in mongolia, the country of miracles and mysteries, lives thecustodian of all the mysterious and unknown, the living buddha, hisholiness djebtsung damba hutuktu khan or bogdo gheghen, pontiff ofta kure. he is the incarnation of the never-dying buddha, therepresentative of the unbroken, mysteriously continued line ofspiritual emperors ruling since 1670, concealing in themselves theever refining spirit of buddha amitabha joined with chan-ra-zi orthe "compassionate spirit of the mountains." in him is everything,even the sun myth and the fascination of the mysterious peaks ofthe himalayas, tales of the indian pagoda, the stern majesty of themongolian conquerors--emperors of all asia--and the ancient, hazylegends of the chinese sages; immersion in the thoughts of thebrahmans; the severities of life of the monks of the "virtuousorder"; the vengeance of the eternally wandering warriors, theolets, with their khans, batur hun taigi and gushi; the proudbequests of jenghiz and kublai khan; the clerical reactionarypsychology of the lamas; the mystery of tibetan kings beginningfrom srong-tsang gampo; and the mercilessness of the yellow sect ofpaspa. all the hazy history of asia, of mongolia, pamir,himalayas, mesopotamia, persia and china, surrounds the living godof urga. it is little wonder that his name is honored along thevolga, in siberia, arabia, between the tigris and euphrates, inindo-china and on the shores of the arctic ocean.
during my stay in urga i visited the abode of the living buddhaseveral times, spoke with him and observed his life. his favoritelearned marambas gave me long accounts of him. i saw him readinghoroscopes, i heard his predictions, i looked over his archives ofancient books and the manuscripts containing the lives andpredictions of all the bogdo khans. the lamas were very frank andopen with me, because the letter of the hutuktu of narabanchi wonfor me their confidence.
the personality of the living buddha is double, just as everythingin lamaism is double. clever, penetrating, energetic, he at thesame time indulges in the drunkenness which has brought onblindness. when he became blind, the lamas were thrown into astate of desperation. some of them maintained that bogdo khan mustbe poisoned and another incarnate buddha set in his place; whilethe others pointed out the great merits of the pontiff in the eyesof mongolians and the followers of the yellow faith. they finallydecided to propitiate the gods by building a great temple with agigantic statue of buddha. however, this did not help the bogdo'ssight but the whole incident gave him the opportunity of hurryingon to their higher life those among the lamas who had shown toomuch radicalism in their proposed method of solving his problem.
he never ceases to ponder upon the cause of the church and ofmongolia and at the same time likes to indulge himself with uselesstrifles. he amuses himself with artillery. a retired russianofficer presented him with two old guns, for which the donorreceived the title of tumbaiir hun, that is, "prince dear-to-my-heart." on holidays these cannon were fired to the great amusementof the blind man. motorcars, gramophones, telephones, crystals,porcelains, pictures, perfumes, musical instruments, rare animalsand birds; elephants, himalayan bears, monkeys, indian snakes andparrots--all these were in the palace of "the god" but all weresoon cast aside and forgotten.
to urga come pilgrims and presents from all the lamaite andbuddhist world. once the treasurer of the palace, the honorablebalma dorji, took me into the great hall where the presents werekept. it was a most unique museum of precious articles. here weregathered together rare objects unknown to the museums of europe.
the treasurer, as he opened a case with a silver lock, said to me:
"these are pure gold nuggets from bei kem; here are black sablesfrom kemchick; these the miraculous deer horns; this a box sent bythe orochons and filled with precious ginseng roots and fragrantmusk; this a bit of amber from the coast of the 'frozen sea' and itweighs 124 lans (about ten pounds); these are precious stones fromindia, fragrant zebet and carved ivory from china."he showed the exhibits and talked of them for a long time andevidently enjoyed the telling. and really it was wonderful!
before my eyes lay the bundles of rare furs; white beaver, blacksables, white, blue and black fox and black panthers; smallbeautifully carved tortoise shell boxes containing hatyks ten orfifteen yards long, woven from indian silk as fine as the webs ofthe spider; small bags made of golden thread filled with pearls,the presents of indian rajahs; precious rings with sapphires andrubies from china and india; big pieces of jade, rough diamonds;ivory tusks ornamented with gold, pearls and precious stones;bright clothes sewn with gold and silver thread; walrus tuskscarved in bas-relief by the primitive artists on the shores of thebehring sea; and much more that one cannot recall or recount. in aseparate room stood the cases with the statues of buddha, made ofgold, silver, bronze, ivory, coral, mother of pearl and from a rarecolored and fragrant species of wood.
"you know when conquerors come into a country where the gods arehonored, they break the images and throw them down. so it was morethan three hundred years ago when the kalmucks went into tibet andthe same was repeated in peking when the european troops looted theplace in 1900. but do you know why this is done? take one of thestatues and examine it."i picked up one nearest the edge, a wooden buddha, and beganexamining it. inside something was loose and rattled.
