The Changing Peasant: Part 2: the Uprooted

19791No. 41 by Richard Critchfield The Changing Peasant Asia [ RC-4-'793 Part II: The Uprooted

Theirs is the true lost horizon. Whatever their number, most jutting rocks of shale, schist, and Tibetans are nomadic shepherds limestone. Tibet is the source of all The Tibetan homeland is still so who live in yak-hair tents and move the great rivers of Asia: the Sutlej remote, unmapped, unsurveyed, about much of the year in search of and Indus, the Ganges and and unexplored that in 1979 less is grass for their large herds of yaks, Brahmaputra, the Salween, known about its great Chang Tang sheep, goats, and horses. Aside Yangtze, and Mekong. Violent plateau and Himalayan-high from Lhasa (population 50,000) and gales, dust storms, and icy winds mountain ranges than is known some town-like monasteries, before blow almost every day. about the craters of the moon. the Chinese occupation almost no Until the Chinese occupation the human habitations existed; the Tibet remains a mystery. wheel, considered sacred, was Tibetan herdsman's life, like that of never used: horses, camels, yaks, the Arab Bedouin, revolves around sheep, and men provided the only It is now 29 years since Mao Tse- his livestock, their wool for clothing tung's armies invaded what had transport over rugged tracks and and shelter and their meat and milk precarious bridges spanning deep almost always been an independent for food. sovereign country and declared it an narrow gorges. Even the way of autonomous area within the The Tibetans are racially and death was harsh, the bodies being People's Republic of China. It is 20 culturally close to the Mongols of cut up and fed to buzzards (a years since rebellion broke out in Genghis Khan's historic hordes. cu'stom still practiced among most Lhasa and the Dalai Lama, Tibet's Their beliefs, although transfigured Tibetan refugees). spiritual and temporal leader, fled to by Indian Buddhism and the secular One man in four was a Buddhist India. Yet the southward flow of refinements of the Chinese, still lama. Some of the monasteries were refugees has never completely have strong undertones of Mongol vast and the Dalai Lama's Potala stopped. Today there are more than shamanism with its "possessed" Palace in Lhasa is claimed by most 100,000 uprooted Tibetans in India, oracles, amulets, and magic charms. Tibetans to number 10,000 rooms. Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhutan; at Yet except for the Khampa warriors While the ecclesiastical dignitaries universities in India, Europe, and the of eastern Tibet, who can be were mostly high-born nobles, the United States, Buddhist scholars excitable and brutal, most Tibetans Dalai Lama himself was usually a from Lhasa attempt to preserve are remarkably cheerful, calm, poor herdsman's child, chosen Tibetan Lamaism, which is humorous, intelligent, and kindly. through oracular revelation, born at essentially Indian Mahayana Paradoxically, I find them the least the moment of his predecessor's Buddhism of the seventh to twelfth "foreign" of all Asians. death, and generally believed to be centuries. his reincarnation. Their harsh land has made them Nobody knows exactly how many very hardy. Mostly occupying a high In 1973 the present Dalai Lama Tibetans there are. Tenzin Gyatso, plateau 600 by 800 miles between shocked his people by warning that the 44-year-old fourteenth Dalai the Himalayas and Kunlun while the Dalai Lama in the past Lama now living in exile at Mountains at altitudes of 12,000 helped unify the Tibetan people, he Dharmsala in northern India, feet and more, they graze their yak may have outlived his usefulness. "I estimates there are 6 million in Tibet and sheep herds on barren, treeless, might be the last Dalai Lama," he itself. A Chinese census in 1963 put windswept wastes broken by had also warned in 1972. "It is not the number at 1.2 million. Another thousands of often saline lakes (one, important. What is important is that four million or so people of Tibetan Nam Tso, covers 950 square miles), Tibet should benefit." During a visit origin and culture populate the snow-covered mountain ranges to Europe in fall 1973 when he met Himalayan border regions. soaring above 20,000 feet, and great the Pope, the Dalai Lama spoke of his desire to return to Tibet and not Cultural Revolution and many Nationalist pressure was involved; spend his days "like an exiled Tibetans had assumed he was dead. he grew up under the protection of European king surrounded by his In 1964 he was stripped of his post Chiang Kai-shek's soldiers. court." He even voiced a willingness as chairman of the election In 1944, still never having set foot in to accept the role of a purely committee for the Tibetan region Tibet, he was enthroned as the and charged with "opposing the religious leader. Panchen Lama. In 1949 Radio people, the fatherland and During Mao Tse-tung's lifetime Peking announced that the Panchen socialism." Since then he had been Tibet remained virtually cut off from Lama, then 12 years old, had variously reported as being in a labor the outside world, a garrison state "appealed" to Mao Tse-tung to camp or "studying" Maoism in with 300,000 Chinese troops. But "liberate Tibet." He met the Dalai Peking. the Tibetans are a stubborn people Lama for the first time in 1952, and the threat of insurrection in Like the Dalai Lama, the Panchen repairing a breach that dated from event of seriously worsening Lama is regarded as a reincarnation the time of their predecessors; they relations with Russia has never been of Buadha. He originally visited Peking together in 1954 and, lost on Peking. No one today collaborated with the Chinese after each carrying a movie camera, expects traditional Tibet to ever be their conquest of Tibet in 1950. His toured India together in 1956. The restored. The Dalai Lama himself crime in 1964, according to Tibetan Panchen Lama did not join in the has stressed that resistance to lamas who escaped to India, was Lhasa rebellion that led to the Dalai change in the late twentieth century failing to denounce the Dalai Lama Lama's flight into exile in 1959. is futile; he concedes the Chinese and calling for "a halt to the Instead he came to be treated as have brought many needed reforms. oppression and religious one of China's officials. Then, in But, as he has observed, "Great persecution" of Tibetans. 1964, the Chinese military commander in Tibet began unexpected changes have occurred Many ordinary Tibetans tend to attacking unnamed "schemers" in the world; it is my hope the dismiss the Panchen Lama as a who plotted "the restoration of the Chinese leaders will review the new Chinese. As the story goes, he was integration of politics and religion." realities." born in 1937 in China's Sinkiang It soon became evident the target Apparently this has been province; as a boy named Kum-bu- was the Panchen Lama himself. happening. The most dramatic tze-den he was discovered at age six indication was when the Panchen at play in his father's peasant hut by The rehabilitation of the Panchen Lama, the second most revered pilgrims searching for the Lama after 14 years has generally traditional spiritual leader in Tibet, reincarnated spirit of the previous been interpreted as a conciliatory showed up for the Fifth Chinese Panchen Lama. The child was said gesture toward Tibetans by China's People's Political Consultative to have selected his predecessor's post-Mao leadership. The Dalai Conference in Peking's Great Hall of clothes and spectacles from a pile of Lama himself