions he had received from the Grand Lama's secretary.

  We were to travel as swiftly as possible to Lhassa. Advance arrangements had been made at all the villages and nomadic encampments on the way, and also at the isolated tasam houses, the small caravanserais in which one can change a mule and find lodgings. But we were to try and be as inconspicuous as possible. We were to be especially careful, he continued, when we got to Shigatse, and on no account should we go anywhere near the Chinese consular office there.

  Oh ho! So it is politics, I thought. Could our entree into Thibet have some kind of connection with the troubles that the Thibetans are having with the Manchu Amban in Lhassa?

  I confided this to Sherlock Holmes on our way backfrom the governor's mansion, but he did not seem too impressed with my conjecture.

  'I am not saying you are wrong, Huree, but as I gave you to understand before, it is a cardinal error to theorise without sufficient data. Consider the contrary. Wouldn't inviting a foreigner to Thibet, if discovered, cause a more serious problem with the Manchu representative, whose xenophobia, I have been given to understand, is unusually virulent, even for the normally suspicious Chinese? So spare me such further speculations, I beg you.'

  Early next morning, shivering and grunting in the morning chill, I slung my umbrella (tied on both ends with a piece of string like a rifle-sling) across my back, and climbed sleepy-eyed onto my pony.

  For a week we rode by the banks of the Sutlej river, across a country that had an original beauty in spite of a certain barrenness. All kinds of small birds flitted about the gorse bushes and rocks, while lumbering saurus cranes picked for fish in the shallows. We also had our first encounter with the kiang (equus hemionus), the Thibetan wild ass. A large herd of this most graceful animal sauntered up to have a look at our caravan. Their curiosity satisfied, they turned all at once, as if at a single command, and trotted off in the most elegant manner.

  Fortunately for these birds and be
asts such opportunities afforded for shikar did not seem to delight Mr Holmes. It was an unusual attitude on his part as every other Englishman I knew revelled in the slaughter of tigers, deer, pigs, birds, fishes and what not. Mr Holmes's aversion to blood-sport raised him in the esteem of the Thibetans, and also Kintup and Jamspel who subscribed to the Buddhist and Jain doctrine of the sacredness of life in all its forms. We also came across a number of nomad encampments with their herds of sheep and the famous yaks of Tartary {bos grunnions).

  Then, as we were approaching the tasam at Barga, a chain of glaciers, gleaming in the evening sun, came into view, and with it the towering Gurla Mandatha peak and the most holy mountain of Kailash. This mountain is sacred not only to Buddhists, who consider it to be the abode of the deity, Demchog (Skt. Chakrasamvara), but to Hindus as well, who regard it as the throne of Shiva. Because of this many Buddhist and Hindu ascetics and pilgrims have been drawn to the area for the past two thousand years or so, to worship the mountain, to practise austerities by it, and to go around it in holy perambulation. The Thibetans call Mount Kailash, Kang Tise, or Kang Rimpoche, the Precious Mountain, and it plays an important role even in the pre-Buddhist shamanist religion, Bon. Mount Meru, the central mountain axis of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology is probably founded on the unique physical and geographical properties of Kailash.

  We were desirous of travelling around the mountain like pilgrims — I would dearly have loved to make observations and measurements of the mountain from various points — but Tsering had his instructions and was reluctant to waste even a single day. Finally we arrived at a compromise of sorts. We would forgo the trip around the mountain, but would make the journey past it and the sacred lake at a slower pace, so that we could, at least, have the leisure to appreciate the remarkable beauty of the place.