T. LOBSANG RAMPA
THE THIRD EYE
(Edition: 22/04/2021)
The Third Eye — (Originally published in 1956) This is where it all started; an autobiography about a young man’s journey into becoming a medical Lama and undergoing an operation to open the third eye. We are shown a glimpse into the Tibetan way of Lamasery life and the deep understanding of spiritual knowledge. Until this point in time lamasery life was unknown, even to those few who had actually visited Tibet. Lobsang enters the Chakpori Lamasery and learns the most secret of Tibetan esoteric sciences and much more.
It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
The Coat of Arms is surrounded by a Tibetan rosary made up of one hundred and eight beads symbolising the one hundred and eight books of the Tibetan Kangyur. In personal blazon, we see two rampant seal point Siamese cats holding a lit candle. In the upper left-hand of the shield we see the Potala; to the right-hand of the shield, a Tibetan prayer wheel turning, as shown by the small weight which is over the object. In the bottom, left-hand of the shield are books to symbolise the talents of writer and knowledge of the author, whereas to the right-hand side of the shield, a crystal ball to symbolise the esoteric sciences. Under the shield, we can read the motto of T. Lobsang Rampa: ‘I lit a candle’.
Table of contents
(with links to original online chapters)
Chapter One Early days at home
Chapter Two End of my childhood
Chapter Three Last days at home
Chapter Four At the temple gates
Chapter Six Life in the lamasery
Chapter Seven The opening of the Third Eye
Chapter Nine At the Wild Rose Fence
Chapter Twelve Herbs and kites
Chapter Thirteen First visit home
Chapter Fourteen Using the Third Eye
Chapter Fifteen The secret north—and yetis
Publishers’ foreword
The autobiography of a Tibetan lama is a unique record of experience and, as such, inevitably hard to corroborate. In an attempt to obtain confirmation of the Author’s statements the Publishers submitted the MS (i.e. manuscript) to nearly twenty readers, all persons of intelligence and experience, some with special knowledge of the subject. Their opinions were so contradictory that no positive result emerged. Some questioned the accuracy of one section, some of another; what was doubted by one expert was accepted unquestioningly by another. Anyway, the Publishers asked themselves, was there any expert who had undergone the training of a Tibetan lama in its most developed forms? Was there one who had been brought up in a Tibetan family?
Lobsang Rampa has provided documentary evidence that he holds medical degrees of the University of Chungking and in those documents he is described as a Lama of the Potala Monastery of Lhasa. The many personal conversations we have had with him have proved him to be a man of unusual powers and attainments. Regarding many aspects of his personal life he has shown a reticence that was sometimes baffling; but everyone has a right to privacy and Lobsang Rampa maintains that some concealment is imposed on him for the safety of his family in Communist occupied Tibet. Indeed, certain details, such as his father’s real position in the Tibetan hierarchy, have been intentionally disguised for this purpose.
For these reasons the Author must bear and willingly bears a sole responsibility for the statements made in his book. We may feel that here and there he exceeds the bounds of Western credulity, though Western views on the subject here dealt with can hardly be decisive. None the less the Publishers believe that the Third Eye is in its essence an authentic account of the upbringing and training of a Tibetan boy in his family and in a lamasery. It is in this spirit that we are publishing the book. Anyone who differs from us will, we believe, at least agree that the author is endowed to an exceptional degree with narrative skill and the power to evoke scenes and characters of absorbing and unique interest.
Author’s preface
I am a Tibetan. One of the few who have reached this strange Western world. The construction and grammar of this book leave much to be desired, but I have never had a formal lesson in the English language. My ‘School of English’ was a Japanese prison camp, where I learned the language as best I could from English and American women prisoner patients. Writing in English was learned by ‘trial and error’. Now my beloved country is invaded—as predicted—by Communist hordes. For this reason only I have disguised my true name and that of my friends. Having done so much against Communism, I know that my friends in Communist countries will suffer if my identity can be traced. As I have been in Communist, as well as Japanese hands, I know from personal experience what torture can do, but it is not about torture that this book is written, but about a peace-loving country which has been so misunderstood and greatly misrepresented for so long.
Some of my statements, so I am told, may not be believed. That is your privilege, but Tibet is a country unknown to the rest of the world. The man who wrote, of another country, that ‘the people rode on turtles in the sea’ was laughed to scorn. So were those who had seen ‘living-fossil’ fish. Yet the latter have recently been discovered and a specimen taken in a refrigerated airplane to the U.S.A. for study. These men were disbelieved. They were eventually proved to be truthful and accurate. So will I be.
T. LOBSANG RAMPA
Written in the Year of the Wood Sheep.
“Oe. Oe. Four years old and can’t stay on a horse! You’ll never make a man! What will your noble father say?” With this, Old Tzu gave the pony—and luckless rider—a hearty thwack across the hindquarters, and spat in the dust.
