The Travels of Marco Polo Volume I Part 91

Akin to these performances, though exhibited by professed jugglers without claim to religious character, is a cla.s.s of feats which might be regarded as simply inventions if told by one author only, but which seem to deserve prominent notice from their being recounted by a series of authors, certainly independent of one another, and writing at long intervals of time and place. Our first witness is Ibn Batuta, and it will be necessary to quote him as well as the others in full, in order to show how closely their evidence tallies. The Arab Traveller was present at a great entertainment at the Court of the Viceroy of Khansa (_Kinsay_ of Polo, or Hang-chau fu): "That same night a juggler, who was one of the Kan's slaves, made his appearance, and the Amir said to him, 'Come and show us some of your marvels.' Upon this he took a wooden ball, with several holes in it, through which long thongs were pa.s.sed, and, laying hold of one of these, slung it into the air. It went so high that we lost sight of it altogether. (It was the hottest season of the year, and we were outside in the middle of the palace court.) There now remained only a little of the end of a thong in the conjuror's hand, and he desired one of the boys who a.s.sisted him to lay hold of it and mount. He did so, climbing by the thong, and we lost sight of him also! The conjuror then called to him three times, but getting no answer, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a knife as if in a great rage, laid hold of the thong, and disappeared also! By and bye he threw down one of the boy's hands, then a foot, then the other hand, and then the other foot, then the trunk, and last of all the head! Then he came down himself, all puffing and panting, and with his clothes all b.l.o.o.d.y, kissed the ground before the Amir, and said something to him in Chinese. The Amir gave some order in reply, and our friend then took the lad's limbs, laid them together in their places, and gave a kick, when, presto! there was the boy, who got up and stood before us! All this astonished me beyond measure, and I had an attack of palpitation like that which overcame me once before in the presence of the Sultan of India, when he showed me something of the same kind. They gave me a cordial, however, which cured the attack. The Kazi Afkharuddin was next to me, and quoth he, '_Wallah!_ 'tis my opinion there has been neither going up nor coming down, neither marring nor mending; 'tis all hocus pocus!'"

Now let us compare with this, which Ibn Batuta the Moor says he saw in China about the year 1348, the account which is given us by Edward Melton, an Anglo-Dutch traveller, of the performances of a Chinese gang of conjurors, which he witnessed at Batavia about the year 1670 (I have forgotten to note the year). After describing very vividly the _basket- murder_ trick, which is well known in India, and now also in Europe, and some feats of bamboo balancing similar to those which were recently shown by j.a.panese performers in England, only more wonderful, he proceeds: "But now I am going to relate a thing which surpa.s.ses all belief, and which I should scarcely venture to insert here had it not been witnessed by thousands before my own eyes. One of the same gang took a ball of cord, and grasping one end of the cord in his hand slung the other up into the air with such force that its extremity was beyond reach of our sight. He then immediately climbed up the cord with indescribable swiftness, and got so high that we could no longer see him. I stood full of astonishment, not conceiving what was to come of this; when lo! a leg came tumbling down out of the air. One of the conjuring company instantly s.n.a.t.c.hed it up and threw it into the basket whereof I have formerly spoken. A moment later a hand came down, and immediately on that another leg. And in short all the members of the body came thus successively tumbling from the air and were cast together into the basket. The last fragment of all that we saw tumble down was the head, and no sooner had that touched the ground than he who had s.n.a.t.c.hed up all the limbs and put them in the basket turned them all out again topsy-turvy. Then straightway we saw with these eyes all those limbs creep together again, and in short, form a whole man, who at once could stand and go just as before, without showing the least damage! Never in my life was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful performance, and I doubted now no longer that these misguided men did it by the help of the Devil. For it seems to me totally impossible that such things should be accomplished by natural means." The same performance is spoken of by Valentyn, in a pa.s.sage also containing curious notices of the basket-murder trick, the mango trick, the sitting in the air (quoted above), and others; but he refers to Melton, and I am not sure whether he had any other authority for it. The cut on this page is taken from Melton's plate.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chinese Conjuring Extraordinary.]

