He nodded his head earnestly as I described, in a well-practiced soliloquy, precisely what I wanted.
“Well, I have a good Manjushri. . . .”
“Is it by Sidhi Raj?”
He made a sort of churning sound, like water bubbling around inside a camel’s hump. “Not Sidhi Raj. Family of Sidhi Raj. Brother of Sidhi Raj. Very good piece.”
The shopkeeper opened a glass showcase and removed the Manjushri. I took it in my hands and examined it, not at all displeased. It was wonderful; elegant; perfect. Except for one little thing: the face of Manjushri, from the neck up, was not plain polished metal, but had been beautifully painted in gold, blue, red and black. Now, this was not unusual; I was looking at the traditional Tibetan style, and it definitely has its appeal. Some people even seem to prefer it; Tibetans, for example. It’s also a favorite of the upper-class Japanese, with their taste for Kabuki actors, geisha girls and heavy make-up in general.
But for me, unh unh. No way. Permanence is of the essence. When I looked at that painstaking paint job, all I could think was: uh oh, that stuff’ll start to smear before I even get through LAX customs; it’ll wear down and rub off noticeably in a couple of months, getting sloppier and sloppier, until finally, five or ten thousand years from now, when they finally dig this sculpture up from the deep rubble of what was once a fashionable Berkeley neighborhood and set it on a shelf in some post-apocalypse museum, all that will be left of that meticulous face will be a few faded stains, and a little tag attached to Manjushri’s arm saying, “Bronze with traces of polychrome.” What’s the point?
I asked the shop owner if the paint could be removed, but even before he answered I recognized the subtle irony in my request. Even though Manjushri is the god of incisive wisdom, there was really no way to know, for certain, what he really looked like. What kind of face was hidden underneath all that paint? I mean, it could be really hideous, the paint could be disguising some terrible flaw in the artistry, and how would I ever have the gall to say, after they’d spent hours scrubbing off that beautifully painted face, “No, thanks, I don’t like the curve of the nose . . . sorry, the chin’s too weak . . . my mistake, the eyebrows are too Neanderthal. . . .”
So I told him to skip it. He nodded and, undaunted, leaned slightly toward me and asked if I might like to look at some fine new Taras he had just received. They were, he added knowingly, in the back room.
Now, Taras are another thing altogether. Let me tell you a bit about the two Taras: Thirteen hundred years ago, Tsrong-Tsong Gompa—the powerful king of the area now called Tibet—fell into a dilemma rather typical of his times. He had succeeded, through force and intrigue, in securing for himself the entire high plateau between the Chinese empire and the vast Himalayan chain that formed the ambiguous northern border of Nepal. He was king of the hill for the moment; but alliances changed fast in those days.
Not wishing to be swallowed up by the larger fish around him, Tsrong-Tsong Gompa devised a strategic tribute. He demanded one princess from each of the two neighboring realms, to serve as his wives. Having such “hostage” brides from Nepal and China in his court wouldn’t permanently forestall hostilities; but they were unlikely to be a concern during his own lifetime.
Tsrong-Tsong Gompa was clever; the Nepalis and Chinese even more so. Well aware of the persuasive powers of their women, each ruler sent over a princess of extraordinary beauty. Both were thoroughly schooled in the sexual secrets of Tantra, as well as in the more esoteric delights of Buddhism. Between the two of them, the mighty Tsrong-Tsong Gompa was converted to Buddhism in very short order—and the Taras were justly rewarded by being reincarnated as bodhisattvas of compassion.
The princess from the verdant Kathmandu Valley came to be known as the “green” Tara; her colleague from the north was the “white.” Both are available at your various art galleries, curio shops and handicraft concerns all over Kathmandu and Patan. The one difference is that while the White Tara is usually portrayed sitting with her legs crossed, the Green Tara has her right foot resting on a lotus. Needless to say, the Green Tara—Nepal’s very own—was the lady to whom I was partial.
The shopkeeper went from cabinet to cabinet, fetching every one of his Taras. We looked them over, one and all, in search of the four most important attributes: delicate feet; elegantly sculpted hands; gentle, serene smile; and spiritual radiance. And after reviewing every one of these Taras, I was astonished to find that not a single one of them possessed all the qualities I sought in perfect, unassailable proportions.