The golden roofs and domes of the Potala gleamed in the brilliant sunshine. Closer, the blue waters of the Serpent Temple lake rippled to mark the passing of the water-fowl. From farther along the stony track came the shouts and cries of men urging on the slow-moving yaks just setting out from Lhasa. From near by came the chest-shaking ‘bmmn, bmmn, bmmn’ of the deep bass trumpets as monk musicians practiced in the fields away from the crowds.
But I had no time for such everyday, commonplace things. Mine was the serious task of staying on my very reluctant pony. Nakkim had other things in mind. He wanted to be free of his rider, free to graze, and roll and kick his feet in the air.
Old Tzu was a grim and forbidding taskmaster. All his life he had been stern and hard, and now as guardian and riding instructor to a small boy of four, his patience often gave way under the strain. One of the men of Kham, he, with others, had been picked for his size and strength. Nearly seven feet tall he was, and broad with it. Heavily padded shoulders increased his apparent breadth. In eastern Tibet there is a district where the men are unusually tall and strong. Many were over seven feet tall, and these men were picked to act as police monks in all the lamaseries. They padded their shoulders to increase their apparent size, blackened their faces to look more fierce, and carried long staves which they were prompt to use on any luckless malefactor.
Tzu had been a police monk, but now he was dry-nurse to a princeling! He was too badly crippled to do much walking, and so all his journeys were made on horseback. In 1904 the British, under Colonel Younghusband, invaded Tibet and caused much damage. Apparently they thought the easiest method of ensuring our friendship was to shell our buildings and kill our people. Tzu had been one of the defenders, and in the action he had part of his left hip blown away.
My father was one of the leading men in the Tibetan Government. His family, and that of mother, came within the upper ten families, and so between them my parents had considerable influence in the affairs of the country. Later I will give more details of our form of government.
Father was a large man, bulky, and nearly six feet tall. His strength was something to boast about. In his youth he could lift a pony off the ground, and he was one of the few who could wrestle with the men of Kham and come off best.
Most Tibetans have black hair and dark brown eyes. Father was one of the exceptions, his hair was chestnut brown, and his eyes were grey. Often he would give way to sudden bursts of anger for no reason that we could see.
We did not see a great deal of father. Tibet had been having troublesome times. The British had invaded us in 1904, and the Dalai Lama had fled to Mongolia, leaving my father and others of the Cabinet to rule in his absence. In 1909 the Dalai Lama returned to Lhasa after having been to Peking. In 1910 the Chinese, encouraged by the success of the British invasion, stormed Lhasa. The Dalai Lama again retreated, this time to India. The Chinese were driven from Lhasa in 1911 during the time of the Chinese Revolution, but not before they had committed fearful crimes against our people.
In 1912 the Dalai Lama again returned to Lhasa. During the whole time he was absent, in those most difficult days, father and the others of the Cabinet had the full responsibility of ruling Tibet. Mother used to say that father’s temper was never the same after. Certainly he had no time for us children, and we at no time had fatherly affection from him. I, in particular, seemed to arouse his ire, and I was left to the scant mercies of Tzu ‘to make or break’, as father said.
My poor performance on a pony was taken as a personal insult by Tzu. In Tibet small boys of the upper class are taught to ride almost before they can walk. Skill on a horse is essential in a country where there is no wheeled traffic, where all journeys have to be done on foot or on horseback. Tibetan nobles practice horsemanship hour after hour, day after day. They can stand on the narrow wooden saddle of a galloping horse, and shoot first with a rifle at a moving target, then change to bow and arrow. Sometimes skilled riders will gallop across the plains in formation, and change horses by jumping from saddle to saddle. I, at four years of age, found it difficult to stay in one saddle!
My pony, Nakkim, was shaggy, and had a long tail. His narrow head was intelligent. He knew an astonishing number of ways in which to unseat an unsure rider. A favourite trick of his was to have a short run forward, then stop dead and lower his head. As I slid helplessly forward over his neck and on to his head he would raise it with a jerk so that I turned a complete somersault before hitting the ground. Then he would stand and look at me with smug complacency.
Tibetans never ride at a trot; the ponies are small and riders look ridiculous on a trotting pony. Most times a gentle amble is fast enough, with the gallop kept for exercise.
Tibet was a theocratic country. We had no desire for the ‘progress’ of the outside world. We wanted only to be able to meditate and to overcome the limitations of the flesh. Our Wise Men had long realised that the West had coveted the riches of Tibet, and knew that when the foreigners came in, peace went out. Now the arrival of the Communists in Tibet has proved that to be correct.
