The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes

by Jamyang Norbu

  ’And the last three Grand Lamas — who died before their majority? They presumably did not get to go to this temple.'

  'Alas, no. The schemings of evil councillors and Chinese pressure prevented them from doing so. It is now vital that nothing happens to prevent His Holiness from going to the Ice Temple and meditating there.'

  'And after ...?'

  'Our task will have been accomplished, Mr Holmes — yours and mine. It will then be out of our hands.'

  The Lama Yonten peered rather short-sightedly towards the door, which was just behind my low couch.

  'Is that you, Tsering?'

  'Yes, Honourable Uncle.'

  'Come in. Come in and sit down.'

  I turned around to see Tsering standing by the door. So, he was the Lama Yonten's nephew. That explained the deference with which the governor of Tholing had treated him. It was prudent of the Lama to assign the care of his two potentially compromising foreign guests to someone close to him, in blood as well as trust. Tsering sat on a low divan next to the Lama and gratefully gulped down a bowl of hot butter tea served to him by a monk servitor.

  'Well?' said Holmes, as Tsering put down his tea cup.

  'It was no problem following them, Sir.' said Tsering, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 'And we were careful not to let ourselves be seen, as you instructed. We followed them out to the city, where they took the Lingkor road,1 south of the Iron Hill. They carried on in an easterly direction, sticking all the while to the back streets till they came near the Kashgar caravanserai, which they skirted, and finally they entered the compound of the yamen, the Chinese legation.'

  'Are you sure?' asked the Lama Yonten anxiously.

  'I am certain. The main gate of the legation walls was open and the Amban himself with servants and guards was waiting. All of them bowed low as the palanquin went through the gates.'

  'Then it is him!' the Lama Yonten went white as a sheet. His hands trembled.

  'Who?' asked Holmes.

  'The mysterious guest that arrived at the Chinese legation, the person within the palanquin who caused swords to fly, the power to whom even the Amban must bow. It is him. The Dark One!'

  'The Dark One?' repeated Holmes rather incredulously, arching an eyebrow,

  'Yes. He has returned from the outer darkness to destroy our master again as he swore to do eighteen years ago.'

  'Reverend Sir,' said Holmes bemusedly, 'so far I have confined the limits of my investigation to affairs of this world. As I had occasion to remark before, the supernatural is definitely outside my sphere of competence.'

  'Oh no, Mr Holmes. The Dark One is a living person, I assure you. He acquired the name because he turned away from the light of the Noble Doctrine and perverted sacred knowledge for the fulfilment of his greed and ambition. It is a black and sinister tale, but it is important that you hear it all — from the beginning.

  'The College of Occult Sciences in Lhassa is the highest institution of occult knowledge and practice that exists in Thibet. Few but the best of scholars from the great monastic universities are admitted; and that too only after a rigorous and thorough investigation of each candidate. Every twelve years, when the calendar of the twelve beasts makes a full round, the college holds a great examination. In the year of the Water Monkey (1873), the College produced two of the greatest adepts of the occult sciences that the country had beheld for more than a century — ever since the Laughing Yogi of the Grey Vulture Peak covered the barley fields of Tsetang with his hand and saved them from a hailstorm.

  'Great honours were bestowed upon them. The Grand Lama himself — the twelfth sacred body — attended their final examinations and afterwards invested upon them (with his own blessed hands) their white cloaks of occult mastery. Their fame spread beyond the frontiers of the Land of the Great Snows, even to the court of the Emperor of China; and they were invited to Pekin to hold services for the well-being of the Emperor and his subjects, and the protection of his hills and streams.

  'It was there, Mr Holmes, that certain demonic ministers of the Emperor lured one of them into the ways of evil. With great cunning they filled his mind with every kind of filth and abomination — and even with the unthinkable ambition to take the Grand Lama's throne and rule Thibet. On returning to Lhassa both received suitable appointments at the Grand Lama's court. With the cunning of a serpent, the Dark One managed to conceal his foul intentions from nearly everybody, but inadvertently aroused some slight suspicions in the mind of his colleague, the Gangsar trulku, the former abbot of a small monastery in southern Thibet. This astute lama had noticed some slight but disquieting changes in the Dark One's behaviour in China.

