424
WESTERN TIBET: A REVIEW.
THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
"1
ATKINSON'S
"
[December 24, 1906.
wor-
the 'Tibetans, so that to both peoples it has | have never experienced the more gentle in- become a place of devout pilgrimage influences of the Indian cults, and the native (Daily Press, 15th December.)
spite of the difficulties of the road. Re- cultura is of an even rougher and more Not many works of modern geographical ferring to this Mr. SHERRING, quoting degrading type than in Bhot. But there exploration are more interesting than
ATKINSON'S "Himalayic Districts", falls, are other interesting topics discussed in Mr. Western Tibet and the British Border Land, Adjoining Western Tibet is the British
however, into a characteristic blunder. SHERRING's work." by CHARLES A. SHERRING M.A., F.B.G.8.,
Quoting again from Indian C. S. Dep. Com. of Almora. Mr. northern flanks of which constitute the picture the Aryan immigrants arriving at district of Gharwal and Almora, the proceeds. [p. 38] "It is at difficult to Himalayan D'stricts," he SHERRING'S are pleasing descriptions of a aummer tour from British Garhwal and country of Bhot inhabited by the Bhotias, the Ganges and sending adventurous spirits Almora into the comparatively
a people closely allied with the Tibetans to explore its sources. 10-
After traversing traversed south-west corner of Tibel,
themselves. With the strange infatuation the difficult pisses across the snowy range where ribe the three great rivers of India, for the term "Mongol" supposed to include, and the inclement tableland of Tibst, they the Indus, the Ganges, and the Brahma- like Turanian, everything of which the discovered the group of mountains called putra; and where the modern Mt. Kailas narrator knows nothing. Mr. SHERRING Kailas, and the lakes from which flowed the dominates the ancient lands of Meru, sacred follows the vulgar error of calling these great rivers to water and give life to the to Buddhists and Hindus alike. As Deputy people Mongolians.
Now the Chinese whole earth. The rugged grandeur of the Commissioner of Almora, Mr. SHERRING
historians, especially the author of the Woi scene, the awful solitude and the trials and had special facilities for visiting these Shu, explains at some length the origin of dangers of the way itself, naturally sug- districts, and speaks in the highest terms of the term Mogul, which does not appear till gested to an imaginative and simple the kindness shown to him by the Tibetans, it was given in the latter part of the fourth people that they had at length redis- officials and people alike. This is one of century to a leader of a body of outlaws, covered the golden land, true home the most agreeable issues of the expedition who under the name of Mukula or "Bald- of their gods whom they had of 1904, and indicates that the restraints
Head terrorisei Western Mongolia. The shipped, when appearing under milder forms put upon the expedition, and the entire ethnic name of Bot, under the form Batae as storm ani fi-e and rain in the plains absence of plunder, have had the result of
or Betae, occurs in Ptolemy and Ammianus, below. In the course of time, Brahminical establishing confidence between the two as well as in old Sanserit Bhotta. The fact innovations caused the worship of the Vedic peoples. Much trade is not to be expected, is of course that the Bots are the real gods of natural forces to give place to a in the near future at all events; still it is aboriginal inhabitants of the Tibetan system where the intervention of a sacer lotal well to remember that in skins, as well as in plateau, their name appearing in the very caste between the worshipper an I his creator borax, which occurs plentifully in Western
word Tubot, as well as in Bhot, Bhutan, was essential, Brahma in the Vedas gave Tibet, as well as in gold which is widely and in the Chinese Tufan, for Tuput. As place to Brahma, Vishnu and Siva, the distributed and with more settled govern-existed out of the imagination of some two possession of the Himalayas, and Mount an ethnic title, of course Mongol never trio of the new revelation, who took ment will be largely mined, there is room for a fairly considerable trade, the main
Meru became the Olympus of the Indian Indian elements of which will, of course,
gods". Here agiin Mr. SHERRING has be cotton cloths, and above all tea, in
been misled by his authorities. There is universal use amongst the Tibetans, and
nothing plainer from both Indian and hitherto supplied, of very inferior descrip-
Chinese legend that there were two distinct tion too, by China. To residents in China
immigrations into India, one of the Aryans who are not likely to have any direct co n- munication with Western Tibet the chief
proper, the Solar Race, who, coming from the western slopes of the Pamir highlands, interests of the work will be its physio-
entere i molern Afghanistan by the Hindu graphical and ethnological descriptions of
Kush and the Kabul river. The second-- the land and its people, and their traditions
the Lunar Race, had according tɔ ancient and religious, for in western Tibet will be
tradition their homes in Eastern Turkest in, found to linger many of the oldest traditions
where we find them in the Yadavas and the of the race. Here in the still holy Mt.