suggested in March the People in late February 1978. It garments and to have cried, 1978 that China may reinstall the was the Panchen Lama's first public "Lama!" Many Tibetans contested Panchen Lama as its figurehead in appearance since China's Great the choice, asserting that Chinese Lhasa, in order to make a more convincing case, especially to Tibetans in exile, that conditions are improving in Tibet and that it enjoys relative autonomy. He noted Deputy Prime Minister Teng Hsiao-ping's reputation as a pragmatist. Teng himself, in a visit to Kathmandu in February 1978, indicated China was in no hurry to open Tibet to the outside world. Tibet's mountainous terrain and high altitude complicated the development of tourism and trade, he told the Nepalese, who had just opened the first foreign consulate in Lhasa. "I had wanted to stop at Lhasa on the way here," Teng said, "but my colleagues did not allow me. Lhasa is almost 4,000 meters above sea level and anyone who Migrant peasants - Kharnpa tribals on Tibetan-Nepal border. wants to go to Tibet must get a replied that since the Dalai Lama our only hope. Do not expect medical checkup." had not applied for a visa, the miracles. And do not expect me to Few of the trickle of foreigners so question of denying him one did not make prophecies because I cannot." far allowed into Tibet have seen arise. Asked why Tibet seemed excluded from President Carter's In March 1978 he took note of post- much more than Lhasa. And many human rights policy, the State Mao China's campaign to present its reports were evidently colored by Department spokesman replied: occupation of Tibet in a better light: the desire to keep on the good side of the authorities in Peking. Author The President has a strong Recently the Chinese have Han Suyin (Love is a Many- commitment to human rights and its intensified their propaganda about Splendored Thing) went in 1975 and important role in our foreign policy. I the "unprecedented happiness in came back full of praise for the may add that our views on human Tibet today " through radio Chinese role there. Left-wing British rights reflect the fundamental values broadcasts and pictorial magazines. journalist Felix Greene made a of the American people and a desire It is very difficult for the few propagandistic film, "Tibet- Roof to see these rights extended to all selected foreign visitors, who are of the World," shown on BBC in peoples. taken on guided tours for a few days February 1978. A more accurate and have to listen to explanations observer was Washington columnist The Dalai Lama eventually did apply through interpreters carefully David Broder who accompanied for a visa and toured the United chosen by the Chinese, to know and James Schlesinger there the same States in fall 1979. tell us the actual welfare and conditions of the Tibetan people. It year, and said "about half of our The State Department has also set three-day visit was occupied with is obvious to impartial observers down a new requirement for that these reports which are propaganda sessions on the evils of Tibetan exiles when they become the old regime and demonstrations artificial, biased, one-sided and U.S. citizens and want passports. of the achievements of the new." unreliable willnot be accepted b y Now they have to list "China" as people who are able to see both Perhaps the best look at Lhasa for their place of birth. "Tibet," though sides of the picture. many Tibetan refugees was a 45- it was not invaded by China until minute documentary film made 1949 and not completely occupied If the six million Tibetans in Tibet are during the visit of King Birendra of until 1959, is no longer acceptable. really happy and prosperous as Nepal in 1976. The visit, at least for This official American evasiveness never before there is no reason for Tibetans, was dampened by Nepal's and bureaucratic harassment is only us to argue otherwise. If the rather ruthless disarmament of a step above a recent demand by Tibetans are really happy the Khampa guerrillas in Mustang in Bhutan's government that all its Chinese should allow every advance of the journey. All Tibetan residents become interested foreigner to visit Tibet Khampas, guerrillas or not, were Bhutanese citizens and sever their without restricting their movements forced to evacuate this western links with the Dalai Lama or or meetings with the Tibetan border region of Nepal and continue to endure the beatings, people. This would enable the hundreds were jailed. Eight Khampa arrests, and robbery Tibetan visitors to really know the true leaders are still being held in a refugees increasingly suffer at the conditions of Tibet, Furthermore, Kathmandu prison awaiting trial for hands of Indian and Nepalese the Chinese should allow the "illegal possession of arms." One border guards. Hodding Carter Tibetans in Tibet to visit their shocking aspect of this affair is that might do better to explain just parents and relatives in exile. These no one has mentioned that the arms where those jailed Khampa Tibetans can then study the were supplied by the CIA, guerrillas in Kathmandu got their conditions of those of us in exile presumably with the knowledge of "illegal arms" in the first place. living in free countries. Similar the governments of India and Nepal. (They were parachuted down in opportunities should be given to the boxes from American Air Force Tibetans in exile. Under such an Nor is Nepal the only government cargo planes in 1960-61 over the arrangement we can be confident of guilty of treating the Tibetans Mustang region.) knowing the true situation inside shabbily in the rush to have good Tibet. This is morally right and relations with post-Mao China. In The Dalai Lama himself has warned practicable. Instead of doing this October 1977, after the Dalai Lama's his people, "We cannot expect New why are the Chinese indulging only New York representative asked the Delhi or Moscow or Washington to in propaganda to woo the Tibetans State Department whether a visit by change their policies for our sake. in exile to return?' the exiled Tibetan leader would be But that does not mean that we welcome, he was informed it should remain inactive. We should Undeniably the first few years of "would be inconvenient at this be ever vigilant, constantly China's occupation in Tibet were time." When a Chicago couple, Ted observing the changes in the extremely brutal. In 1960 the and Deborah Miller, wrote a letter of international situation and be International Commission of Jurists protest, Assistant Secretary for prepared for all eventualities. Hard (ICJ) on behalf of the United Public Affairs Hodding Carter Ill work, unity and perseverance are Nations published a lengthy report in which it found the Communist The opening of Nepal to foreign Pakhiel is now a permanent-looking Chinese regime guilty of genocide, a scholars and scientists, not to speak settlement of stone houses, a rug- deliberate attempt to exterminate of the wholesale invasion of weaving cooperative (the superior the Tibetan people. The ICJ, mountaineers, trekkers, and quality raw wool used is imported meeting in Geneva, reported the tourists, has revealed many from China), school, shops, a Chinese violation of human rights in little-known Tibetan-like peoples cooperative-run inn, and a Tibet included a denial of: who until the past decade have lived monastery festooned with the usual the right of life, liberty and security in isolated mountain valleys with Tibetan prayer flags. Though a steady flow of foreign trekkers of person by acts of murder, rape