My home was in Lhasa, in the fashionable district of Lingkhor, at the side of the ring road which goes all round Lhasa, and in the shadow of the Peak. There are three circles of roads, and the outer road, Lingkhor, is much used by pilgrims. Like all houses in Lhasa, at the time I was born ours was two stories high at the side facing the road. No one must look down on the Dalai Lama, so the limit is two stories. As the height ban really applies only to one procession a year, many houses have an easily dismantled wooden structure on their flat roofs for eleven months or so.
Our house was of stone and had been built for many years. It was in the form of a hollow square, with a large internal courtyard. Our animals used to live on the ground floor, and we lived upstairs. We were fortunate in having a flight of stone steps leading from the ground; most Tibetan houses have a ladder or, in the peasants’ cottages, a notched pole which one uses at dire risk to one’s shins. These notched poles became very slippery indeed with use, hands covered with yak butter transferred it to the pole and the peasant who forgot, made a rapid descent to the floor below.
In 1910, during the Chinese invasion, our house had been partly wrecked and the inner wall of the building was demolished. Father had it rebuilt four stories high. It did not overlook the Ring, and we could not look over the head of the Dalai Lama when in procession, so there were no complaints.
The gate which gave entrance to our central courtyard was heavy and black with age. The Chinese invaders has not been able to force its solid wooden beams, so they had broken down a wall instead. Just above this entrance was the office of the steward. He could see all who entered or left. He engaged—and dismissed—staff and saw that the household was run efficiently. Here, at his window, as the sunset trumpets blared from the monasteries, came the beggars of Lhasa to receive a meal to sustain them through the darkness of the night. All the leading nobles made provision for the poor of their district. Often chained convicts would come, for there are few prisons in Tibet, and the convicted wandered the streets and begged for their food.
In Tibet convicts are not scorned or looked upon as pariahs. We realised that most of us would be convicts—if we were found out—so those who were unfortunate were treated reasonably.
Two monks lived in rooms to the right of the steward; these were the household priests who prayed daily for divine approval of our activities. The lesser nobles had one priest, but our position demanded two. Before any event of note, these priests were consulted and asked to offer prayers for the favour of the gods. Every three years the priests returned to the lamaseries and were replaced by others.
In each wing of our house there was a chapel. Always the butter-lamps were kept burning before the carved wooden altar. The seven bowls of holy water were cleaned and replenished several times a day. They had to be clean, as the gods might want to come and drink from them. The priests were well fed, eating the same food as the family, so that they could pray better and tell the gods that our food was good.
To the left of the steward lived the legal expert, whose job it was to see that the household was conducted in a proper and legal manner. Tibetans are very law-abiding, and father had to be an outstanding example in observing the law.
We children, brother Paljör, sister Yasodhara, and I, lived in the new block, at the side of the square remote from the road. To our left we had a chapel, to the right was the schoolroom which the children of the servants also attended. Our lessons were long and varied. Paljör did not inhabit the body long. He was weakly and unfit for the hard life to which we both were subjected. Before he was seven he left us and returned to the Land of Many Temples. Yaso was six when he passed over, and I was four. I still remember when they came for him as he lay, an empty husk, and how the Men of the Death carried him away to be broken up and fed to the scavenger birds according to custom.
Now Heir to the Family, my training was intensified. I was four years of age and a very indifferent horseman. Father was indeed a strict man and as a Prince of the Church he saw to it that his son had stern discipline, and was an example of how others should be brought up.
In my country, the higher the rank of a boy, the more severe his training. Some of the nobles were beginning to think that boys should have an easier time, but not father. His attitude was: a poor boy had no hope of comfort later, so give him kindness and consideration while he was young. The higher-class boy had all riches and comforts to expect in later years, so be quite brutal with him during boyhood and youth, so that he should experience hardship and show consideration for others. This also was the official attitude of the country. Under this system weaklings did not survive, but those who did could survive almost anything.
Tzu occupied a room on the ground floor and very near the main gate. For years he had, as a police monk, been able to see all manner of people and now he could not bear to be in seclusion, away from it all. He lived near the stables in which father kept his twenty horses and all the ponies and work animals.
The grooms hated the sight of Tzu, because he was officious and interfered with their work. When father went riding he had to have six armed men escort him. These men wore uniform, and Tzu always bustled about them, making sure that everything about their equipment was in order.
For some reason these six men used to back their horses against a wall, then, as soon as my father appeared on his horse, they would charge forward to meet him. I found that if I leaned out of a storeroom window, I could touch one of the riders as he sat on his horse. One day, being idle, I cautiously passed a rope through his stout leather belt as he was fiddling with his equipment. The two ends I looped and passed over a hook inside the window. In the bustle and talk I was not noticed. My father appeared, and the riders surged forward. Five of them. The sixth was pulled backwards off his horse, yelling that demons were gripping him. His belt broke, and in the confusion I was able to pull away the rope and steal away undetected. It gave me much pleasure, later, to say “So you too, Ne-tuk, can’t stay on a horse!”