Again we have in the Memoirs of the Emperor Jahangir a detail of the wonderful performances of seven jugglers from Bengal who exhibited before him. Two of their feats are thus described: "_Ninth_. They produced a man whom they divided limb from limb, actually severing his head from the body. They scattered these mutilated members along the ground, and in this state they lay for some time. They then extended a sheet or curtain over the spot, and one of the men putting himself under the sheet, in a few minutes came from below, followed by the individual supposed to have been cut into joints, in perfect health and condition, and one might have safely sworn that he had never received wound or injury whatever ...

_Twenty-third_. They produced a chain of 50 cubits in length, and in my presence threw one end of it towards the sky, _where it remained as if fastened to something in the air_. A dog was then brought forward, and being placed at the lower end of the chain, immediately ran up, and reaching the other end, _immediately disappeared in the air_. In the same manner a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were successively sent up the chain, and all equally disappeared at the upper end of the chain. At last they took down the chain and put it into a bag, no one ever discovering in what way the different animals were made to vanish into the air in the mysterious manner above described."

[There would appear (says the _Times of India_, quoted by the _Weekly Dispatch_, 15th September, 1889) to be a fine field of unworked romance in the annals of Indian jugglery. One Siddeshur Mitter, writing to the Calcutta paper, gives a thrilling account of a conjurer's feat which he witnessed recently in one of the villages of the Hooghly district. He saw the whole thing himself, he tells us, so there need be no question about the facts. On the particular afternoon when he visited the village the place was occupied by a company of male and female jugglers, armed with bags and boxes and musical instruments, and all the mysterious paraphernalia of the peripatetic _Jadugar_. While Siddeshur was looking on, and in the broad, clear light of the afternoon, a man was shut up in a box, which was then carefully nailed up and bound with cords. Weird spells and incantations of the style we are all familiar with were followed by the breaking open of the box, which, "to the unqualified amazement of everybody, was found to be perfectly empty." All this is much in the usual style; but what followed was so much superior to the ordinary run of modern Indian jugglery that we must give it in the simple Siddeshur's own words. When every one was satisfied that the man had really disappeared, the princ.i.p.al performer, who did not seem to be at all astonished, told his audience that the vanished man had gone up to the heavens to fight Indra. "In a few moments," says Siddeshur, "he expressed anxiety at the man's continued absence in the aerial regions, and said that he would go up to see what was the matter. A boy was called, who held upright a long bamboo, up which the man climbed to the top, whereupon we suddenly lost sight of him, and the boy laid the bamboo on the ground. Then there fell on the ground before us the different members of a human body, all b.l.o.o.d.y,--first one hand, then another, a foot, and so on, until complete.

The boy then elevated the bamboo, and the princ.i.p.al performer, appearing on the top as suddenly as he had disappeared, came down, and seeming quite disconsolate, said that Indra had killed his friend before he could get there to save him. He then placed the mangled remains in the same box, closed it, and tied it as before. Our wonder and astonishment reached their climax when, a few minutes later, on the box being again opened, the man jumped out perfectly hearty and unhurt." Is not this rather a severe strain on one's credulity, even for an Indian jugglery story?]

In Philostratus, again, we may learn the antiquity of some juggling tricks that have come up as novelties in our own day. Thus at Taxila a man set his son against a board, and then threw darts tracing the outline of the boy's figure on the board. This feat was shown in London some fifteen or twenty years ago, and humorously commemorated in _Punch_ by John Leech.

(_Philostratus_, Fr. Transl. Bk. III. ch. xv. and xxvii.; _Mich. Glycas_, Ann. II. 156, Paris ed.; _Delrio, Disquis. Magic._ pp. 34, 100; _Koeppen_, I. 31, II. 82, 114-115, 260, 262, 280; _Va.s.silyev_, 156; _Della Penna_, 36; _S. Setzen_, 43, 353; _Pereg. Quat._ 117; _I. B._ IV. 39 and 290 seqq.; _Asiat. Researches_, XVII. 186; _Valentyn_, V. 52-54; _Edward Melton, Engelsch Edelmans, Zeldzaame en Gedenkwaardige Zee en Land Reizen, etc., aangevangen in den Jaare 1660 en geendigd in den Jaare 1677_, Amsterdam, 1702, p. 468; _Mem. of the Emp. Jahangueir_, pp. 99, 102.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Grand Temple of Buddha at LHASA]

