IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| India and Tibet : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
REASONS FOR ESTRANGEMENT 319
brass and bronze figures, turquoise ornaments, embroideries,
silks, etc.
The Tibetans are, indeed, born traders. Kawaguchi
calls them a nation of shop-keepers." Men and women
—and the women more than the men—priests and laity,
all trade. And this is another irony of the situation, that
Ij a people who are naturally sociable, and who are thus, too,
it born traders, should have been put for so long in their
14; seclusive position. But of late years the departure of
Lhasa merchants to India had been becoming more
frequent, and Kawaguchi says that circumstances were
ni impressing the Tibetans with the necessity of extending
their sphere of trade, and they realized that if their wool
11:trade was stopped the people would be hard hit, for
sheep-rearers constituted the greater part of the whole
population.
How it was, from a Tibetan point of view, that of
recent years we became estranged is worth hearing. It
was, according to Kawaguchi, the explorations of the
Bengali gentleman, Sarat Chandra Das, coupled with the
frontier troubles which followed, that changed the attitude
of the Tibetans towards us. The two events had not the
slightest connection with one another, but the Tibetans
1e seemed to have been alarmed that the harmless journeying
of Sarat Chandra Das in 1881 was a deliberate design on
our part to subvert their religion. As to the frontier
g troubles—presumably those of 1886 —Kawaguchi himself
says that it was the Tibetan Government who most in-
discreetly adopted measures at the instance of a fanatic
Nechung (oracle), and proceeded to build a fort at a
frontier place which strictly belonged to Sikkim."
But the Tibetans were apparently thoroughly nervous
about the British, and prejudiced against us on account of
our subjugation of India. They were much impressed by
the moderation of our rule, by the freedom we gave, and
by the hospitals and schools. Tibetans in Darjiling who
had these advantages, and who were given small Govern-
ment posts, were much attached to our rule. And Queen
Victoria was believed to be an incarnation of the goddess
of the Jo-khang Temple. All this, says Kawaguchi, they
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