Our days were quite hard, we were awake for eighteen hours out of the twenty-four. Tibetans believe that it is not wise to sleep at all when it is light, or the demons of the day may come and seize one. Even very small babies are kept awake so that they shall not become demon-infested. Those who are ill also have to be kept awake, and a monk is called in for this. No one is spared from it, even people who are dying have to be kept conscious for as long as possible, so that they shall know the right road to take through the border lands to the next world.
At school we had to study languages, Tibetan and Chinese. Tibetan is two distinct languages, the ordinary and the honorific. We used the ordinary when speaking to servants and those of lesser rank, and the honorific to those of equal or superior rank. The horse of a higher-rank person had to be addressed in honorific style! Our autocratic cat, stalking across the courtyard on some mysterious business, would be addressed by a servant: “Would honourable Puss Puss deign to come and drink this unworthy milk?” No matter how ‘honourable Puss Puss’ was addressed, she would never come until she was ready.
Our schoolroom was quite large, at one time it had been used as a refectory for visiting monks, but since the new buildings were finished, that particular room had been made into a school for the estate. Altogether there were about sixty children attending. We sat cross-legged on the floor, at a table, or long bench, which was about eighteen inches high. We sat with our backs to the teacher, so that we did not know when he was looking at us. It made us work hard all the time. Paper in Tibet is hand-made and expensive, far too expensive to waste on children. We used slates, large thin slabs about twelve inches by fourteen inches. Our ‘pencils’ were a form of hard chalk which could be picked up in the Tsu La Hills, some twelve thousand feet higher than Lhasa, which was already twelve thousand feet above sea-level. I used to try to get the chalks with a reddish tint, but sister Yaso was very very fond of a soft purple. We could obtain quite a number of colours: reds, yellows, blues, and greens. Some of the colours, I believe, were due to the presence of metallic ores in the soft chalk base. Whatever the cause we were glad to have them.
Arithmetic really bothered me. If seven hundred and eighty-three monks each drank fifty-two cups of tsampa per day, and each cup held five-eighths of a pint, what size container would be needed for a week’s supply? Sister Yaso could do these things and think nothing of it. I, well, I was not so bright.
I came into my own when we did carving. That was a subject which I liked and could do reasonably well. All printing in Tibet is done from carved wooden plates, and so carving was considered to be quite an asset. We children could not have wood to waste. The wood was expensive as it had to be brought all the way from India. Tibetan wood was too tough and had the wrong kind of grain. We used a soft kind of soapstone material, which could be cut easily with a sharp knife. Sometimes we used stale yak cheese!
One thing that was never forgotten was a recitation of the Laws. These we had to say as soon as we entered the schoolroom, and again, just before we were allowed to leave. These Laws were:
Return good for good.
Do not fight with gentle people.
Read the Scriptures and understand them.
Help your neighbours.
The Law is hard on the rich to teach them understanding and equity.
The Law is gentle with the poor to show them compassion.
Pay your debts promptly.
So that there was no possibility of forgetting, these Laws were carved on banners and fixed to the four walls of our schoolroom.
Life was not all study and gloom though; we played as hard as we studied. All our games were designed to toughen us and enable us to survive in hard Tibet with its extremes of temperature. At noon, in summer, the temperature may be as high as eighty-five degrees Fahrenheit, but that same summer’s night it may drop to forty degrees below freezing. In winter it was often very much colder than this.
Archery was good fun and it did develop muscles. We used bows made of yew, imported from India, and sometimes we made crossbows from Tibetan wood. As Buddhists we never shot at living targets. Hidden servants would pull a long string and cause a target to bob up and down—we never knew which to expect. Most of the others could hit the target when standing on the saddle of a galloping pony. I could never stay on that long! Long jumps were a different matter. Then there was no horse to bother about. We ran as fast as we could, carrying a fifteen-foot pole, then when our speed was sufficient, jumped with the aid of the pole. I use to say that the others stuck on a horse so long that they had no strength in their legs, but I, who had to use my legs, really could vault. It was quite a good system for crossing streams, and very satisfying to see those who were trying to follow me plunge in one after the other.
Stilt walking was another of my pastimes. We used to dress up and become giants, and often we would have fights on stilts—the one who fell off was the loser. Our stilts were home-made, we could not just slip round to the nearest shop and buy such things. We used all our powers of persuasion on the Keeper of the Stores—usually the Steward—so that we could obtain suitable pieces of wood. The grain had to be just right, and there had to be freedom from knotholes. Then we had to obtain suitable wedge-shaped pieces of footrests. As wood was too scarce to waste, we had to wait our opportunity and ask at the most appropriate moment.
The girls and young women played a form of shuttlecock. A small piece of wood had holes made in one upper edge, and feathers were wedged in. The shuttlecock was kept in the air by using the feet. The girl would lift her skirt to a suitable height to permit a free kicking and from then on would use her feet only, to touch with the hand meant that she was disqualified. An active girl would keep the thing in the air for as long as ten minutes at a time before missing a kick.