Kurus, the latter the Kiang of Chinese Kailas was the original Meru sacred to
story, the Ottorokuri of Ptolemy. Their Hindu and Buddhist alike; here are found
affinities were Turanian, (using that much the sacred lakes Rakas Tal and Mansarowar,
abused title in its only trus sense as and from the flanks of the holy mountain
indicating the Eastera Branch of the flow the three great rivers of India -the
80-04lled Aryan family), rather than Aryan Indus, the Ganges and the great Brahma.
proper: they were, however, equally fair. putra. When Brahma formed the desire
It was these Lunar races who crossed from that the universe should be created, (so the
the heal waters of the Yarkand river tale goes) he assumed the visible form of
through Western Tibet, and settle at Vishnu. The whole universe was covered
Hastinapura, not Elephant Town, but really with water on which floated Vishnu. From
Guestburgh, an 1 who brought into Indian his body sprang a lotus, from which issued
Mytholory the stories of the fabled Mount Brahma who then created the c intinents of
Mern, moleru Mt. Kailas, a picture of which Jambu is one, in the centre of which
which form; the subject of the frontispiece is the glorious mountain Meru. Meru
of Mr. Sherring's book. There are still has various colours,, on the east it is
traces of the internecine wars of the two white, ou the south yellow, on the north red,
races in the wholesale destruction of the and on the west dark. Four mountains form buttresses to Meru, and there are also four lakes, one being Mansarowar, and the gods drink their waters. "There are the regions of Paradise (Swarga), the seats of the righteous, and there the wicked do not arrive even after a hundred births. There is no sorrow nor weariness, nor anxiety, nor hunger, nor apprehension; the inhabitants are exempt from all infirmity, and live in uninterrupted enjoyment for twelve thou. sand years." Here Mr. SHERRING aptly quotes TENNYSON's description of Avilion in the "Pussing of Arthur
31
"The island valley of Avilion,
0
"
Where falls not hail nor rain, or any snow, Nor ever winds blow loudly; but it lies Deep-meadowe, happy, fair with orchard lawns And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea.' The Buddhism of Tibet was derived from India, and therefore it is but natural to find that this country of Kailas and Mansarowar should be also regarded as most sacred by
tc
or three uninformed ethnographic writers of the beginning of the last century. Of closely allied race are the Ghorkas of Nepaul and the people of Bhutan, all belonging to the same Bot race; and it is curious in connection with Mr. SHERRING's remark [p. 56]. We are amongst women, who like the little Jaрапезе, laugh t everything and everyho ly, and do not rush away to hide, or draw their veils over their faces as the south-ruers," that this racial resemblance to the Japanese was everywhere notice.l amongst the Ghorka regiments during the military occupation of North China in 1900. The Böt race must, in fact, have at one priod been even more widely spread than at pre- sent. The confident statement then [P. 69] that "The Bhotias are of Tibetan origin must be exictly transposed, and mide to read "The Tibetans are then of undoubtedly Böt origin, even though they themselves have current among them the belief that they were originally Hindus," the reason for which statement becomes self-evident on further perusing the book. One of the most interes ing chapters is the fifth, whers is made a co uprison of the religions of Tibetans, Hindu; and Bhotias. It is difficult, says the author, to understand the freedom of these last from Tibetan influenc`. A sufficient reason is, however, to be foun1 a few lines tower down: the religion of tie Bh tias is in fact far older than that of Bullha amongst the Tibet ins, the earliest introduction of Buddhism into fibat dating from the year 641 A.D. To find the nearest analogue to the Bhotia religion we have to go to the heal w. ters of the Yalong River, where we meet it in the primitive practices of the so-call Bon worshippers. Here Mr. SHERRING has been misled by some of his pretended Chinese authorities, who have told him a cock-an-i-bull story of the ima ginary sage
"Laotse" having founded this sect in China, "which spread rapidly into As a fact the tenets put forward in the apocryphal Taoteh King, attributed to the imaginary sage, are early Buddhistic, and c rtainly never penetrated to Tibit. Except that the inhabitants of Bali and Bawang, where the Bon development most prevails, are true nature-worshippers, they
Tibet ".
Kshatriyas by Paraç-Ram, the great hero of the Rimiyan. Mr. SHERRING is, of course, not answarable for these errors; they pe-vale the whole story of the Immigration as tid by the Sinscritists; na l it is only by a diligent study of the13 sun; legends "as told in Chinese aɔurces, and a careful comparison of the w› versions, th it any approach to the true history of th83 far off events can be arrived atį
On Domber 18th at the Magistracy Mr. F. A. Hizeland, sitting as a coroner, and a jury composed of Messrs. G. H. May, J. M. Thessin and J. C. Ritobie eaquired into the circam- who succumbed to injuries received by lesping a'ances of the death of Uhoi Tsui-hi, a lift boy, from a window in Queen's Buildings in order to escape from the police when they made a gambling raid on the premises of 7th inst. After hearing the evidence, the jury returned a verdict of death from misadventure.