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............