little or no outside contact. passes Tashi ~akhielevery day and and arbitrary imprisonment; torture Finally, the major adversary of and cruel, inhuman and degrading Ngodup sometimes hires out as a traditional cultures today is guide, and though he had not been treatment inflicted on Tibetans on a technology, not ideology or military large scale. . . . The Tibetans were in Tibet for 18 years, Ngodup's force. And Tibet's harsh climate and Tibetan culture seems to survive not allowed to participate in the terrain, supporting as it does almost completely intact3 culturallife of their own community, nomads and livestock, a primitive a culture which the Chinese have set agriculture, and little else, itself out to destroy? dictates that most of the inhabitants As a small boy, clad in a ragged Undeniably also, some 100,000 must follow something akin to sheepskin against temperatures that Tibetans, often braving 16,000-foot Tibetan traditional culture. The rose above 70" Fahrenheit by day and fell below freezing at night, passes in Winter, have sought Chinese have long found it Ngodup spent his days running up refuge in India, Bhutan, and Nepal, necessary to garrison Tibet with and down the dunes with his mostly arriving penniless and held troops from similar mountain father's sheep and yak, keeping a together only by loyalty to the Dalai regions. constant watch against roaming Lama-and a strong desire to The culture of Tibet is remarkably packs of wolves or a giant hawk preserve their Tibetan Buddhism resilient. Take the case of Ngodup which could swoop down and carry and culture. Tsering, now 25, who fled into off a baby lamb in its claws. These Will this culture survive? History Nepal with his family when he was marauders, the extremes of heat provides plenty of examples of only 7 years old. I first got to know and cold in a single day, the seldom- peoples with distinctive cultures Ngodup in October 1973, when he ending winds, and the rarified, who, after long years of alien served as my guide on a 140-mile, breath-catching air were not the domination, managed to stage 14-day trek along Nepal's most only hazards. In Zungru, the western astonishing comebacks: the Greeks popular Pokhara-Jomosom trail, Tibetan "country" where Ngodup survived the Ottomans, the Jews and since then at his village of Tashi lived (by air it is only 150 miles the Diaspora, the Persians the Pakhiei (population 6641, just off the directly north of Kathmandu, but Arabs, and so on. trail seven miles north of Pokhara. across the high Himalayas), there There are good reasons for thinking Originally a refugee camp, Tashi were also Khampa bandits who it will. First, there is the presence of the Dalai Lama himself (still relatively young in his early 40s) and what is left of his government and state institutions at Dharmsala. Second, many rehabilitation schemes in India and Nepal over the past 20 years have succeeded: ancient monasteries have been refounded; Tibetan schools are filled; traditional handicrafts, especially the wonderful pure wool rugs, are being produced for ready markets abroad, and a vigorous community life has been re- established in dozens of settlements. Third, most of the frontier people of the Himalayas, such as the Sherpas, possess a way of life and a religion very close to those of the Tibetans. Ngodup (left)and Chhodak. Anna Purna in background. sometimes rode in on horseback to During the night many of Ngodup's but given enough food to reach the demand food, money, clothes, rifles, neighbors fled south toward the western Nepal town of Pokhara. and knives. This was tolerable as the Tsangpo River. Ngodup's father and Here a United Nations relief official fast-moving Khampas had little one brother went also but his settled them at Tashi Pakhiel, then interest in the livestock that was the grandmother was too old and frail to only an improvised camp of grass family's real wealth; they owned travel and the rest of the family huts. Soon permanent stone houses about 200 yak, 700lepcha sheep and stayed behind with her, tending the were built and, at the age of 11, horses, about average for a yaks and sheep. One day Chinese 25 Ngodup entered school. nomad family in Zungru. soldiers came to their encampment and asked about Ngodup's father. Ngodup remembers, "I couldn't A tiny nomad country, Zungru was They told his mother not to try and understand the teacher for she unusual in that it was subject not to join him, saying, "There is no reason spoke the Tibetan language. It was the Tibetan government but directly to leave. We have come to bring you my mother tongue but I only knew to the Dalai Lama who sent officials a new life. So why should you want the dialect of Zungru. But after six periodically to collect cattle, butter, to run?" In the days that followed months or so I could understand and cheese. There was a lamasery, the family heard alarming reports of and learned to read and write." Dsalung, and a borax mine. lamas being sent into forced labor, After five years, Ngodup finished Sometimes the family roamed as far of public executions and of whole first in his class and was sent to as Bangba Chugdso, a large country families being shipped off to China. Kathmandu for three years' medical of grasslands and snow mountains, When Ngodup's father returned for training to enable him to set up a where the men snared muskdeer them one night, they were ready to dispensary in Tashi Pakhiel. His final with loops. Once Ngodup visited his go. examination took the form of grandmother's country of treating 97 patients in a single day. Yangbachen, where there were They fled with only a single horse Five years ago, with the help of a juniper forests; the dry wood was for the grandmother to ride; one of letter from the Dalai Lama, Ngodup taken to Lhasa. Ngodup's two brothers and a sister was admitted for higher studies in followed behind with the rest of the Kathmandu; he hoped to become a One day, when Ngodup was seven, horses and the herd of sheep and doctor. But he lacked enough the Khampas came, this time not to yaks. They never caught up. Years money to continue; today he makes plunder but to warn there had been went by before the family learned what he can selling Tibetan artifacts an uprising in Lhasa. The Dalai they had been intercepted by to tourists, guiding for foreign Lama had fled to lndia and Chinese Chinese soldiers and forced to trekkers in the spring and fall soldiers were moving into Bangba return to Zungru. Today both are trekking seasons, and in between Chugdso. "You must run as fast as married and live the old nomadic weaves rugs at the village you can," the Khampas' leader told life. cooperative, where average monthly them. "The big people, the rich Ngodup, his parents, grandmother, earnings are $40 (not bad, as most people and the lamas are being and older brother (who eventually families have several members robbed and killed so you must run." went on to lndia to join its army) working, including almost all Tashi managed to reach the Nepalese Pakhiel's women). border town of Dolpo but without Although Ngodup has a happy, money. They sold the horse for 200 easy-going disposition and enjoys rupees, one-tenth of its worth, but life, taking each day as it comes, like considered themselves most of his fellow villagers he wants lucky -others were selling horses sometime to return to Tibet and and livestock for pieces of bread. resume the nomadic life in Zungru. For the next three years Ngodup "I feel I want to go," he says. (By jet, and his family became beggars, Zungru lies