"do you hear it?" the lama asked. "these are precious stones andbits of gold, the entrails of the god. this is the reason why theconquerors at once break up the statues of the gods. many famousprecious stones have appeared from the interior of the statues ofthe gods in india, babylon and china."some rooms were devoted to the library, where manuscripts andvolumes of different epochs in different languages and with manydiverse themes fill the shelves. some of them are mouldering orpulverizing away and the lamas cover these now with a solutionwhich partially solidifies like a jelly to protect what remainsfrom the ravages of the air. there also we saw tablets of claywith the cuneiform inscriptions, evidently from babylonia; chinese,indian and tibetan books shelved beside those of mongolia; tomes ofthe ancient pure buddhism; books of the "red caps" or corruptbuddhism; books of the "yellow" or lamaite buddhism; books oftraditions, legends and parables. groups of lamas were perusing,studying and copying these books, preserving and spreading theancient wisdom for their successors.
one department is devoted to the mysterious books on magic, thehistorical lives and works of all the thirty-one living buddhas,with the bulls of the dalai lama, of the pontiff from tashi lumpo,of the hutuktu of utai in china, of the pandita gheghen of dolo norin inner mongolia and of the hundred chinese wise men. only thebogdo hutuktu and maramba ta-rimpo-cha can enter this room ofmysterious lore. the keys to it rest with the seals of the livingbuddha and the ruby ring of jenghiz khan ornamented with the signof the swastika in the chest in the private study of the bogdo.
the person of his holiness is surrounded by five thousand lamas.
they are divided into many ranks from simple servants to the"councillors of god," of which latter the government consists.
among these councillors are all the four khans of mongolia and thefive highest princes.
of all the lamas there are three classes of peculiar interest,about which the living buddha himself told me when i visited himwith djam bolon.
"the god" sorrowfully mourned over the demoralized and sumptuouslife led by the lamas which decreased rapidly the number of fortunetellers and clairvoyants among their ranks, saying of it:
"if the jahantsi and narabanchi monasteries had not preserved theirstrict regime and rules, ta kure would have been left withoutprophets and fortune tellers. barun abaga nar, dorchiul-jurdok andthe other holy lamas who had the power of seeing that which ishidden from the sight of the common people have gone with theblessing of the gods."this class of lamas is a very important one, because everyimportant personage visiting the monasteries at urga is shown tothe lama tzuren or fortune teller without the knowledge of thevisitor for the study of his destiny and fate, which are thencommunicated to the bogdo hutuktu, so that with these facts in hispossession the bogdo knows in what way to treat his guest and whatpolicy to follow toward him. the tzurens are mostly old men,skinny, exhausted and severe ascetics. but i have met some whowere young, almost boys. they were the hubilgan, "incarnate gods,"the future hutuktus and gheghens of the various mongolianmonasteries.
the second class is the doctors or "ta lama." they observe theactions of plants and certain products from animals upon people,preserve tibetan medicines and cures, and study anatomy verycarefully but without making use of vivisection and the scalpel.
they are skilful bone setters, masseurs and great connoisseurs ofhypnotism and animal magnetism.
the third class is the highest rank of doctors, consisting chieflyof tibetans and kalmucks--poisoners. they may be said to be"doctors of political medicine." they live by themselves, apartfrom any associates, and are the great silent weapon in the handsof the living buddha. i was informed that a large portion of themare dumb. i saw one such doctor,--the very person who poisoned thechinese physician sent by the chinese emperor from peking to"liquidate" the living buddha,--a small white old fellow with adeeply wrinkled face, a curl of white hairs on his chin and withvivacious eyes that were ever shifting inquiringly about him.
whenever he comes to a monastery, the local "god" ceases to eat anddrink in fear of the activities of this mongolian locusta. buteven this cannot save the condemned, for a poisoned cap or shirt orboots, or a rosary, a bridle, books or religious articles soaked ina poisonous solution will surely accomplish the object of thebogdo-khan.
the deepest esteem and religious faithfulness surround the blindpontiff. before him all fall on their faces. khans and hutuktusapproach him on their knees. everything about him is dark, full oforiental antiquity. the drunken blind man, listening to the banalarias of the gramophone or shaking his servants with an electriccurrent from his dynamo, the ferocious old fellow poisoning hispolitical enemies, the lama keeping his people in darkness anddeceiving them with his prophecies and fortune telling,--he is,however, not an entirely ordinary man.
one day we sat in the room of the bogdo and prince djam bolontranslated to him my story of the great war. the old fellow waslistening very carefully but suddenly opened his eyes widely andbegan to give attention to some sounds coming in from outside theroom. his face became reverent, supplicant and frightened.
"the gods call me," he whispered and slowly moved into his privateshrine, where he prayed loudly about two hours, kneeling immobileas a statue. his prayer consists of conversation with theinvisible gods, to whose questions he himself gave the answers. hecame out of the shrine pale and exhausted but pleased and happy.
it was his personal prayer. during the regular temple service hedid not participate in the prayers, for then he is "god." sittingon his throne, he is carried and placed on the altar and thereprayed to by the lamas and the people. he only receives theprayers, hopes, tears, woe and desperation of the people,immobilely gazing into space with his sharp and bright but blindeyes. at various times in the service the lamas robe him indifferent vestments, combinations of yellow and red, and change hiscaps. the service always finishes at the solemn moment when theliving buddha with the tiara on his head pronounces the pontificalblessing upon the congregation, turning his face to all fourcardinal points of the compass and finally stretching out his handstoward the northwest, that is, to europe, whither in the belief ofthe yellow faith must travel the teachings of the wise buddha.
after earnest prayers or long temple services the pontiff seemsvery deeply shaken and often calls his secretaries and dictates hisvisions and prophecies, always very complicated and unaccompaniedby his deductions.
sometimes with the words "their souls are communicating," he putson his white robes and goes to pray in his shrine. then all thegates of the palace are shut and all the lamas are sunk in solemn,mystic fear; all are praying, telling their rosaries and whisperingthe orison: "om! mani padme hung!" or turning the prayer wheelswith their prayers or exorcisings; the fortune tellers read theirhoroscopes; the clairvoyants write out their visions; whilemarambas search the ancient books for explanations of the words ofthe living buddha.