NOTE 12.--["The maintenance of the Lamas, of their monasteries, the expenses for the sacrifices and for transcription of sacred books, required enormous sums. The Lamas enjoyed a preponderating influence, and stood much higher than the priests of other creeds, living in the palace as if in their own house. The perfumes, which M. Polo mentions, were used by the Lamas for two purposes; they used them for joss-sticks, and for making small turrets, known under the name of _ts'a-ts'a_; the joss-sticks used to be burned in the same way as they are now; the _ts'a-ts'a_ were inserted in _suburgas_ or buried in the ground. At the time when the _suburga_ was built in the garden of the Peking palace in 1271, there were used, according to the Empress' wish, 1008 turrets made of the most expensive perfumes, mixed with pounded gold, silver, pearls, and corals, and 130,000 _ts'a-ts'a_ made of ordinary perfumes." (_Palladius_, 29.--H.

C.)]

NOTE 13.--There is no exaggeration in this number. Turner speaks of 2500 monks in one Tibetan convent. Huc mentions Chorchi, north of the Great Wall, as containing 2000; and Kunb.u.m, where he and Gabet spent several months, on the borders of Shensi and Tibet, had nearly 4000. The missionary itinerary from Nepal to L'hasa given by Giorgi, speaks of a group of convents at a place called Brephung, which formerly contained 10,000 inmates, and at the time of the journey (about 1700) still contained 5000, including attendants. Dr. Campbell gives a list of twelve chief convents in L'hasa and its vicinity (not including the Potala or Residence of the Grand Lama), of which one is said to have 7500 members, resident and itinerary. Major Montgomerie's Pandit gives the same convent 7700 Lamas. In the great monastery at L'hasa called _Labrang_, they show a copper kettle holding more than 100 buckets, which was used to make tea for the Lamas who performed the daily temple service. The monasteries are usually, as the text says, like small towns, cl.u.s.tered round the great temples. That represented at p. 224 is at Jehol, and is an imitation of the Potala at L'hasa. (_Huc's Tartary_, etc., pp. 45, 208, etc.; _Alph.

Tibetan_, 453; _J. A. S. B._ XXIV. 219; _J. R. G. S._ x.x.xVIII. 168; _Koeppen_, II. 338.) [_La Geographie_, II. 1901, pp. 242-247, has an article by Mr. J. Deniker, _La Premiere Photographie de Lha.s.sa_, with a view of _Potala_, in 1901, from a photograph by M. O. Norzunov; it is interesting to compare it with the view given by Kircher in 1670.--H. C.]

["The monasteries with numbers of monks, who, as M. Polo a.s.serts, behaved decently, evidently belonged to Chinese Buddhists, _ho-shang_; in Kublai's time they had two monasteries in Shangtu, in the north-east and north-west parts of the town." (_Palladius_, 29.) Rubruck (_Rockhill's_ ed. p. 145) says: "All the priests (of the idolaters) shave their heads, and are dressed in saffron colour, and they observe chast.i.ty from the time they shave their heads, and they live in congregations of one or two hundred."--H. C.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Monastery of Lamas.]

NOTE 14.--There were many anomalies in the older Lamaism, and it permitted, at least in some sects of it which still subsist, the marriage of the clergy under certain limitations and conditions. One of Giorgi's missionaries speaks of a Lama of high _hereditary_ rank as a spiritual prince who marries, but separates from his wife as soon as he has a son, who after certain trials is deemed worthy to be his successor. ["A good number of Lamas were married, as M. Polo correctly remarks; their wives were known amongst the Chinese, under the name of _Fan-sao_." (_Ch'ue keng lu_, quoted by _Palladius_, 28.)--H. C.] One of the "_reforms_" of Tsongkhapa was the absolute prohibition of marriage to the clergy, and in this he followed the inst.i.tutes of the oldest Buddhism. Even the _Red Lamas_, or unreformed, cannot now marry without a dispensation.

But even the oldest orthodox Buddhism had its Lay brethren and Lay sisters (_Upasaka_ and _Upasika_), and these are to be found in Tibet and Mongolia ( _Voues au blanc_, as it were). They are called by the Mongols, by a corruption of the Sanskrit, _Ubas.h.i.+_ and _Ubashanza_. Their vows extend to the strict keeping of the five great commandments of the Buddhist Law, and they diligently ply the rosary and the prayer-wheel, but they are not pledged to celibacy, nor do they adopt the tonsure. As a sign of their amphibious position, they commonly wear a red or yellow girdle. These are what some travellers speak of as the lowest order of Lamas, permitted to marry; and Polo may have regarded them in the same light.