The real interest in Tibet, or at least in the district of U, which is the home county of Lhasa, was kite flying. This could be called a national sport. We could only indulge in it at certain times, at certain seasons. Years before it had been discovered that if kites were flown in the mountains, rain fell in torrents, and in those days it was thought that the Rain Gods were angry, so kite flying was permitted only in the autumn, which in Tibet is the dry season. At certain times of the year, men will not shout in the mountains, as the reverberation of their voices causes the super-saturated rain-clouds from India to shed their load too quickly and cause rainfall in the wrong place. Now, on the first day of autumn, a long kite would be sent up from the roof of the Potala. Within minutes, kites of all shapes, sizes, and hues made their appearance over Lhasa, bobbing and twisting in the strong breeze.
I love kite flying and I saw to it that my kite was one of the first to sour upwards. We all made our own kites usually with a bamboo framework, and almost always covered with fine silk. We had no difficulty in obtaining this good quality material, it was a point of honour for the household that the kite should be of the finest class. Of box form, we frequently fitted them with a ferocious dragon head and with wings and tail.
We had battles in which we tried to bring down the kites of our rivals. We stuck shards of broken glass to the kite string, and covered part of the cord with glue powdered with broken glass in the hope of being able to cut the strings of others and so capture the falling kite.
Sometimes we used to steal out at night and send our kite aloft with little butter-lamps inside the head and body. Perhaps the eyes would glow red, and the body would show different colours against the dark night sky. We particularly liked it when the huge yak caravans were expected from the Lho-dzong district. In our childish innocence we thought that the ignorant natives from far distant places would not know about such ‘modern’ inventions as our kites, so we used to set out to frighten some wits into them.
One device of ours was to put three different shells into the kite in a certain way, so that when the wind blew into them, they would produce a weird wailing sound. We likened it to fire-breathing dragons shrieking in the night, and we hoped that its effect on the traders would be salutary. We had many a delicious tingle along our spines as we thought of these men lying frightened in their bedrolls as our kites bobbed above.
Although I did not know it at this time, my play with kites was to stand me in very good stead in later life when I actually flew in them. Now it was but a game, although an exciting one. We had one game which could have been quite dangerous: we made large kites—big things about seven or eight feet square and with wings projecting from two sides. We used to lay these on level ground near a ravine where there was a particularly strong updraught of air. We would mount our ponies with one end of the cord looped round our waist, and then we would gallop off as fast as our ponies would move. Up into the air jumped the kite and souring higher and higher until it met this particular updraught. There would be a jerk and the rider would be lifted straight off his pony, perhaps ten feet in the air and sink swaying slowly to earth. Some poor wretches were almost torn in two if they forgot to take their feet from the stirrups, but I, never very good on a horse, could always fall off, and to be lifted was a pleasure. I found, being foolishly adventurous, that if I yanked at a cord at the moment of rising I would go higher, and further judicious yanks would enable me to prolong my flights by seconds.
On one occasion I yanked most enthusiastically, the wind cooperated, and I was carried on to the flat roof of a peasant’s house upon which was stored the winter fuel.
Tibetan peasants live in houses with flat roofs with a small parapet, which retains the yak dung, which is dried and used as fuel. This particular house was of dried mud brick instead of the more usual stone, nor was there a chimney: an aperture in the roof served to discharge smoke from the fire below. My sudden arrival at the end of a rope disturbed the fuel and as I was dragged across the roof, I scooped most of it through the hole on to the unfortunate inhabitants below.
I was not popular. My appearance, also through that hole, was greeted with yelps of rage and, after having one dusting from the furious householder, I was dragged off to father for another dose of corrective medicine. That night I lay on my face!
The next day I had the unsavoury job of going through the stables and collecting yak dung, which I had to take to the peasant’s house and replace on the roof, which was quite hard work, as I was not yet six years of age. But everyone was satisfied except me; the other boys had a good laugh, the peasant now had twice as much fuel, and father had demonstrated that he was a strict and just man. And I? I spent the next night on my face as well, and I was not sore with horse riding!
It may be thought that all this was very hard treatment, but Tibet has no place for weaklings. Lhasa is twelve thousand feet above sea-level, and with extremes of temperature. Other districts are higher, and the conditions even more arduous, and weaklings could very easily imperil others. For this reason, and not because of cruel intent, training was strict.
