IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. LXI.
MONASTERIES OF LAMAS 319
Reizen, etc., aangevangen in den Jaare I 66o en geendzg d in denJaare 1677, Amsterdam, 1702, p. 468 ; Mezzz. of the Emp. Jahangueir, pp. 99, 102. )
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 th:'n the priests of other creeds, living in the palace as if in their own house. The perfumes, which M. Polo mentions, ware 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 tl-!e 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 Kúnbúm, 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 Labrans-, 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, clustered round the great temples. That represented at p. 224 is at Jehol, and is an imitation of the Potala at L'hasa. (Hue's 7artazy, etc., pp. 45, 208, etc. ; Alph. Tibetan, 453 ; J. A. S. B. XXIV. 219 ; J. R. G. S. XXXVIII. ] 68 ; Koeppen, II. 338.) [La Géographie, II. 1901, pp. 242-247, has an article by Mr. J. Deniker, La J'rezzzière Plzoto. raphie de Llzassa, 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.]
E" The monasteries with numbers of monks, who, as M. Polo asserts, behaved decently, evidently belonged to Chinese Buddhists, ho-shang; in Kúblái'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 chastity from the time they shave their heads, and they live in congregations of one or two hundred."—H. C.]
NOTE 14.—There were many anomalies in the ok'.er 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 institutes 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 ( Upásaka and Upásiká), and these are to be found in Tibet and Mongolia ( Voués au blanc, as it were). They are called by the Mongols, by a corruption of the Sanskrit,
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