Page:1903 Lhasa and Central Tibet by G. Ts. Tsybikoff.pdf/19

 However, the people still revere the ritods, and the tombstones of some of them are coveted last resting places for the dead; upon them the corpses are cut up for the distribution of the flesh and bones among the griffin-vultures.

The relic curios, in which Galdan is rich, show us to what an extent the famous Tsongkapa took possession of the minds of his followers. His successor after his death sought memorials of the existence of the dear teacher, not content with his works. He did not believe that a teacher could pass away leaving no footprints, and search was made for these everywhere about the monastery he established—where he passed his last years. His searches did not end in failure, and in various groves and among the rocks he saw traces of the wonder of the teacher, and explained them by one or another incident in his biography, and, conversely, with his biography explained those traces. Frequently meditating about his idolized teacher, he drew and chiseled his image upon rocks, and the images of the Buddhas, his protectors. In course of time all these signs and statues made by the closest of pupils of Tsongkapa under the known influence of superstition began to be taken for wonderful relics and each worshiper began to venerate them.

It is characteristic that such relics are being discovered up to the present time. Thus the present Dalai Lama obtained from a rock a treasure, consisting of a hat and other articles, ascribed to Tsongkapa. He deposited the treasure in a special chest and placed it for safekeeping at the sarcophagus of Tsongkapa and on its place erected a monument.

We will now briefly describe the other prominent monasteries and cities we visited. They are Tashilhunpo, and the cities of Shigatsze, Gyantsze, Samyé, and Tsetang.

The monastery of Tashilhunpo is about 170 miles west of Lhasa, to the right of the river Brahmaputra, on the south side of a mountain peak that forms an arm between that river and its tributary, the Nyangchu, and was established in 1447 by a pupil of Tsongkapa, Gedun-dru, who is regarded as the first incarnation of the Dalai Lama. There are about 3,000 monks within this place, divided into three religious and one mystical faculties. The head of the monastery is the incarnation of "Panchen erdeni," who maintains the monks there. Five stone idols and gilt roofs in Chinese style constitute the ornaments of the monastery.

About two-thirds of a mile northeast of Tashilhunpo, upon a separate rock, stands the castle Shigatsze, at the foot of which grew up a city of the same name, with a population of scarcely above 6,000 or 7,000. Here are stationed small Chinese and native garrisons. The castle itself is well known from the fact that during the conquest of Tibet in the middle of the seventeenth century by the Mongol