(_Koeppen_, II. 82, 113, 276, 291; _Timk._ II. 354; _Erman_, II. 304; _Alph. Tibet._ 449.)

NOTE 15.--[Mr. Rockhill writes to me that "bran" is certainly Tibetan _tsamba_ (parched barley).--H. C.]

NOTE 16.--Marco's contempt for _Patarins_ slips out in a later pa.s.sage (Bk. III. ch. xx.). The name originated in the eleventh century in Lombardy, where it came to be applied to the "heretics," otherwise called "Cathari." Muratori has much on the origin of the name Patarini, and mentions a monument, which still exists, in the Piazza de' Mercanti at Milan, in honour of Oldrado Podesta of that city in 1233, and which thus, with more pith than grammar, celebrates his meritorious acts:--

"Qui solium struxit Catharos _ut debuit_ UXIT."

Other cities were as piously Catholic. A Mantuan chronicler records under 1276: "Captum fuit Sermionum seu redditum fuit Ecclesiae, et capti fuerunt cercha CL Patarini contra fidem, inter masculos et feminas; qui omnes ducti fuerunt Veronam, et ibi incarcerati, _et pro magna parte_ COMBUSTI."

(_Murat. Dissert._ III. 238; _Archiv. Stor. Ital._ N.S. I. 49.)

NOTE 17.--Marsden, followed by Pauthier, supposes these unorthodox ascetics to be Hindu Sanyasis, and the latter editor supposes even the name _Sensi_ or _Sensin_ to represent that denomination. Such wanderers do occasionally find their way to Tartary; Gerbillon mentions having encountered five of them at Kuku Khotan (supra, p. 286), and I think John Bell speaks of meeting one still further north. But what is said of the great and numerous idols of the _Sensin_ is inconsistent with such a notion, as is indeed, it seems to me, the whole scope of the pa.s.sage.

Evidently no occasional vagabonds from a far country, but some indigenous sectaries, are in question. Nor would bran and hot water be a Hindu regimen. The staple diet of the Tibetans is _Chamba_, the meal of toasted barley, mixed sometimes with warm water, but more frequently with hot tea, and I think it is probable that these were the elements of the ascetic diet rather than the mere _bran_ which Polo speaks of. Semedo indeed says that some of the Buddhist devotees professed never to take any food but tea; knowing people said they mixed with it pellets of sun-dried beef. The determination of the sect intended in the text is, I conceive, to be sought in the history of Chinese or Tibetan Buddhism and their rivals.

Both Baldelli and Neumann have indicated a general opinion that the _Taosse_ or some branch of that sect is meant, but they have entered into no particulars except in a reference by the former to _s.h.i.+en-sien_, a t.i.tle of perfection affected by that sect, as the origin of Polo's term _Sensin_. In the substance of this I think they are right. But I believe that in the text this Chinese sect are, rightly or wrongly, identified with the ancient Tibetan sect of _Bon-po_, and that part of the characters a.s.signed belong to each.

First with regard to the Taosse. These were evidently the _Patarini_ of the Buddhists in China at this time, and Polo was probably aware of the persecution which the latter had stirred up Kublai to direct against them in 1281--persecution at least it is called, though it was but a mild proceeding in comparison with the thing contemporaneously practised in Christian Lombardy, for in heathen Cathay, books, and not human creatures, were the subjects doomed to burn, and even that doom was not carried out.

["The Tao-sze," says M. Polo, "were looked upon as heretics by the other sects; that is, of course; by the Lamas and Ho-shangs; in fact in his time a pa.s.sionate struggle was going on between Buddhists and Tao-sze, or rather a persecution of the latter by the former; the Buddhists attributed to the doctrine of the Tao-sze a pernicious tendency, and accused them of deceit; and in support of these a.s.sertions they pointed to some of their sacred books. Taking advantage of their influence at Court, they persuaded Kublai to decree the burning of these books, and it was carried out in Peking." (_Palladius_, 30.)--H. C.]