only one hour north of wandering up and down the frontier Kathmandu; to go by foot, however, towns. In the age-old beggar's cry means a circuitous route via Dolpo of Ti bet, "Biccha magne! Biccha on the western Nepalese border, magne!" they went from one house requiring at least four weeks. to another, their sheepskin Nomads from Zungru do trade at garments covered with patches, Dolpo twice a year and pass on filthy, their hair long and unkempt as messages from Ngodup's brother was expected of hungry derelicts. and sister on the plateau.) "What Finally they reached a large refugee can I say?" Ngodup goes on. "Once camp at Dorpatan, a week's journey we have freedom we won't stay in from Dolpo. They were turned away Nepal even though we have good The peasant as refugee - Tibetan in houses and everything and a Nepal. pleasant life. We will follow His Holiness Dalai Lama and go where age and had almost no contact with (pronounced beu as in monsieur), he goes. Tibet is our motherland, the outside world. characterized by devil-dancing and where we were born." Ngodup This is what makes the Tibetans so human sacrifices. King gropes for the right words. "The life Songdsengombo was converted to exceptional: at a time traditional was free," he says. Buddhism, and made it the official cultures are breaking down religion. Still, Bon demonolatry everywhere, they seem, in the face remained the religion of most of tremendous odds (the Chinese If culture is defined as a lifestyle, a Tibetans until the eighth century, cultural revolution in the homeland, design for living, a ready-made set and is still a minority religion in the alien environment of the of solutions to problems so that Tibet; some of the Tibetans in Tashi Himalayan foothills, the occupation individuals in each new generation Pakhiel remain its adherents. do not have to start from scratch, of rug weaving instead of herding, Everyone knows the familiar story of then Ngodup's culture is remarkable the frequent contact with international tourists and how the Nepalese prince, Siddharta in the way it has adapted to and mountaineers), to be keeping to Gautama, renounced his wife, child, essentially survived a non-nomad their old ways and views of life and estate at the age of 29 and took environment. Most peasants I have better than most peasants (the term, to the road as an ascetic, hoping he studied have seen their cultures peasants, being used here in the might find the causes of human radically transformed in their anthropological sense, to connote misery and their cure. In the Ascetic lifetimes, so that in almost every rural people who are distinct from Brahmanism then dominant in India, village in the world we find a primitive tribals). salvation came in austerity and self- substantial generation gap. One mortification, but after six years At the heart of this culture is, of difference among the Tibetan Siddharta found they brought him course, religion. Though we tend to refugees is their consciousness that no permanent satisfaction and he the Chinese seek to change their think of Tibet as "the land of the renounced them forever. Instead, culture radically-if not to destroy lamas," far from being an ancient seated one day under his famous fig it-and their determination, with home of early Buddhist doctrine, tree, the inspiration came to him considerable help from Western Tibet did not receive the faith until that all human misery was due to scholars and academic institutions 1,200 years after Guatama's death desire and its solution lay in ceasing (especially the British, Canadians, (543B.C.). In 642 A.D., about the to desire. When Siddharta fully and Swiss), to preserve much of time Islam was rising in Arabia, a grasped this simple principle, he that culture intact. Accordingly, Tibetan king, Songdsengombo, achieved that state of perfect Ngodup's beliefs do not vary prompted by his two wives, one enlightenment called Buddhahood; significantly from those of his Nepalese and one Chinese, sent a he had attained Nirvana. The prince, 72-year-old ex-nomad father nor, mission to India in search of like all southern Asians, then and one can presume, his father's Buddhist scriptures. Until then now, believed in transmigration, present beliefs from those of 50 Tibet, a hermit kingdom, was home that when one dies, the years ago when he was Ngodup's to an animist religion, Black Bon concentrated result of all past thoughts, speech, and action (karma), finds its way into another body and starts again on the ever- revolving wheel of life. As Ngodup described the essence of his Buddhist faith to me, Buddha's theory was that (1) existence neces.sarily involves suffering and sorrow; (2) these are caused by desire-whether for sensual pleasure, prosperity, or for existence itself; (3)one can escape from suffering by ridding oneself of all such desire; and (4) to accomplish this end there is only one way, what Buddha called the "Noble Eightfold Path." These are the famous "Four Noble Truths" of Buddhism. Once desire is eliminated, you attain that condition of sinless calm called Carrying goods along the rocky trail near Ngodup 's village. Nirvana and further, after the imported from India, as was the dissolution of your body, you practice of enlisting the help of achieve that extinction of life called demoniacal Buddhas and Pari-Nirvana, when there is no more "fiendesses" to attain spiritual rebirth. You have finally escaped the powers. wheel of life. Unlike the world-accommodation of Once Buddhism took root in Tibet, Confucianism, world-conquest of its followers split into four powerful Islam, the messianic expectations sects; the Sachyaba sect was and rigid law of Judaism, or the dominant after its recognition by world-affirmation of Genghis Khan, who conquered twentieth-century Christianity, Tibet around 1200, and 70 years Buddhism is the religion of world- later by his descendant, Kubla Khan rejection, which may explain its ("In Xanadu did Kubla KhanIA current appeal to disaffected stately pleasure-dome Western youth. Bodnatt, the main Tibetan temple in decree:lWhere Alph, the sacred Nepal. river, ran1Through caverns The world, according to Ngodup's legs and necks; and Nyalwa measureless to man/Down to a beliefs, is an endless repetition; (purgatory), where savages with sunless sea."4). This lasted until the unless you renounce desire-for animal heads inflict torture on those Mongols were driven out of China pleasure, success, or life itself - condemned by an inexorable judge, by the Mings (13681, who deemed it your destiny, working itself out the King of Death. Even the lotus- politic to give the Grand Lamas of through your karma, will be to be born Lha gods, though they live for the three other sects equal rank. reborn again and again until the thousands of years, at last die But around 1400 a lama named breaking up of the universe. If we miserably to be reborn again, even Tsongkaba reorganized one sect accept Buddha as the originator of as animals. around the name, Geluba, and it the Wheel of Life picture, he As Guatama's teachings were not soon eclipsed the others. An indicated five different regions in recorded for three centuries after his important reformer, Tsongkaba which a man may be reborn: those death, they were subject to many tightened monastic discipline, of gods, man, animals, ghosts, and interpretations; one system, insisted on celibacy and frequent purgatory, to which was later added Mahayana, offered salvation to all prayer, and greatly reduced, but a sixth, that of the titans. and substituted good works for