Page:Three Years in Tibet.djvu/68

38 Sharkongpo path, on the other hand, brings the traveller to the Tenri gate. So on with other paths, and it appeared an impossibility to discover a route which would enable a person to reach the capital of Tibet from that of Nepāl, without having to pass through some challenge gate. The pass and bribery being beyond them, the native beggars and pilgrims have one more resource left to them, and that is imploring a passage, with prayer and supplication, when they come upon a challenge post, and they generally succeed at the interior gates, I was told. It would be different with me: there was every danger of my disguise being detected while pleading with the guards. My persistent efforts finally brought me, however, their reward. I ascertained that by taking a somewhat roundabout way I might reach Lhasa without encountering the perils of these challenge gates. Ordinarily, one should take a north-east course after leaving the Nepālese capital, in order to make a direct journey to Lhasa; but the one I have just referred to lay in the opposite direction of north-west, through Lo, a border province of Nepāl, thence across Jangtang, the north plain (but really the west plain) of Tibet, and finally around the lake Mānasarovara. This bye-route I made up my mind to take.

So far so good. But it would be courting suspicion to say that I chose this particularly circuitous and dangerous route with no obvious reason for it. Fortunately a good pretext was at hand for me. For I happened to think of the identity of the lake Mānasarovara with the Anavatapta Lake that often occurs in the Buḍḍhist Texts. However divided the scholastic views are about this identity, it is popularly accepted, and that was enough for my purpose. The identity granted, it could be argued that Mount Kailāsa, by the side of the lake, was nature's Maṇdala, sacred to the memory of the Buḍḍha, which formed an important station for Buḍḍhist pilgrims. So one day I said to my