The term which Polo writes as _Sensin_ appears to have been that popularly applied to the Taosse sect at the Mongol Court. Thus we are told by Ras.h.i.+duddin in his History of Cathay: "In the reign of Din-w.a.n.g, the 20th king of this (the 11th) Dynasty, TAI SHANG LaI KuN, was born. This person is stated to have been accounted a prophet by the people of Khita; his father's name was Han; like Shak-muni he is said to have been conceived by light, and it is related that his mother bore him in her womb no less a period than 80 years. The people who embraced his doctrine were called [Arabic] (_Shan-shan_ or _s.h.i.+ns.h.i.+n_)." This is a correct epitome of the Chinese story of _Laokiun_ or _Lao-tse_, born in the reign of _Ting w.a.n.g_ of the Cheu Dynasty. The whole t.i.tle used by Ras.h.i.+duddin, _Tai Shang Lao Kiun_, "The Great Supreme Venerable Ruler," is that formerly applied by the Chinese to this philosopher.

Further, in a Mongol [and Chinese] inscription of the year 1314 from the department of Si-ngan fu, which has been interpreted and published by Mr.

Wylie, the Taosse priests are termed _Sens.h.i.+ng_. [See _Deveria, Notes d'epigraphie_, pp. 39-43, and Prince _R. Bonaparte's Recueil_, Pl. xii.

No. 3.--H. C.]

Seeing then that the very term used by Polo is that applied by both Mongol and Persian authorities of the period to the Taosse, we can have no doubt that the latter are indicated, whether the facts stated about them be correct or not.

The word Sens.h.i.+ng-ud (the Mongol plural) is represented in the Chinese version of Mr. Wylie's inscription by _Sin-sang_, a conventional t.i.tle applied to literary men, and this perhaps is sufficient to determine the Chinese word which _Sensin_ represents. I should otherwise have supposed it to be the _s.h.i.+n-sian_ alluded to by Baldelli, and mentioned in the quotations which follow; and indeed it seems highly probable that two terms so much alike should have been confounded by foreigners. Semedo says of the Taosse: "They pretend that by means of certain exercises and meditations one shall regain his youth, and others shall attain to be _s.h.i.+en-sien_, i.e. 'Terrestrial Beati,' in whose state every desire is gratified, whilst they have the power to transport themselves from one place to another, however distant, with speed and facility." Schott, on the same subject, says: "By _Sian_ or _s.h.i.+n-sian_ are understood in the old Chinese conception, and particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao [or Taosse] sect, persons who withdraw to the hills to lead the life of anchorites, and who have attained, either through their ascetic observances or by the power of charms and elixirs, to the possession of miraculous gifts and of terrestrial immortality." And M. Pauthier himself, in his translation of the Journey of Khieu, an eminent doctor of this sect, to the camp of the Great Chinghiz in Turkestan, has related how Chinghiz bestowed upon this personage "a seal with a tiger's head and a diploma" (surely a lion's head, _P'aizah_ and _Yarligh_; see infra, Bk.

II. ch. vii. note 2), "wherein he was styled _s.h.i.+n Sien_ or Divine Anchorite." _Sian-jin_ again is the word used by Hiuen Tsang as the equivalent to the name of the Indian _Ris.h.i.+s_, who attain to supernatural powers.

["_Sensin_ is a sufficiently faithful transcription of _Sien-seng_ (Sien-s.h.i.+ng in Pekingese); the name given by the Mongols in conversation as well as in official doc.u.ments, to the Tao-sze, in the sense of preceptors, just as Lamas were called by them _Bacs.h.i.+_, which corresponds to the Chinese _Sien-seng_. M. Polo calls them fasters and ascetics. It was one of the sects of Taouism. There was another one which practised cabalistic and other mysteries. The Tao-sze had two monasteries in Shangtu, one in the eastern, the other in the western part of the town." (_Palladius_, 30.) --H.C.]

One cla.s.s of the Tao priests or devotees does marry, but another cla.s.s never does. Many of them lead a wandering life, and derive a precarious subsistence from the sale of charms and medical nostrums. They shave the sides of the head, and coil the remaining hair in a tuft on the crown, in the ancient Chinese manner; moreover, says Williams, they "_are recognised by their slate-coloured robes_." On the feast of one of their divinities whose t.i.tle Williams translates as "High Emperor of the Sombre Heavens,"

they a.s.semble before his temple, "and having made a great fire, about 15 or 20 feet in diameter, go over it barefoot, preceded by the priests and bearing the G.o.ds in their arms. They firmly a.s.sert that if they possess a sincere mind they will not be injured by the fire; but both priests and people get miserably burnt on these occasions." Escayrac de Lauture says that on those days they leap, dance, and whirl round the fire, striking at the devils with a straight Roman-like sword, and sometimes wounding themselves as the priests of Baal and Moloch used to do.

