Page:Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet.djvu/270

 blood-stained stone slab, on which corpses are cut up, and mumbled some mantra.

In this lamasery there live forty monks and as many nuns: their children are brought up to the professions of their parents. This arrangement has been sanctioned by the Nyingma church, as the lamasery was so lonely that no monks could be induced to reside in it till this privilege was conceded them.

Beyond this lamasery the trail led along the edge of a precipice where we passed a number of little cells occupied by hermits (or tsampa), who, as we passed, stretched out their hands for alms through the little opening left in the front of their dens. Some of these men had been immured five years, and many of them had also made vows of silence.

A little way beyond this point, and about 500 feet below the summit of the hill, we reached the cell of Padma Sambhava, near which is a chapel called the Upper Lha-khang of Shetag. The keeper led us to a heavy door under a huge rock; unlocking it we entered the cavern, which is held the most sacred shrine of the Nyingma sect. In it I saw a silver reliquary in which is kept a silver image of the saint, representing him as a boy of twelve. There was a plate before the image filled with rings, earrings, turquoises, pieces of amber, gold and silver coins, the offerings of pilgrims.

Passing the Shetag, we came to the village of Ze-khang shikha. and thence by a gentle descent we reached the famed temple of Tsandan-yu lha-khang, "the temple of sandal-wood and turquoise."

It was thus called, it is said, because that its founder, King Strong-btsan gambo, only used in building it sandal-wood, and that the blue tiles which covered it were glazed with melted turquoises. It is a rather Chinese-looking structure, but one of the handsomest I have seen in Tibet. Every month six monks come here from Tse-tang to hold service.

A very short distance to the west of this sanctuary is the Lhabab-ri, or "the mountain of the descent (of the king or god)" (lha