This one had lovely and expressive hands, but there was something tight and mean about the shape of her lips. . . .
This one had full, softly smiling lips, and crossed eyes. . . .
This one had warm, beguiling eyes but a squat, fat neck. . . .
This one had a svelte, elegant neck and delicious, pouting lips, but no sense of humor. . . .
This one had a great sense of humor, but she didn’t seem like the creative type. . . .
This one was pretty, funny and creative, but she wasn’t Jewish. . . .
And I wonder why I’m still not married!
12
“Nah nah! You don’t know!” Benjamin retorted. “That Roof of the World makes men like animals! The search for sacred things makes devils of them! Did people flay and burn us Jews for the love of money? Nah nah nah! They did it for religion—for the things they thought are holy!”
—TALBOT MUNDY, The Devil’s Guard
For six hundred years, an androgynous statue of Laksmi-Narayan—the left side goddess, the right side god—served as an oracle for the women of the Kathmandu Valley. According to legend, the black granite figure had been presented to the King of Bhaktapur by a naga—a Snake King—in return for having saved the royal serpent’s life. Ever since, Bhaktapur’s expectant mothers have traditionally visited the image and poured oil over its forehead. If the oil flowed down over the breast of the goddess Lakshmi, the baby would likely be a girl; if it trickled down the chest of Narayan, a boy.
This meter-high statue was one of the most beloved pilgrimage sites in the valley, revered for centuries. In February 1984, it was crudely hacked from its shrine and smuggled from the Kingdom of Nepal.
“Today,” the Rising Nepal bitterly speculated, “Lakshmi-Narayan probably adorns the spiritually sterile living room of a Western connoisseur of ‘art’.”
Anybody who has spent some time living in Nepal eventually stumbles across at least one of its dark secrets and picks up an ax to grind. For some people, the cause of choice is Nepal’s mushrooming drug problem—there are almost thirty times as many heroin addicts in Kathmandu today as there were twelve years ago. For others, the bone is government corruption, in and out of the Royal Palace; for still others, it’s the Jekyll-and-Hyde face of international aid, which gives the illusion of building up Nepal while often crippling the kingdom’s chances for self-sufficiency.
On a strictly personal level, the cultural plunder of Nepal’s devotional art has always gotten my blood up. Hoping to expose a few of the kingpins involved in the art trafficking, I sent out a few queries to magazines—and finally got a bite.
My plan was simple: return to Nepal from Tibet in late September and begin making the contacts that would get me in good with the smugglers themselves. It ought to be fairly easy; I had been to Nepal enough times to know the ropes, and knew a few people who could probably put me on the right track.
The day after Rick, Nancy and I had arrived in Tibet—saddle sore and disoriented after the grueling, four-day journey overland from Kathmandu in a cramped, stuffy Toyota Land Cruiser—I found myself relaxing over early-morning yak-burgers in the coffee shop of the Lhasa Hotel. My two traveling companions were still in bed, but I was sharing a table with half a dozen other people. A few of them were good friends from Nepal who were working on various long-term projects in Tibet. There were also a number of other expats I’d never met.
“So what brings you to Asia this time?” someone asked.
/> Giddy from the altitude—we had gained nearly three thousand meters in four days—I started babbling recklessly about my novel, a few other ideas and the art-smuggling story. “You know, I think it’s one of the more disgusting scams going down around here,” I spouted. “And I’d love to make some waves. So if any of you know people I might want to talk to, let me know.”
There was some mumbling and snorting, but very little eye contact. I wasn’t surprised; and it would probably be better all around if I didn’t get any of my local chums involved.
A couple of days later, one of my buddies found me in the hotel lobby and put his arm around my shoulder. “I think we’d better have a little talk,” he said.
It turned out, of course, that half the people I knew had become directly involved in smuggling in one way or another. To make matters worse, the Big Man about Lhasa had gotten wind of what I was planning. He wanted, it seemed, to have a little tête-à-tête with me.
My friend and I took the elevator up to the top floor of the Lhasa Hotel and walked down the hall to the room where the smuggler made his lair. It was an airy room, filled with beautiful work—all Tibetan. I admired his taste and told him so.