(_Astley_, IV. 671; _Morley_ in _J. R. A. S._ VI. 24; _Semedo_, 111, 114; _De Mailla_, IX. 410; _J. As._ ser. V. tom. viii. 138; _Schott uber den Buddhismus_ etc. 71; _Voyage de Khieou_ in _J. As._ ser. VI. tom. ix. 41; _Middle Kingdom_, II. 247; _Doolittle_, 192; _Esc. de Lauture, Mem. sur la Chine, Religion_, 87, 102; _Peler. Boudd._ II. 370, and III. 468.)

Let us now turn to the _Bon-po_. Of this form of religion and its sectaries not much is known, for it is now confined to the eastern and least known part of Tibet. It is, however, believed to be a remnant of the old pre-Buddhistic wors.h.i.+p of the powers of nature, though much modified by the Buddhistic wors.h.i.+p with which it has so long been in contact. Mr.

Hodgson also p.r.o.nounces a collection of drawings of Bonpo divinities, which were made for him by a mendicant friar of the sect from the neighbourhood of Tachindu, or Ta-t'sien-lu, to be saturated with _Sakta_ attributes, i.e. with the spirit of the Tantrika wors.h.i.+p, a wors.h.i.+p which he tersely defines as "a mixture of l.u.s.t, ferocity, and mummery," and which he believes to have originated in an incorporation with the Indian religions of the rude superst.i.tions of the primitive Turanians. Mr.

Hodgson was told that the Bonpo sect still possessed numerous and wealthy Vihars (or abbeys) in Tibet. But from the information of the Catholic missionaries in Eastern Tibet, who have come into closest contact with the sect, it appears to be now in a state of great decadence, "oppressed by the Lamas of other sects, the _Peunbo_ (Bonpo) think only of shaking off the yoke, and getting deliverance from the vexations which the smallness of their number forces them to endure." In June, 1863, apparently from such despairing motives, the Lamas of Tsodam, a Bonpo convent in the vicinity of the mission settlement of Bonga in E. Tibet, invited the Rev.

Gabriel Durand to come and instruct them. "In this temple," he writes, "are the _monstrous idols_ of the sect of Peunbo; horrid figures, whose features only Satan could have inspired. They are disposed about the enclosure according to their power and their seniority. Above the paG.o.da is a loft, the nooks of which are crammed with all kinds of diabolical trumpery; little idols of wood or copper, hideous masques of men and animals, superst.i.tious Lama vestments, drums, trumpets of human bones, sacrificial vessels, in short, all the utensils with which the devil's servants in Tibet honour their master. And what will become of it all? The Great River, whose waves roll to Martaban (the Lu-kiang or Salwen), is not more than 200 or 300 paces distant.... Besides the infernal paintings on the walls, eight or nine monstrous idols, seated at the inner end of the paG.o.da, were calculated by their size and aspect to inspire awe. In the middle was _Tamba-s.h.i.+-Rob_, the great doctor of the sect of the Peunbo, squatted with his right arm outside his red scarf, and holding in his left the vase of knowledge.... On his right hand sat _Keumta-Zon-bo_, 'the All- Good,' ... with ten hands and three heads, one over the other.... At his right is _Dreuma_, the most celebrated G.o.ddess of the sect. On the left of Tamba-s.h.i.+-Rob was another G.o.ddess, whose name they never could tell me. On the left again of this anonymous G.o.ddess appeared _Tam-pla-mi-ber_,... a monstrous dwarf environed by flames and his head garnished with a diadem of skulls. _He trod with one foot on the head of Shakia-tupa_ [_Shakya Thubba_, i.e. 'the Mighty Shakya,' the usual Tibetan appellation of Sakya Buddha himself].... The idols are made of a coa.r.s.e composition of mud and stalks kneaded together, on which they put first a coat of plaster and then various colours, or even silver or gold.... _Four oxen would scarcely have been able to draw one of the idols_." Mr. Emilius Schlagintweit, in a paper on the subject of this sect, has explained some of the names used by the missionary. _Tamba-s.h.i.+-Rob_ is "_bs_tanpa _g_Shen-rabs," i.e. the doctrine of Shen-rabs, who is regarded as the founder of the Bon religion.