could not annihilate, the Tantrik and magical element in Tibetan lamaism. This diagram of The Wheel of Life is good deeds; Hinayana Buddhists limited salvation to celibate His nephew was the first Dalai a notable feature of Buddhism; it is Lama; to insure the stability of portrayed on the walls of the mendicants. But the major innovation was the displacement of succession, the theory of porticos in the lamasery in Tashi reincarnation of the deceased lama Pakhiel. The wheel, as usual, is Buddha's agnostic idealism with theism; Buddha came to be was introduced; when one died a clenched tightly in the claws of a search would begin to find a nomad monstrous animal which Ngodup worshipped as God, an omniscient being, enduring from all eternity. infant born at the exact same said symbolized the hideousness of moment. clinging to life. On the panels Another Mahayana innovation was between the six spokes are painted the creation of a kind of Heaven, The other sects survived, as did the the realms of possible reincarnation: Dewajen, which admitted of no birth Bon religion, though, influenced by the Lha (gods) country, where gods or death, change or suffering. Buddhism, it became the White and goddesses dwell in gardens and Gradually more and more spells, Bon, dropping human sacrifice. The palaces and pluck the fruit of the magic, incantations and ritualism fifth Dalai Lama became Tibet's first wish-granting tree; the Lhamayin crept into Buddhism and, about the priest-king, justifying his divine (titans) country, where the roots end of the seventh century, power as an earthly reflex of the and trunk of the tree are located and Tantrism, a mixture of Shiva- ~odhisat~Janresig, whom he also where envious, warlike people fight worship and magic was introduced, identified with the King of the Dead, in vain against the Lha; man's as were the bloody Hindu goddess, the judge who decides the form of country, with all its woes of birth, Kali, and all sorts of demons. It was each soul's reincarnation. The sickness, poverty, struggle, and this decadent form of Buddhism Panchen Lama was second only to death; the animals' country, where that spread to Tibet, where a the Dalai, and regarded as even beasts prey on each other and are multitude of demons from the old more holy because he was not hunted by men or forced to bear Black Bon religion further diluted contaminated by ruling the temporal their burdens; the Yidag (ghosts) Guatama's original faith. In about government. country, haunted by the spirits of the tenth century, the theory of When the hopelessly dissolute sixth the miserly and gluttonous, with Adi-Buddha, a primordial Buddha, Dalai Lama died in 1703, the huge swollen stomachs and spindly or creator of the universe, was Manchu emperor of China seized suzerainty in Tibet, including control before going to sleep at night, with come closer to scientific fact than of its foreign policy. He tried to the aid of a rosary, he recites Om our own do; there is nothing in introduce a nominee of his own as manipadme hum 108 times. In Genesis about man's descent from the seventh Dalai Lama, but this doing so, Ngodup explained to me, the ape.) was resisted and until the present he is praying that all creatures, The creation story as told in the old Dalai Lama fled to India in 1959, the human and animal, be allowed to go Tibetan sacred texts goes more or Geluba sect continued to prosper to heaven, or Dewajen. The less as follows. "In the beginning and the Dalai Lama was recognized utterance of om is to free the Lha, the universe was void and there by all Tibetans as the ruler of Tibet the ma the Lhamayin, niman, pad existed only the two spirits, Adi- and supreme pontiff of Tibetan animals, me, those in purgatory, and Buddha and his consort, Chijam Lamaism. hum, the unfortunates in hell. He Jelmo." Adi-Buddha successively found the notion of praying for The troubles with China continued. created the elements: fire, water, one's own self or family very strange The 13th Dalai Lama, born in 1876, wind, and earth; from these he (I told him about, "Now I lay me fled to Peking in 1904 when a British constructed four worlds: the white down to sleep.. ." with the roll call expedition entered Tibet. He and crescent-shaped Lupang, the at the end of "God bless.. ." even, returned in 1909 but had to seek blue Dsambuling (ours), the red as a child, including my dog, cat, asylum in Darjeeling at the approach Balanjo, and the green Draminyen, and the corner grocer, Mr. of a Chinese military expedition a separating each with seven seas and Liederman); Tibetans, when they year later. Chinese troops were seven mountain ranges, in the pray, pray for all humankind. driven out of Tibet during China's center of which he placed a great 191 1 revolution; their present But aside from Buddhism itself, the mountain, Rijel Lhunbo. (The occupation dates from 1949. Tibetans have all sorts of deeply number, seven, seems to have the held folk beliefs. For instance, same fascination for Tibetans as it Considering Buddhism's history in Ngodup believes that men are did for the authors of the Old Tibet, it is amazing how much of the descended from Dak-sin-mo, a Testament.) !ofty philosophy and ethics taught demoness (hence the Tibetan originally by Guatama have Time in the Tibetan cosmos is fondness for raw meat), and a managed to survive. At the same measured by kalpas or ages; as men monkey who lived in a cave on time magic and supernatural grow more sinful, successive Gonbo mountain, southeast of deliverance is a universal quality of generations have shorter lives Lhasa. He attributes man's wisdom all village religion, just as philosophy (Ngodup said eventually life to the monkey. While Tibetans characterizes the religion of urban expectancy will be ten with marriage possess no legend of the Flood, as intellectuals the world over. at five). do all the Middle Eastern religions, Ngodup believes in Guatama there is a tradition that all but the In Ngodup's house, as in every Buddha's "Four Noble Truths" and highest mountains were once home in Tashi Pakhiel, there is a the "Noble Eightfold Path." Every covered by water. (It is interesting small room kept as a chapel, or the morning when he awakes and just how the Tibetan creation myths house of offerings. There are three altars, adorned with offerings of butter and tsamba (ground cooked barley, the Tibetans' staple), and butter lamps, silver or brass goblets, bowls, flowers, and sticks of incense. A wooden structure behind holds idols and sacred books. Often lamas come in the evening from the village monastery (40 lamas) to recite scriptures, beat drums and clash cymbals (the noise is to remind the chapel of the needs of the family and its prayers). Mechanical prayer is an obsession with Tibetans. Tashi Pakhiel's houses are adorned with prayer flags (the prayers supposedly sort of waft up when the flags flutter in the wind), and there are cylindrical prayer wheels in the porticos of lamaseries (you revolve them while