“Better we get it than the bastard Chinese,” he said. “They’ll just melt down whatever’s gold and throw the rest into the fire.”
There was a painful helping of truth in this. In many ways, I agreed with his point of view. Any artworks that remained in Tibet, anything of beauty or value, existed thanks to the fickle goodwill of the occupying Chinese. But my hasty assurance that the Mother Jones story would focus exclusively on the smuggling of devotional Nepalese art—as opposed to the lucrative trade out of Tibet—didn’t seem to move him. The man had been in the business for a dozen years and maintained interdependent “offices” in both countries. As far as he was concerned, anyone who planned to draw attention to the smuggling trade, at any level, was an active menace to his livelihood.
We sat cross-legged on his balcony, warm and relaxed, the brilliant Lhasa sunshine glaring off the smuggler’s pale, balding scalp. He was convivial, almost jolly, passing around hashish and good imported whiskey as we gossiped about the Chinese, the Tibetans and the good money to be made in antique carpets. But the message he had called me up to deliver was out of tune with this veneer of bonhomie.
“I’m not threatening you,” he said at last, merrily tapping a chunk of hash into a small water pipe. “But I advise you stay away from the art-smuggling story, and save yourself a pair of broken kneecaps—at best. Those Khampas are big men,” he whispered, leaning forward. He was referring to the fierce nomads from Kham, eastern Tibet, who are apparently enriched by the trade. “And they can do a lot of damage.”
This word to the wise, needless to say, had a curdling effect on my enthusiasm for the story. I mean, I’m concerned with the art-theft problem, but not fanatical about it. So when I got back to Kathmandu, I put the art-smuggling story assignment on the back burner and tried to forget about it. But I couldn’t forget it entirely, and toward the last month of my stay in Nepal I again began to make discreet inquiries. I wasn’t about to risk life and limb by writing a full exposé, but I figured I could get far enough to see how bad the problem really was, determine how the stealing was done, and at least issue a general bulletin about the phenomenon.
Bhaktapur, former home of the stolen Lakshmi-Narayan statue, is a gem of a village located some eight kilometers due east of Kathmandu. On clear autumn days, the Langtang Himalayas frame the city’s tiered pagodas and temple finials like a cinematic backdrop—and it’s possible to imagine Bhaktapur as it must have appeared hundreds of years ago, when it was the wood and stone-carving capital of Central Asia.
Bhaktapur is where you’ll find what’s left of the flavor of old Kathmandu. Cars have to squeeze single file down the narrow alleys; little kids play bare-assed in front of rickety buildings. I wandered down the parquet brickwork of the ancient streets, searching for Jim Goodman—a man who, I’d heard, might shed some light on the art-smuggling scene in Kathmandu.
Entering the old Palace Square, I was surprised to encounter an enormous mob. A seething doughnut of humanity stood massed around the front steps of the Nyatapola, Bhaktapur’s tallest and most famous pagoda. Standing on tiptoe, I heard muted drums and cymbals, followed by the unlikely bark of a bullhorn.
The man next to me, who had apparently been drawn into the crowd while heading home from both work and dinner shopping, hopped up and down for a better look. He was clutching a portable typewriter under one arm and a live chicken under the other. “Oh daju?” I asked, “kay bayo?”—What’s happenin’?
“Movie gardaiccha!”
Sure enough, the crowd was mesmerized by the filming of a made-for-television extravaganza, Night Train to Kathmandu. Never mind that there are no trains in Nepal whatsoever. I waded into the crowd and got a look at the action: blond American kid-actors in Lacoste T-shirts posed in saucer-eyed disbelief, surrounded by a troupe of ethnic dancers wearing papier-mâché masks. A few steps away, barefoot local ragamuffins had abandoned their begging to gape at the Panavision cameras.
Several minutes after quitting that scene I came upon my destination. Goodman’s house sat behind a large community washing area. It was a busy time of day; dozens of Nepalis squatted around the rectangular tank’s perimeter, bathing, brushing their teeth or beating their laundry.