[Cf. _Grenard_, II. 407.--H. C.] _Keun-tu-zon-bo_ is "Kun-tu-_b_zang-po,"

"_the All Best_."

[_Bon-po_ seems to be (according to Grenard, II. 410) a "coa.r.s.e naturism combined with ancestral wors.h.i.+p" resembling Taoism. It has, however, borrowed a good deal from Buddhism. "I noticed," says Mr. Rockhill (_Journey_, 86), "a couple of grimy volumes of Bonbo sacred literature.

One of them I examined; it was a funeral service, and was in the usual Bonbo jargon, three-fourths Buddhistic in its nomenclature." The Bon-po Lamas are above all sorcerers and necromancers, and are very similar to the _kam_ of the Northern Turks, the _bo_ of the Mongols, and lastly to the _Shamans_. During their operations, they wear a tall pointed black hat, surmounted by the feather of a peac.o.c.k, or of a c.o.c.k, and a human skull. Their princ.i.p.al divinities are the White G.o.d of Heaven, the Black G.o.ddess of Earth, the Red Tiger and the Dragon; they wors.h.i.+p an idol called _Kye'-p'ang_ formed of a mere block of wood covered with garments.

Their sacred symbol is the _svastika_ turned from right to left [Symbol].

The most important of their monasteries is Zo-chen gum-pa, in the north-east of Tibet, where they print most of their books. The Bonpos Lamas "are very popular with the agricultural Tibetans, but not so much so with the pastoral tribes, who nearly all belong to the Gelupa sect of the orthodox Buddhist Church." A. K. says, "Buddhism is the religion of the country; there are two sects, one named Mangba and the other Chiba or Baimbu." _Explorations made by A----K----_, 34. _Mangba_ means "Esoteric,"

_Chiba_ (_p'yi-ba_), "Exoteric," and _Baimbu_ is Bonbo. _Rockhill, Journey_, 289, _et pa.s.sim.; Land of the Lamas_, 217-218; _Grenard, Mission Scientifique_, II. 407 seqq.--H. C.]

There is an indication in Koeppen's references that the followers of the _Bon_ doctrine are sometimes called in Tibet _Nag-choi_, or "Black Sect,"

as the old and the reformed Lamas are called respectively the "Red" and the "Yellow." If so, it is reasonable to conclude that the first appellation, like the two last, has a reference to the colour of clothing affected by the priesthood.

The Rev. Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul: "There are no Bonpos in our part of the country, and as far as we know there cannot be many of them in the whole of Western Tibet, i.e. in Ladak, Spiti, and all the non-Chinese provinces together; we know, therefore, not much more of them than has been made known to the European public by different writers on Buddhism in Tibet, and lately collected by Emil de Schlagintweit.... Whether they can be with certainty identified with the Chinese _Taosse_ I cannot decide, as I don't know if anything like historical evidence about their Chinese origin has been detected anywhere, or if it is merely a conclusion from the similarity of their doctrines and practices.... But the Chinese author of the _Wei-tsang-tu-s.h.i.+_, translated by Klaproth, under the t.i.tle of _Description du Tubet_ (Paris, 1831), renders _Bonpo_ by _Taosse_. So much seems to be certain that it was the ancient religion of Tibet, before Buddhism penetrated into the country, and that even at later periods it several times gained the ascendancy when the secular power was of a disposition averse to the Lamaitic hierarchy. Another opinion is that the Bon religion was originally a mere fetis.h.i.+sm, and related to or identical with Shamanism; this appears to me very probable and easy to reconcile with the former supposition, for it may afterwards, on becoming acquainted with the Chinese doctrine of the 'Taosse,' have adorned itself with many of its tenets.... With regard to the following particulars, I have got most of my information from our Lama, a native of the neighbourhood of Tas.h.i.+ Lhunpo, whom we consulted about all your questions. The extraordinary asceticism which struck Marco Polo so much is of course not to be understood as being practised by all members of the sect, but exclusively, or more especially, by the _priests_. That these _never_ marry, and are consequently more strictly celibatary than many sects of the Lamaitic priesthood, was confirmed by our Lama." (Mr. Jaeschke then remarks upon the _bran_ to much the same effect as I have done above.) "The Bonpos are by all Buddhists regarded as heretics. Though they wors.h.i.+p idols partly the same, at least in name, with those of the Buddhists,...