Woman and child in Ngodup 's village. passing by drawing your hand along before marriage is regarded as a bit Having been up half the previous their surfaces, without pausing). immoral, but she is not harshly night fighting them off, I was Tashi Pakhiel has hand wheels (the condemned, nor is the child ever determined in Balafi not to sleep in a lamas walk about spinning them like taunted as a bastard. Both village hut. But some Chinese tops), table wheels, water prayer polygamy with sisters and polyandry engineers, who had the only house wheels, wind wheels, and fire with brothers still occurs; in Tashi sprayed with DDT, refused to let me wheels (turned by the hot air of Pakhiel there was no woman who enter their compound (those were butter lamps.) This fondness of had also married the brother of her back in the pre-Nixon visit days). In Tibetans for ritualistic practice is husband but Ngodup said his desperation I took my Tamang also seen in the special celebration brother now serving in the Indian porter and went to sleep in a of almost every third or fourth day army has proposed he take a wife pavilion in the village graveyard, on the calendar, mostly by burning for both of them; the brother's putting candles in each corner so it incense, offering tea, wine, and reasoning: his wife will always have did not seem too spooky (the barley, prayers, and the beating of a man in the house. Also, as Tamang, who did not like it a bit, drums and clashing of cymbals; Ngodup put it, "We can only afford curled up in an inner corner with a especially during the seven-day one house and when you have two cloth pulled over his head). Tibetan New Year celebration the wives in the same household, there noise of drums, cymbals, and the can be trouble." I went to sleep on the pavilion's huge (up to six- or seven-feet long) wide stone steps under the stars and Tashi Pakhiel had a sorcerer, a awoke about midnight. The candles trumpets never ceases. On the last mo-ba, but unlike those in most day each family burns the evils and had gone out but there was peasant cultures, while he would moonlight. Down the slope to the the bad luck of the past year in a diagnose an illness (usually telling little straw hut put outside the house left of the pavilion was a deep gorge the sick man a certain goddess, crossed by one of those precarious and the new year starts with a clean snake, or demon was angry with slate. rope bridges so common in the him), he did not try to cure it. Himalayas. I saw a figure in loose One reason Ngodup wants to return Tibetans have a strong belief in white clothing standing there. someday to Tibet is to visit a temple ghosts, that is the spirits of men Slowly, as I watched, he crossed the in Lhasa, called the Jokang, which who have not gone to the King of bridge, climbed up the slope toward houses Tibet's oldest statue of Hell but remained behind, haunting the pavilion and for a moment stood Buddha; like a Muslim and Mecca, the place where they died. This there quite near, weeping. He no Tibetan dies easily without this angry ghost is known as a Dre; looked Tibetan. I asked him in pilgrimage which he believes will according to Ngodup, I once saw English what was wrong but he purify him from sin. one. turned and went away. In the One cultural change in Tashi Pakhiel morning I had the Tamang ask the It happened in 1963 in eastern villagers who it was. They seemed is that its women no longer bear Nepal, along the route of what was their children in secret (they used to to anticipate the question and later to become a Chinese-built answered excitedly that it was the disappear into the forest or highway from Lhasa to Kathmandu. mountains and come back carrying ghost of a Tibetan merchant who, I was then the Delhi correspondent on his way to Kathmandu, had fallen the babies in their gowns). But while of the Washington Star and wanted the women now give birth at home to his death from the rope bridge to be the first American to travel this some weeks before. with a Kathmandu-trained midwife route to the Tibetan border and take in attendance, most of them insist photographs of the hundreds of In Tashi Pakhiel, 15 years later, on lying on the ground, or if they Chinese and thousands of Nepalese Ngodup and his family told me this have one, giving delivery in a stable. coolies working on the highway must have been a Dre. I described (Did the same notion exist in (against the Himalayan background, the man's clothing; they said it was Bethlehem?) If a woman has lost it was a spectacular sight). a Tibetan chuba, a loose tunic several sons in infancy or childhood, Unfortunately the route mostly belted at the waist that is sometimes she may call her first living son Patru passed through low-lying valleys white. Hearing the story, Ngodup at ("piggy") or Chitru ("doggy"), a and jungle, gaining the high name it will bear all its life (in Tashi once wanted to visit Balafi; altitudes only near the border. The eventually we went but in the bright Pakhiel there was a Chitru). (In incident took place at a village called sunlight the pavilion in its graveyard Egypt, such children were called, Balafi, 80 kilometers northeast of "Shahhat," or the word for and the rope bridge looked Kathmandu. The villages in the area harmless, especially as traffic was "beggar.") Ma and Pa are the were very poor-the short, stunted Tibetan words for one's parents. passing nearby on the new highway. inhabitants wore only loincloths and But I did not care to spend the night, Unlike most peasant societies, dirty rags-and infested with a nor did Ngodup. Tibetans are very tolerant about vermin called urus, which came out premarital sexual intercourse and of the walls of the village huts and Ngodup said a Dre can be produced adultery. A girl who has a child into your sleeping bag at night. in four ways: one who has died by the sword or another weapon in died at the age of 43, five years ago, bear. But shown pictures, the violence; a rich man who thinks only of tuberculosis). people of Tashi Pakhiel inevitably of losing his possessions on his Normally the corpse is laid face pointed to a gorilla, not a bear. Their deathbed; someone who dies downward, the head wrapped in a descriptions fit the yeti pattern: suddenly of a seizure (thought to cloth (once the Tashi Pakhiel Joba "very thick hair, especially around have been the victim of a Dre);or made the cuts on a male corpse face the head, but a hairless, monkeylike (my Dre) a man killed by falling, up and at the first incision on the face," "brown-black (the Tibetan drowning, burning, or suicide. The blue bear is actually golden brown chest, the dead man's arm flew up Tibetans questioned me intensively with blueish undertints)," "goes on and hit him in a reflex movement of about the Balafi incident. My two legs or four," "from a distance the muscles, giving everybody a strongest memory was not feeling looks like a man," "the hands and good fright). In order to induce the fright (after all, I merely thought it feet are manlike." was someone in trouble) but I do vultures to eat, the Joba has been known to cut himself a piece of flesh One old man said the more fierce remember a strange sense of grief. Khampas used to hunt dremo and Ngodup's theories were: (1) the Dre and eat it. (While this practice eat its meat. "When a dremo had been placated by my sympathy sounds gruesome, it is similar to attacks," he said, "it always turns its (as Tibetans believe they can be); (2) burial rites of the Parsees, who are head away; it fears to look a human turned off by my use of English; or among the most wealthy and closely in the face. The Khampas (3) really been after the Tamang Westernized people in India.) would throw a blanket-like net over (who slept through it all). A If a Podeng and Joba are not its head and club it to death." He Nepalese professor at the University present to fulfill their duties at a himself had seen a dremo and was of Kathmandu told me I was lucky; if death, Ngodup said, a man's spirit vehement it was not "a monkey or a the Dre had spoken, I would have can walk again in the body after bear like you can see in the