  'On the eve of the Great New Year's Festival, when everyone was busy preparing for the coming ceremonies, Gangsar trulku saw the Dark One enter the Grand Lama's chapel — the very one the assassin entered tonight — and strike His Holiness with a sword. The loyal trulku rushed in to save his master, but he was too late. In his brave struggle with the Dark One, he lost his life. Unfortunately for this incarnation of evil, the Grand Master of the College of Occult Sciences appeared upon the scene. Before the Dark One could strike again, the Grand Master projected a surge of mental energy which nearly destroyed him. His mind was partially shattered, and he lost his memory and most of his former powers. He was incarcerated in one of the deepest dungeons in the Potala. The Amban, however, on instructions from the Imperial court in Pekin, managed, through extensive bribery and coercion, to get him secretly released from his prison, and smuggled out of the country to China. Since then, we know not what became of him, for distance weakens telepathic waves. It is possible that he has recovered some of his old powers and put up some kind of mental screen.'

  'How can you be sure that it is him?'

  'I cannot, Mr Holmes — not absolutely, anyway. But I can feel his presence in my bones. Your description of the way in which the swords flew sounds very much like his handiwork.'

  'In what way?'

  'The Gangsar trulku was impaled from behind by a flying sword as he grappled with the Dark One.'

  Although I had witnessed something of the sort tonight, my scientific training rebelled against accepting such superstitious magic without at least adducing some natural causes for the event. 'Cold steel should not levitate of its own volition, Sir,' I protested. 'There must be some scientific explanation for such unusual aviational phenomena.'

  'The power of the human mind is limitless, Babuji,' the Lama Yonten attempted to explain. 'The only barriers that prevent its fulfilment are our own ignorance and sloth. Here in Thibet, through meditation and various yogic practices, adepts have trained the mind to concentrate, harnessing all its limitless potential to slay the demon of the ego, the source of all our miseries and sorrows.'

  '... and to make swords fly through the air as well,' said Holmes dryly.

  'The power of the mind is pure energy and thus essentially neutral — neither good nor bad. Therefore, before we permit any novice to undertake such occult training, we instil in him, through study and reflection, a true altruistic motive in his quest for such powers. Only rarely has this motivational training ever failed.'

  'But it did in the case of the Dark One,' said Holmes.

  'Unfortunately, yes.'

  Sherlock Holmes drew on his pipe and gazed reflectively into the distance for a minute or two, before turning to us again. 'If we are to suppose that our mysterious friend in the palanquin tonight is the same "Dark One" who murdered the twelfth Grand Lama, then the theft of the painted scroll begins to take on a more sinister significance.' Holmes looked at the Lama Yonten gravely. 'You must be wrong, Reverend Sir. There must be something unusual about that particular scroll.'

  'Maybe the painting was stolen in order to somehow disrupt the Grand Lama's proposed retreat at the temple,' said I venturing a new hypothesis. 'Does he, perchance, need the mandala painting for his meditations there?'

  'Yes, he does, Babuji.' the Lama Yonten answered. 'But it is not necess
ary for it to be the same one. Any faithful copy of it will do. The mandala simply serves as a plan for the meditator to guide his psychic energies in the correct channels during his meditations. Why, at the Ice Temple itself there is a large stone mandala — a three dimensional one — of the tantra of the Wheel of Time. That would be more than sufficient for His Holiness's visualisation practices.'

  'Then it only stands to reason that there must be something very special about the one that was stolen tonight.' said Sherlock Holmes testily.

  'There is, Sir.'

  The young lad whom we had observed the previous day playing with the animals in the menagerie now stood small and alone in the corridor. He was wrapped in a thick maroon cloak like the one Lama Yonten had on. The Lama Yonten and Tsering rose hastily to their feet. Mr Holmes and I followed suit.

  'Your Holiness, you should be in bed,' said the Lama Yonten anxiously.