After creeping up a deadly narrow stairway to the second floor, twice knocking my head on the low beams, I found Goodman in his parlor sorting through a bunch of color slides. He had longish blond hair and evasive eyes, or so it seemed at the start. And not surprisingly. Telephones are rare among fringe-dwelling expatriates, and Goodman was not among the privileged. As far as he was concerned, I was a total stranger, dropping in out of nowhere.
After satisfying himself that I wasn’t the harbinger of trouble (like much of the foreign community, Goodman lived in continual terror of having his visa revoked), he loosened up and told me a bit about himself. He had stumbled across the art-theft problem more or less by accident—returning to re-photograph certain temples for books and magazines, only to find them looted.
“It’s become very embarrassing for me to take people around Bhaktapur and show them empty niches where there were once great statues,” he said. “And it’s gotten worse; before, people used to take just the valuable things. Now they’ll steal almost anything, just as an investment.”
Jim led me on a walking tour of the city, and I could see what he meant. The most obvious victims were old toranas—ornate arches of metal or wood, which are installed above the entrances to temples all over the Kathmandu Valley. Described by one scholar as “iconographic blueprints,” the toranas display, in miniature, figures of the gods and goddesses that appear inside the temple itself. The ones Goodman showed me were practically bare, stripped of all detail. Within the year, he predicted, the naked borders themselves would be ripped off.
In an awkward attempt to frustrate thieves, the more important shrines and statues are now being trussed up with barbed wire, or caged behind metal grills—effectively preventing pilgrims from touching the images and receiving blessings in the traditional manner. It’s a tactic that reminded me of how certain countries with scandalous rape statistics “solve” the problem by forbidding women to go out on the streets at night. And despite these clumsy measures, needless to say, the devotional figures continue to vanish at a fantastic rate.
Many of the stolen works are fairly small; they can easily be carried out of town in a daypack. But some are massive, requiring up to twenty men to lift them. “I don’t see how they get them out unnoticed,” Goodman said. “The one downstairs from my flat—a very large sculpture of the god Shiva and his consort Parvati—was stolen twice. It was brought back the first time, but they couldn’t convince the local people to put a cage around it. They thought that the power of the goddess brought it back.” Within two weeks it was gone again—this time for good.
Ha
cking huge idols out of temples is not a quiet sport. Goodman mentioned that one Nepali reporter, investigating the thefts, theorized that gangs of looters disguise themselves as worshipers and enter the temples as if for a late-night puja—with horns, cymbals and drums.
“They pretend to be celebrants but in reality it’s ‘BOOM BOOM!’ (chip, chip!), ‘BOOM BOOM!’ (chip, chip!).”
The encounter with Jim Goodman—and our stroll through Bhaktapur—was enough to convince me that any Buddha I finally did buy would have to be of recent origin. But the more I shopped around, the more disheartened I became. I could start to see why people who really loved the work, as paradoxical as this might sound, were inclined to steal it. Once you’ve seen how beautiful a work of devotional art can be, it’s hard to settle for a fifth-generation copy.
And so, confronting the generally low quality of all the contemporary Buddhas, my interest in antiquities became, let’s say, piqued. I wanted to at least see what was possible, even if I wouldn’t actually buy an illicit statue.
I’d heard about a shop called the Chandrama (“Moonlight”) Gallery, just a hop and skip past the American Express mail stop and right next to a funky little Italian restaurant I had regularly patronized until finding a twenty-centimeter length of high-gauge wire buried in my spinach ravioli one day. Just out of curiosity, I dropped in to the Chandrama to have a look-see.
All right, all right: I breached the bounds of pure, mindful Buddhist integrity. After a moment or two of browsing, I informed the manager that I was the Chief Curator of Nepalese and Indian Art for a major metropolitan U.S. museum, yes indeed, with my hands on a fabulous budget for, ahem, antique objects, if he knew what I meant. Might he have anything interesting to show me?
He began by offering up a few small statues that were obviously of very little real importance—and I told him so. A minute later I was sitting in the back room, surveying a table covered with seventeenth-century bronzes. I inquired about a seated Shiva, his hand cupping the breast of a voluptuous Parvati, and was told that the price was 35,000 rupees, plus another 10,000 to ease it through customs: a total, in those days, of about $1800.
Shopping for Buddhas Page 9