Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1 / 257 ページ（カラー画像）

0257	Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1
チベットとトルキスタン : vol.1

0257

Tibet and Turkestan : vol.1

チベットとトルキスタン : vol.1

for spiritual and temporal duties; its candidates, its
novices, its full-fledged monks of two degrees. Sub-
ject to the temporal rule of the monastery—much
as in our feudal times—are the farmers of a certain
territory who pay their rents into the treasury of the
establishment. Nor have the monks been able to
stop their development within the lines of peaceful
activity. Rude arms hang on their walls, bows,
arrows, spears, and the mediæval matchlock. Not
more ready to be hastened toward the Nirvana of
their creed than is the lusty Christian to grasp his
promised crown of personal immortality, these
monks, who are men, have given blow for blow in
that primitive competition which still holds Europe's
self under the thrall of its fierce charm. Territorial
rights within the land have been delineated thus by
force; attack from without has been met by bat-
talions of monks; and attempted rebellion of the
lay chiefs has been by them subdued. Indeed, by
virtue of their superior intelligence and organisa-
tion, a long era of quiet, a true pax ecclesiastica,
seemed to be stretching mild years before the
country when the storm of British anger fell upon
the land.

Special privilege in Tibet runs not only in favour
of the powerful religious bodies just surveyed, but it
also upholds a lay aristocracy of inherited wealth—
the term, of course, is comparative, for Tibet is poor.
The important lay functionaries of government are
drawn from this class. And indeed, the powerful
monks are frequently scions of the noble houses
—younger sons who find, in their sacred rôle, a
larger power than can now be otherwise secured.
11

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