  'But how can I sleep with so much going on? Anyway I wanted to see the foreigners.' He came over and stared at us with much curiosity, but also friendliness.

  'You are from the Noble Land (Arya-varta or India)?' he enquired of me politely in a high boyish voice.

  'Yes, Your Holiness. I come from the province of Vangala (Bengal) where the great sage Atisha2 was born.'

  'I hope one day to make a pilgrimage to all the holy places in the Noble Land — when all the present problems are settled.' He then turned to Sherlock Holmes and bowed his head once. 'I wish to thank you, Honourable Sir, for saving my life tonight. The Lama Yonten told me earlier that were it not for your vigilance and courage an assassin might possibly have ... harmed me.' He appeared a little troubled at this realisation, but then his boyish nature reasserted itself and he was all curiosity and questions again.

  'But you do not look like a foreigner.'

  'I am supposed to be in disguise as a Ladakhi,' said Holmes with a smile.

  'You had better pretend to be half Kazakh then. That would explain the pale cast of your eyes.'

  'Your Holiness is very observant,' said Holmes. 'Maybe that is why you saw something special about that stolen thangka.'

  'It has been hanging in the chapel ever since I can remember, and I never took any particular notice of it. But one day a monkey from the garden managed to enter the chapel and, besides breaking a few things, knocked the painting off the wall. After I had chased the animal out, I was picking up the scroll to restore it to its hook when I noticed some writing on the back.'

  'Writing?' enquired Holmes, a hint of excitement in his voice. 'What exactly was on it?'

  'Well, there were a few lines explaining that the thangka had been commissioned by my first body after his return from the realm of Shambala of the North. That's about all, I think. No. Wait a minute, there were also some strange verses, penned by the First Body himself.'

  'Can you remember them?'

  'No. I only glanced at them that once. They were very puzzling and I could not understand them. That is all I remember.' The lad must have realised how disappointed we were with his answer, for he looked up at Holmes anxiously. 'Is it very important? I do wish I could remember. I wish I could help.'

  'Your Holiness must not worry,' said Holmes kindly. 'You have helped enough by letting us know of the existence of the verses.'

  'Yes, and Mr Holmes will confound our enemies with his powers, my Lord.' the Lama Yonten tried to cheer up the crestfallen boy. 'Now you must rest. The Venerable Physician Abbot has expressly instructed that you must have a great deal of rest if you are to fully recover from your illness.' The Lama Yonten looked up at the tall bearded monk who was standing at the doorway. 'Come, the Lord Chamberlain is waiting.'

  We all bowed as the young Grand Lama bade us a polite farewell and left the room with his chamberlain. I could not but help reflect on how, in spite of his illness, he was such a bright, intelligent boy, unspoiled by the loftiness of the unique position, gentle and courteous in spite of the treachery and violence surrounding him. It saddened and frightened me to think what he might have to face very soon. Sherlock Holmes too seemed to share my sombre reflections, for he gazed silently ahead, grim-faced and pensive, his heavy drooping eyelids forming deep shadows under his eyes. The ticking of the ormolu clock filled the silent room.

  'We must get it back!' cried Sherlock Holmes suddenly, smacking his fist into the palm of his hand.

  'What?' I said, surprised.

  'You mean the thangka, Mr Holmes?' asked the Lama Yonten.

  'Yes. I am convinced that it is the loose thread that will unravel the mystery.'

  'But, Sir, everything about this case is so bizarre and complicated.' said I.

  'As a rule,' said Holmes 'the more bizarre a thing is the less mysterious it proves to be. It is your commonplace, featureless crimes which are really puzzling, just as a commonplace face is the most difficult to remember or identify.'

  'But how can the scroll be the solution to this confusing business?'

  'It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise, out of a number of facts, which are incidental and which are vital. Otherwise your energy and attention will be dissipated instead of concentrated. Now, if we overlook, for the moment, all the strange occurrences of the night, even the unfortunate death of our monk guard, what we have remaining is the theft of the painted scroll. That is the simple cause on which everything else, however bizarre, devolves.'