their rites seem to be very different. The most conspicuous and most generally known of their customs, futile in itself, but in the eyes of the common people the greatest sign of their sinful heresy, is that they perform the religious ceremony of making a turn round a sacred object _in the opposite direction_ to that prescribed by Buddhism. As to their dress, our Lama said that they had no particular colour of garments, but their priests frequently wore red clothes, as some sects of the Buddhist priesthood do. Mr. Heyde, however, once on a journey in our neighbouring county of Langskar, saw a man _clothed in black with blue borders_, who the people said was a _Bonpo_."

[Mr. Rockhill (_Journey _, 63) saw at Kao miao-tzu "a _red_-gowned, long-haired Bonbo Lama," and at k.u.mb.u.m (p. 68), "was surprised to see quite a large number of Bonbo Lamas, recognisable by their huge mops of hair and their _red_ gowns, and also from their being dirtier than the ordinary run of people."--H. C.]

The ident.i.ty of the Bonpo and Taosse seems to have been accepted by Csoma de Koros, who identifies the Chinese founder of the latter, Lao-tseu, with the Shen-rabs of the Tibetan Bonpos. Klaproth also says, "Bhonbp'o, Bhanpo, and _Shen_, are the names by which are commonly designated (in Tibetan) the Taoszu, or follower of the Chinese philosopher Laotseu."[11]

Schlagintweit refers to Schmidt's Tibetan Grammar (p. 209) and to the Calcutta edition of the _Fo-koue-ki_ (p. 218) for the like identification, but I do not know how far any two of these are independent testimonies.

General Cunningham, however, fully accepts the ident.i.ty, and writes to me: "Fahian (ch. xxiii.) calls the heretics who a.s.sembled at Ramagrama _Taosse_,[12] thus identifying them with the Chinese Finitimists. The Taosse are, therefore, the same as the _Swastikas_, or wors.h.i.+ppers of the mystic cross _Swasti_, who are also _Tirthakaras_, or 'Pure-doers.' The synonymous word _Punya_ is probably the origin of _Pon_ or _Bon_, the Tibetan Finitimists. From the same word comes the Burmese _P'ungyi_ or _Pungi_." I may add that the Chinese envoy to Cambodia in 1296, whose narrative Remusat has translated, describes a sect which he encountered there, apparently Brahminical, as _Taosse_. And even if the Bonpo and the Taosse were not fundamentally identical, it is extremely probable that the Tibetan and Mongol Buddhists should have applied to them one name and character. Each played towards them the same part in Tibet and in China respectively; both were heretic sects and hated rivals; both made high pretensions to asceticism and supernatural powers; both, I think we see reason to believe, affected the dark clothing which Polo a.s.signs to the _Sensin_; both, we may add, had "great idols and plenty of them." We have seen in the account of the Taosse the ground that certain of their ceremonies afford for the allegation that they "sometimes also wors.h.i.+p fire," whilst the whole account of that rite and of others mentioned by Duhalde,[13] shows what a powerful element of the old devil-dancing Shamanism there is in their practice. The French Jesuit, on the other hand, shows us what a prominent place female divinities occupied in the Bon-po Pantheon,[14] though we cannot say of either sect that "their idols are all feminine." A strong symptom of relation between the two religions, by the way, occurs in M. Durand's account of the Bon Temple. We see there that _Shen-rabs_, the great doctor of the sect, occupies a chief and central place among the idols. Now in the Chinese temples of the Taosse the figure of _their_ Doctor _Lao-tseu_ is one member of the triad called the "Three Pure Ones," which const.i.tute the chief objects of wors.h.i.+p. This very t.i.tle recalls General Cunningham's etymology of Bonpo.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tibetan Bacsi]

[At the quarterly fair (_yueh kai_) of Ta-li (Yun-Nan), Mr. E. C. Baber (_Travels_, 158-159) says: "A Fakir with a praying machine, which he twirled for the salvation of the pious at the price of a few cash, was at once recognised by us; he was our old acquaintance, the Bakhsi, whose portrait is given in _Colonel Yule's Marco Polo_."--H. C.]