At the higher altitudes people dip new-born babies in icy streams to test if they are strong enough to be allowed to live. Quite often I have seen little processions approaching such a stream, perhaps seventeen thousand feet above the sea. At its banks the procession will stop, and the grandmother will take the baby. Around her will be grouped the family: father, mother, and close relatives. The baby will be undressed, and grandmother will stoop and immerse the little body in the water, so that only the head and mouth are exposed to the air. In the bitter cold the baby turns red, then blue, and its cries of protest stop. It looks dead but grandmother has much experience of such things, and the little one is lifted from the water, dried, and dressed. If the baby survives, then it is as the gods decree. If it dies, then it has been spared much suffering on earth. This really is the kindest way in such a frigid country. Far better that a few babies die then that they should be incurable invalids in a country where there is scant medical attention.
With the death of my brother it became necessary to have my studies intensified, because when I was seven years of age I should have to enter upon training for whatever career the astrologers suggested. In Tibet everything is decided by astrology, from the buying of a yak to the decision about one’s career. Now the time was approaching, just before my seventh birthday, when mother would give a really big party to which nobles and others of high rank would be invited to hear the forecast of the astrologers.
Mother was decidedly plump, she had a round face and black hair. Tibetan women wear a sort of wooden framework on their head and over this the hair is draped to make it as ornamental as possible. These frames were very elaborate affairs, they were frequently of crimson lacquer, studded with semi-precious stones and inlaid with jade and coral. With well-oiled hair the effect was very brilliant.
Tibetan women use very gay clothes, with many reds and greens and yellows. In most instances there would be an apron of one colour with a vivid horizontal stripe of a contrasting but harmonious colour. Then there was the earring at the left ear, its size depending on the rank of the wearer. Mother, being a member of one of the leading families, had an earring more than six inches long.
We believe that women should have absolutely equal rights with men, but in the running of the house mother went further than that and was the undisputed dictator, an autocrat who knew what she wanted and always got it.
In the stir and flurry of preparing the house and the grounds for the party she was indeed in her element. There was organising to be done, commands to be given, and new schemes to outshine the neighbours to be thought out. She excelled at this having travelled extensively with father to India, Peking, and Shanghai, she had a wealth of foreign thought at her disposal.
The date having been decided for the party, invitations were carefully written out by monk-scribes on the thick, hand-made paper which was always used for communications of the highest importance. Each invitation was about twelve inches wide by about two feet long: each invitation bore father’s family seal, and, as mother also was of the upper ten, her seal had to go on as well. Father and mother had a joint seal, this bringing the total to three. Altogether the invitations were most imposing documents. It frightened me immensely to think that all this fuss was solely about me. I did not know that I was really of secondary importance, and that the Social Event came first. If I had been told that the magnificence of the party would confer great prestige upon my parents, it would have conveyed absolutely nothing to me, so I went on being frightened.
We had engaged special messengers to deliver these invitations; each man was mounted on a thoroughbred horse. Each carried a cleft stick, in which was lodged an invitation. The stick was surmounted by a replica of the family coat of arms. The sticks were gaily decorated with printed prayers which waved in the wind. There was pandemonium in the courtyard as all the messengers got ready to leave at the same time. The attendants were hoarse with shouting, horses were neighing, and the huge black mastiffs were barking madly. There was a last-minute gulping of Tibetan beer before the mugs were put down with a clatter as the ponderous main gates rumbled open, and the troop of men with wild yells galloped out.
In Tibet messengers deliver a written message, but also give an oral version which may be quite different. In days of long ago bandits would waylay messengers and act upon the written message, perhaps attacking an ill-defended house or procession. It became the habit to write a misleading message which often lured bandits to where they could be captured. This old custom of written and oral messages was a survival of the past. Even now, sometimes the two messages would differ, but the oral version was always accepted as correct.
Inside the house everything was bustle and turmoil. The walls were cleaned and recoloured, the floors were scraped and the wooden boards polished until they were really dangerous to walk upon. The carved wooden altars in the main rooms were polished and relacquered and many new butter lamps were put in use. Some of these lamps were gold and some were silver, but they were all polished so much that it was difficult to see which was which. All the time mother and the head steward were hurrying around, criticising here, ordering there, and generally giving the servants a miserable time. We had more than fifty servants at the time and others were engaged for the forthcoming occasion. They were all kept busy, but they all worked with a will. Even the courtyard was scraped until the stones shone as if newly quarried. The spaces between them were filled with coloured material to add to the gap appearance. When all this was done, the unfortunate servants were called before mother and commanded to wear only the cleanest of clean clothes.
In the kitchens there was tremendous activity; food was being prepared in enormous quantities. Tibet is a natural refrigerator, food can be prepared and kept for an almost indefinite time. The climate is very, very cold, and dry with it. But even when the temperature rises, the dryness keeps stored food good. Meat will keep for about a year, while grain keeps for hundreds of years.
Buddhists do not kill, so the only meat available is from animals which have fallen over cliffs, or been killed by accident. Our larders were well stocked with such meat. There are butchers in Tibet, but they are of an ‘untouchable’ caste, and the more orthodox families do not deal with them at all.