  'But how can you get it back?'

  'Simple. I mean to burgle the Chinese legation,' replied Holmes calmly. I was rather startied by the answer, though awed by the infinite resourcefulness and daring of my companion.

  'But you can't do that.' the Lama Yonten wailed.

  'I don't see why not. View the matter fairly. They burgled the Grand Lama's chapel, so it seems only fitting and proper that we return the compliment.'

  'Ah! A quid pro quo, Mr Holmes.' said I.

  'Exactly.'

  'There's bound to be an embarrassing diplomatic incident if you are caught,' the Lama said nervously.

  'Well, we cannot discount that possibility entirely, can we now? But look at it this way. The only means we have of discovering our enemy's schemes is through that thangka. So either we avoid any incidents and wait for them to strike, or we take a risk and possibly confound their knavish tricks.'

  'When you put it that way, I don't see what else we can do,' said the Lama Yonten glumly.

  'Excellent!' cried Holmes, rubbing his hands together. 'Now let us work out the actual execution of our enterprise. Your mention of a diplomatic incident has given me a little inspiration. What if news of tonight's happenings were to somehow become known to the public?'

  'There would be massive riots in front of the Chinese legation.' cried the Lama, throwing up his hands in horror.

  'Exactly. Which would cause all the guards and other people there to rush to the front wall of the legation to defend it.'

  '... we could then effect surreptitious entry through the rear.' said I excitedly. 'A most inspired ruse de guerre, Sir.'

  "pon my word, Hurree,' said Holmes. 'You're getting to be as good a mind-reader as myself.

  But you have made one little error in your assessment. You are not going with me.'

  'But Sir,' I protested, 'surely you will require assistance.'

  'Two arrows in the quiver are better than one,' said Tsering gravely, 'and three better still'

  'No, Tsering.' said Sherlock Holmes firmly. 'Your task will be to ensure that a riot does take place before the legation gate, at the exact time I require it.'

  'But the crowd may get out of hand,' the Lama Yonten worriedly fingered his beads.

  'Quite so,' said Holmes suavely. 'That is why Tsering will be there. He will see to it that the mob, though suitably noisy and demonstrative, does not actually storm the legation or set fire to it.'

  'That would be enough for the Emperor to send an army into Thibet,' muttered the Lama gloomily.

  'Have a number of palace guards in mufti,' Holmes cont
inued with his instructions to Tsering, ignoring the Lama Yonten's jeremiads, 'and post them in front of the crowd. Give them firm instructions to keep the mob from getting out of control.'

  'Well, I think I could manage that, Sir,' said Tsering confidentiy. 'When do you want the riot to take place?'

  'Tomorrow would be as good a day as any. I would need the cover of darkness, so it has to be in the evening. Now let me see ...'he turned to the Lama Yonten,'... by the way, did you not mention yesterday that you had a spy in the Chinese legation, posing as a servant?'

  'Yes?'

  'Would it be possible for you to summon him here tomorrow? I would require some information on the layout of the legation compound, and the exact whereabouts of the Dark One's suite.'

  'I could have him here around noon tomorrow. Earlier? ... No. I don't think it would be possible.'

  'Since daylight lasts till about six o'clock these days, I think it would be fine for the riot to take place after that. I will make my entry when the demonstration is well under way.'

  'Right, Mr Holmes.' said Tsering, getting up from the divan. 'I'll move along to the city and spread the word at the chang taverns there. Will you be coming back to the city too?'

  'I think it would be prudent if Mr Holmes and his companion remained within the walls of the Jewel Park,' said the Lama, 'now that they have been seen by Ae Dark One. Send someone to fetch their things from the city.'

  A little while later Mr Holmes and I were shown into a well-appointed suite of rooms to the east of the main palace. It was three o'clock in the morning when we finally settled down but Mr Holmes did not make any preparations to go to bed. Instead he poured himself a measure of whisky from his silver travel flask, and filled his pipe from his grey leather pouch. He turned to look at me.