zoo in fallen under its spell, jumped off the three days, but stiffly, unbending, Kathmandu." (The only dremo bridge, and stayed in Balafi haunting and in a straight line. This zombie- reportedly ever captured was said in the place myself. All I know is that I like apparition is called a rolang; 1954 to be in the Panchen Lama's saw something. Ngodup claimed a they are said to prey on the living zoological garden in Shigatse; it was Dre had killed a woman in Tashi and only a wolf, yeti, or lama can kill alleged to be a yeti but before Pakhiel a year before, striking a blow one. anyone could investigate it, on her back one night; she died two Belief in the yeti, or Abominable Shigatse was swept by a disastrous days later. Snowman, is almost universal flood. The Panchen Lama's zoo was among the Tibetans, as it is among Tibetans have a special lama, called washed away and whatever it was fully eight or ten million Sikkimese, a Podeb, to perform the funeral rites perished.) Bhutanese, Northern Indians, of the dead; the Podeb pulls the Nepalese, and others who inhabit An elderly woman in Tashi Pakheil deceased's hair to release the spirit, the high Himalayas or Tibetan told how a girl from her tribe was calls "Heek! Pett!" nine times to plateau. As Sir Edmund Hillary has kidnapped and held two or three raise it from the body, and then observed, there is no doubt they years by a dremo, who forced her to chants prayers to send the spirit to accept the fact the yetiactually bear him two children. She said, "At Dewajen (or heaven). The Podeb exists (Hillary, in 1960-61, undertook last she was found and brought can tell if the spirit has been released a ten-month investigation of the yeti back. The poor girl was unable to by a minute swelling on the and concluded it was "a legend.") speak or anything. She died soon forehead. Then a soothsayer is Like his fellow villagers, Ngodup afterward." (Abduction stories are called in to fix the date of burial, takes it for granted that a five to not uncommon; even Englishmen usually within seven days of death. seven-foot-tall apeman, with black- and Canadians (by Big Foot) have He also decides which of the four brown hair, a monkey face, robust claimed to have been kidnapped by ways the corpse should be disposed jaw, no fangs, no tail, and arms that ape-like creatures and taken to their of, whether by heaven, fire, water, reach to its knees, is a natural part of caves. ) or earth. Only the highest lamas are the local fauna. Ngodup told a famous legend about cremated and their ashes preserved Yuthok, the "first doctor in Tibet." and only the bodies of lepers or In Tashi Pakhiel I found no less than He said, badly diseased or criminal persons eight of the villagers, including are thrown in rivers or buried in the Ngodup's father and all of them One day Yuthok was coming by ground. The most common method, elderly, who claimed to have seen a horseback and someone called him. universal in Tashi Pakhiel, is to call a yetiin their pre-1959 days herding Suddenly a yeti leaped out of the special lama called a Joba who, yak on the Tibetan plateau. Tibetans trees and took Yuthok's bridle and after praying, beating a drum and call a yetia dremo (pronounced tey- led his horse into the forest to a blowing a trumpet, cuts up the moo), which some authorities, such cave. Yuthok was really surprised corpse and feeds it to vultures (this as British writer Desmond Doig, and afraid also. The drerno took happened to Ngodup's mother, who insist is really the rare Tibetan blue Yuthok from his horse and carried him into his cave. There a female described in an eighteenth century dragons are "groovy" to see, they yeti was lying, crying with pain and manuscript on Tibetan wildlife. represent a culture that is just the near death. A bone was caught in Sikkim's forest department opposite from the free, loose, her throat. Yuthok tried to examine announced in March 1978 that it parentless society the Western her but she fought and clawed at would field eight wildlife teams in a youths seek. In their colonies of him until the d remo hit her. Then new national park below Mount cheap "lodges" and caf6s, these Yuthok was able to remove the Kanchanjunga to "study ways to youngsters have created a world for bone. While he was doing this the improve the yeti's natural habitat." themselves (if you don't gag on dremo went outside to Yuthok's Since 1958 the government of Nepal hashish fumes) that is just as horse and put something in his bag has officially listed the yetias a isolated and restricted as that of the of medicines. Then he took Yuthok "protected species." Hillary, in his jet tourist who zooms in and out and back to his horse and released him. book, High in the Thin Cold Air wants to see Nepal all handily Yuthok rode away very frightened. (Hodder and Stougton, 19621, noted packaged up in a neat 72-hour But the dremo was happy and that while the Sherpas (whose Technicolor dream. jumped about making noises to culture is nearly Tibetan) believed in A majority of those Ngodup guides show his gratitude. When Yuthok the yeti, "they believe just as into the Himalayas are young, pot- confidently that their gods live in reached the nearest lamasery the smoking, long-haired youths, what comfort on the summit of Mount people gathered around. He opened he calls "half-and-half hippies." He Everest. We found it quite the bag and found the head of a says, "They ask how was life in impossible to divorce the yeti from dead woman wearing a tiara of Tibet, what can they see in the ~u~ernatural."~Tibetans accept turquoise and coral in her hair. It Mustang; some are interested in the Dre, roland, descent from was the dremo's way of saying monasteries, all are interested in the demoness-monkey ancestors, thanks. mountains. A few want to know mechanical prayers, a universe of Ngodup's 72-year-old father said he about the yeti. Most are afraid of seven seas and seven mountains, had seen dremos when he was leeches. And some ask, 'Are there and the "Four Noble Truths" of herding yaks. He said they quite Gautama Buddha in the same bandits in the mountains?' I say, often would try to attack the herd, cheelfully calm and uncritical way. 'Who can tell? Things can seizing the yak by their horns, happen.' " twisting them and breaking their Ngodup has little use for the true necks. (There have been reports of The Himalayan invasion of non-trekking, sedentary hippie, yaks being killed this same way even disaffected international youth since saying they're "bad, so bad. Always in 1978from Sikkim and eastern 1970, which the Tibetans still broke. They don't want to pay you Nepal near Everest). The father said, characterize as the coming of the money." Sometimes Ngodup takes "They eat the yak meat and put the "hippies," though it seems now to his ever-ready store of old Tibetan skin on the rocks. If we found a have peaked, fits into this tolerant jewelry and coins into Pokhara's yak's skin on the rocks, we would world view with remarkable ease. hippie colony, for petty trading is an say a dremo had killed and eaten it. Ngodup has been a guide-porter to ingrained in the Tibetan character as They lived near the snowline just almost 30 trekking parties, ranging an untiring sense of humor. Once a above the forest but moved up and from the out-and-out heroin French youth tried to steal an down depending on the season." addicted Berkeley street freak to a ornamental knife from him and Ngodup told me, "If you want to recent geological expedition from another time an American hippie, trek to Dolpo near