Mother had decided to give the guests a rare and expensive treat. She was going to give them preserved rhododendron blooms. Weeks before, servants had ridden out from the courtyard to go to the foothills of the Himalaya where the choicest blooms were to be found. In our country, rhododendron trees grow to a huge size, and with an astonishing variety of colours and scents. Those blooms which have not quite reached maturity are picked and most carefully washed. Carefully, because if there is any bruising, the preserve will be ruined. Then each flower is immersed in a mixture of water and honey in a large glass jar, with special care to avoid trapping any air. The jar is sealed, and every day for weeks after the jars are placed in the sunlight and turned at regular intervals, so that all parts of the flower are adequately exposed to the light. The flower grows slowly, and becomes filled with nectar manufactured from the honey-water. Some people like to expose the flower to the air for a few days before eating, so that it dries and becomes a little crisp, but without losing flavour or appearance. These people also sprinkle a little sugar on the petals to imitate snow. Father grumbled about the expense of these preserves: “We could have bought ten yak with calves for what you have spent on these pretty flowers,” he said. Mother’s reply was typical of women: “Don’t be a fool! We must make a show, and anyhow, this is my side of the house.”
Another delicacy was shark’s fin. This was brought from China sliced up, and made into soup. Someone had said that “shark’s fin soup is the world’s greatest gastronomic treat”. To me the stuff tasted terrible; it was an ordeal to swallow it, especially as by the time it reached Tibet, the original shark owner would not have recognised it. To state it mildly, it was slightly ‘off’. That, to some, seemed to enhance the flavour.
My favourite was succulent young bamboo shoots, also brought from China. These could be cooked in various ways, but I preferred them raw with just a dab of salt. My choice was just the newly opening yellow-green ends. I am afraid that many shoots, before cooking, lost their ends in a manner at which the cook could only guess and not prove! Rather a pity, because the cook also preferred them that way.
Cooks in Tibet are men; women are no good at stirring tsampa; or making exact mixtures. Women take a handful of this, slap in a lump of that, and season with hope that it will be right. Men are more thorough, more painstaking, and so better cooks. Women are all right for dusting, talking, and, of course, for a few other things. Not for making tsampa, though.
Tsampa is the main food of Tibetans. Some people live on tsampa and tea from their first meal in life to their last. It is made from barley which is roasted to a nice crisp golden brown. Then the barley kernels are cracked so that the flour is exposed, then it is roasted again. This flour is then put in a bowl, and hot buttered tea is added. The mixture is stirred until it attains the consistency of dough. Salt, borax, and yak butter are added to taste. The result—tsampa—can be rolled into slabs, made into buns, or even moulded into decorative shapes. Tsampa is monotonous stuff alone, but it really is a very compact, concentrated food which will sustain life at all altitudes and under all conditions.
While some servants were making tsampa, others were making butter. Our butter-making methods could not be commended on hygienic grounds. Our churns were large goat-skin bags, with the hair inside. They were filled with yak or goat milk and the neck was then twisted, turned over, and tied to make it leak proof. The whole thing was then bumped up and down until butter was formed. We had a special butter-making floor which had stone protuberances about eighteen inches high. The bags full of milk were lifted and dropped on to these protuberances, which had the effect of ‘churning’ the milk. It was monotonous to see and hear perhaps ten servants lifting and dropping these bags hour after hour. There was the indrawn ‘uh uh’ as the bag was lifted, and the squashy ‘zunk’ as it was dropped. Sometimes a carelessly handled or old bag would burst. I remember one really hefty fellow who was showing off his strength. He was working twice as fast as anyone else, and the veins were standing out on his neck with the exertion. Someone said: “You are getting old, Timon, you are slowing up.” Timon grunted with rage and grasped the neck of the bag in his mighty hands; lifted it, and dropped the bag down. But his strength had done its work. The bag dropped, but Timon still had his hands—and the neck—in the air. Square on the stone protuberance dropped the bag. Up shot a column of half-formed butter. Straight into the face of a stupefied Timon it went. Into his mouth, eyes, ears, and hair. Running down his body, covering him with twelve to fifteen gallons of golden slush.
Mother, attracted by the noise, rushed in. It was the only time I have known her to be speechless. It may have been rage at the loss of the butter, or because she thought the poor fellow was choking; but she ripped off the torn goat-skin and thwacked poor Timon over the head with it. He lost his footing on the slippery floor, and dropped into the spreading butter mess.