the Tibetan Warsaw University. To Ngodup, the perhaps high on drugs, hit him in the border, you can see a dremo for one's "That's far out man. You're face. Afterward Ngodup told me, sure." (I made a mental note to keep into it," is not all that different from "A hippie is a man who has a away from Dolpo.) the other's "Are you Hinayana or character different from other men. In the West, since the first reports of Mahayana?" He enjoys them all and The way he dresses, the way he its existence reached London in shares the Tibetan tolerance for talks. We Tibetans, we're not really 1832, people have debated the weird behavior (such as mass nude rich in culture or qualifications. But I possibility that a bipedal primate, bathing on Pokhara's Phewa lake or think these hippies look worse than unknown to modern science, at the hot springs of Tatapani, four us. They say, 'My f-----g perhaps an anthropoid descendant days toward Jomosom from government, I don't like it, they of Gigantopithecus, has been Pokhara). Yet his culture, strange criticize their parents, they smoke fighting extinction in the high and ancient relic that it is, is hashish all the time, they don't want Himalayas. For the Himalayan governed by rigid, traditional codes to work. I've never smoked hashish. peoples themselves, there has been and a deep Buddhist religious faith Among Tibetans nobody smokes, nothing to debate. Many Buddhist with all its supernatural supports. ever. But among Nepalese, so monasteries treasure yetiscalps and While the chanting, drums, and many. And Tibetans are very honest other relics, yetis appear on their cymbals in exotic temples adorned up to now. Maybe we are very wall paintings and yetis are with goddesses, demons, and proud." Ngodup recognizes being a dropout Mustang, it means three weeks or sunset reflected against the can be a temporary phase. "Seven so. You must have ten or twenty ramparts of the Annapurna range or years ago one American man came. thousand rupees on you. A poor fishtail-shaped Macchapuccare, as He had long hair and funny, patched man in the mountains, he can live their glaciers turn fiery red; then the clothes. This year he came back. for six months on that." light goes out, the sky grows dim Now he looks like a government and they are swallowed up in mist Despite this (fairly rare) hazard, a officer, short hair, good clothes. and darkness. Then you think remarkable number of young Now he's really changed. Staying in Americans, Europeans, and uneasily maybe there is something a fancy hotel, not a hippie room. Japanese set forth into the after all in the forest that looms so When I see something like this, I'm Himalayas all alone. This translates darkly between you and the safety happy. I told him, 'You're not a easily into Tibetan terms as lamas of the nearest village-a man- hippie anymore.' 'No,' he said, 'my often go into the high mountains to monster, a yeti, Gigantopithecus still parents didn't let me do what I liked. rkeditate. This spring one of Tashi at large. You scramble down the Now I'm an engineer.' He gave me Pakhiel's lamas, Sherab, went to live track, almost falling, the panic real $50 and a pair of pants. Craig E. in a cave on Lapchi, a mountain near but soon forgotten over glasses of Morehouse was his name." the Tibetan border. Ngodup said, hot rakshiaround the fire of a The growing number of trekkers "He won't eat. He can meditate for comfortably bolted and shuttered each year has also given Ngodup a six months without food. He chews inn. The young trekkers, fresh-faced whole new lore of true horror a white stone in his mouth, that is or drug-worn, having spread their stories. Five years ago an American all. He's meditating. He has no sleeping bags out for the night, girl and her Norwegian companion feeling for himself. Whatever he's listen in fixed fascination as Ngodup were camped near Pokhara when, in meditating is for the welfare of all speaks of Tibet. "Many lakes and hills of sand. Mountains higher than the dead of night, fiercely howling human beings. We call it akar-chu- the Himalayas. I can't explain it. It's attackers pelted their tent with /en. " rocks. Terrified, the couple fled into an unbelievable thing." "Tell us There is something very satisfying in the darkness, the Norwegian finally about the Potala palace," says one stumbling, bloody and injured, into all the mystery and wonder of of the girls. "It is a place where gods Ngodup's world. Some of it comes Tashi Pakhiel. Ngodup saw he was and goddesses live, oh many. And from the setting itself; one is always taken to a hospital then led a party so many rooms. I can't tell but my of young village men to hunt for the climbing up and down father says there are too many." girl, at first thought dead. They sun-drenched ridges over vast misty Anywhere else, the disaffected found her unharmed in a cave. The valleys terraced with wheat, rice, youth might listen with skepticism, couple's possessions were looted. and vegetables. The villages change even cynicism, waiting for the ripoff. from lowland thatched brick houses Now their faces glow in the firelight Then there is the gruesome tale of to drafty stone Sherpa or Tibetan like children hearing a fairy tale. For three Germans, one of whom broke chalets in the highlands. Gaining Ngodup believes what he says; his leg while they were lost in a altitude you move across alpine somehow the traditional culture of forest near Ghandrung and was left meadows blazing with flowers or the Chang Tang plateau has behind in a cave while the others those acrophobic stone-step survived. To Ngodup the massive sought help. It took them two days traverses across rocky cliff faces blackness of the Himalayan night, to find him again, and when they did that are so peculiarly Tibetan. the stars that look down as well on he was dead from shock and Always the track is peopled: his remote northern land of ghosts, exposure, covered with leeches. In bronzed Tamangs and Gurungs, gods, saints, and demons, and his May a young German, accompanied trident-wielding, ash-smeared own fate, seem so wonderful or by two Nepalis he met on the trail, sadhus on their way to some remote fearful that the lurid unreality of his stopped in Gorapani forest to rest. Himalayan shrine, or tousle-haired words pales and mingles with the One asked him for a rupee, which he Tibetans moving in mule caravans real. gave him; the other went behind with bales of wool to the tinkling of him, hit him on the head with a rock bells. Or Pan-like cowherds piping and stripped him of his camera, flutes, bare-legged porters with money, and jacket. The Gorapani muscles like rope, old women bent forest, five days out on the trek to double under bundles of green Jomosom, can be dangerous. (One grass, herds of goats, laughing American and one Japanese were children, found murdered there and other Only the highest Himalayas are lone trekkers have simply vanished.) really deserted, the land of what "One or two may get killed a year," Hillary called "the perpetual Ngodup said. "Who knows? If challenge of icy spire and rock somebody asks you where you're tower, high in the thin cold air." It is going and for how long and you say wonderful in solitude to watch a NOTES 1. Quotes from the Dalai Lama were pronounced. The settlement's Nepalese 5. A Bodhisat is one who has achieved provided by the Tibetan representative's designation is "Hyangcha." Hence the enlightenment but has foregone Nirvana office in Kathmandu. village's mailing address is Tashi Pakhiel in order to teach and serve others. ~andicraft~en