Clumsy workers, such as Timon, could ruin the butter. If they were careless when plunging the bags on to the protruding stones, they would cause the hair inside the bags to tear loose and become mixed with the butter. No one minded picking a dozen or two hairs out of the butter, but whole wads of it was frowned upon. Such butter was set aside for use in the lamps or for distribution to beggars, who would heat it and strain it through a piece of cloth. Also set aside for beggars were the ‘mistakes’ in culinary preparations. If a household wanted to let the neighbours know what a high standard was set, really good food was prepared and set before the beggars as ‘mistakes’. These happy, well-fed gentlemen would then wander round to the other houses saying how well they had eaten. The neighbours would respond by seeing that the beggars had a very good meal. There is much to be said for the life of a beggar in Tibet. They never want; by using the ‘tricks of their trade’ they can live exceedingly well. There is no disgrace in begging in most of the Eastern countries. Many monks beg their way from lamasery to lamasery. It is a recognised practice and is not considered any worse than is, say, collecting for charities in other countries. Those who feed a monk on his way are considered to have done a good deed. Beggars, too, have their code. If a man gives to a beggar, that beggar will stay out of the way and will not approach the donor again for a certain time.
The two priests attached to our household also had their part in the preparations for the coming event. They went to each animal carcass in our larders and said prayers for the souls of the animals who had inhabited those bodies. It was our belief that if an animal was killed—even by accident—and eaten, humans would be under a debt to that animal. Such debts were paid by having a priest pray over the animal body in the hope of ensuring that the animal reincarnated into a higher status in the next life upon earth. In the lamaseries and temples some monks devoted their whole time praying for animals. Our priests had the task of praying over the horses, before a long journey, prayers to avoid the horses becoming too tired. In this connection, our horses were never worked for two days together. If a horse was ridden on one day, then it had to be rested the next day. The same rule applied to the work animals. And they all knew it. If, by any chance a horse was picked for riding, and it had been ridden the day before, it would just stand still and refuse to move. When the saddle was removed, it would turn away with a shake of the head as if to say: “Well, I’m glad that injustice has been removed!” Donkeys were worse. They would wait until they were loaded, and then they would lie down and try to roll on the load.
We had three cats, and they were on duty all the time. One lived in the stables and exercised a stern discipline over the mice. They had to be very wary mice to remain mice and not cat-food. Another cat lived in the kitchen. He was elderly, and a bit of a simpleton. His mother had been frightened by the guns of the Younghusband Expedition in 1904, and he had been born too soon and was the only one of the litter to live. Appropriately, he was called ‘Younghusband’. The third cat was a very respectable matron who lived with us. She was a model of maternal duty, and did her utmost to see that the cat population was not allowed to fall. When not engaged as nurse to her kittens, she used to follow mother about from room to room. She was small and black, and in spite of having a hearty appetite, she looked like a walking skeleton. Tibetan animals are not pets, nor are they slaves, they are beings with a useful purpose to serve, being with rights just as human beings have rights. According to Buddhist belief, all animals, all creatures in fact, have souls, and are reborn to earth in successively higher stages.
Quickly the replies to our invitations came in. Men came galloping up to our gales brandishing the cleft messenger-sticks. Down from his room would come the steward to do honour to the messenger of the nobles. The man would snatch his message from the stick, and gasp out the verbal version. Then he would sag at the knees and sink to the ground with exquisite histrionic art to indicate that he had given all his strength to deliver his message to the House of Rampa. Our servants would play their part by crowding round with many clucks: “Poor fellow, he made a wonderfully quick journey. Burst his heart with the speed, no doubt. Poor, noble fellow!” I once disgraced myself completely by piping up: “Oh no he hasn’t. I saw him resting a little way out so that he could make a final dash.” It will be discreet to draw a veil of silence over the painful scene which followed.
At last the day arrived. The day I dreaded, when my career was to be decided for me, with no choice on my part. The first rays of the sun were peeping over the distant mountains when a servant dashed into my room. “What? Not up yet, Tuesday Lobsang Rampa? My, you are a lie-a-bed! It’s four o’clock, and there is much to be done. Get up!” I pushed aside my blanket and got to my feet. For me this day was to point the path of my life.
In Tibet, two names are given, the first being the day of the week on which one was born. I was born on a Tuesday, so Tuesday was my first name. Then Lobsang, that was the name given to me by my parents. But if a boy should enter a lamasery he would be given another name, his ‘monk name’. Was I to be given another name? Only the passing hours would tell. I, at seven, wanted to be a boatman swaying and tossing on the River Tsang-po, forty miles away. But wait a minute; did I? Boatmen are of low caste because they use boats of yak hide stretched over wooden formers. Boatman! Low caste? No! I wanted to be a professional flyer of kites. That was better, to be as free as the air, much better than being in a degrading little skin boat drifting on a turgid stream. A kite flyer, that is what I would be, and make wonderful kites with huge heads and glaring eyes. But today the priest-astrologers would have their say. Perhaps I’d left it a bit late, I could not get out of the window and escape now. Father would soon send men to bring me back. No, after all, I was a Rampa, and had to follow the steps of tradition. Maybe the astrologers would say that I should be a kite flyer. I could only wait and see.