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TOPOGRAPHY. 58
Buddha " has for the last twelve hundred years been the most hallowed spot in East
Asia. AVhen its shadow is projected by the setting sun on the azure sky all work
ceases in the city. The inhabitants gather in groups on the terraces, in the streets
and public places, casting themselves prostrate on the ground, and raising a muffled
evening song of praise towards the sacred shrine.
The city
stretches south of the holy mount along the right bank of the Kichu,
a large affluent of the Tsangbo. Although 11,580 feet high, or 480 feet above the
highest peak in the Pyrenees, the surrounding district is covered with vegetation,
thanks to its more southern latitude and sheltered position. The streets are broad
and regular, and flanked by whitewashed houses of stone, brick, and earth. One
of the quarters is entirely built of the interlaced horns of sheep and cattle in
alternating layers of various forms and colours. These horns, the interstices of
which are filled in with mortar, lend themselves to an endless variety of design,
imparting to the houses the most fantastic appearance.
The towns and villages of the neighbourhood derive, like Lassa itself, more
importance from their goupa, or monasteries, than from their trade and industries.
During the feasts of the new year, when the monks enter the town on foot or
mounted on horses, asses, or oxen loaded with prayer-books and cooking utensils,
the streets, squares, avenues, and courts are covered with tents. The whole civil
population seems now to have disappeared, or to have given place to the lamas.
The Government officials themselves have no longer any authority, and the religious
element takes possession of the city for six days. After visiting the convent of
Muru, where they purchase their supplies of devotional works in the printing
i'-tablishments, the priests withdraw to their respective monasteries, and the city
resumes its normal aspect.
Most of the gonpa are simply groups of little houses with narrow, crooked
streets radiating from a central edifice containing the shrines and library. But
some of the thirty convents around Lassa have become veritable palaces, enriched
by the offerings of generations of pilgrims. That of Dclang, some 4 miles west of
the city, is said to have from seven thousand to eight thousand lamas. The
monastery of Prebiing, or the " Ten Thousand Fruits," receives the Mongolian
priests yearly visiting the Dalai-lama. No less celebrated are &era with its five
thousand five hundred inmates, and Galdan, 30 miles north-east of Lassa, ren-
dered illustrious as the residence of Tsonkhapa, reformer of Tibetan Buddhism.
But the most famous is Srtmvye/i , said to have been built by Shakya-muni, and one
of the largest and wealthiest in Tibet. It is enclosed by a lofty circular wall nearly
2 miles in extent, and its temple, whose walls are covered with beautiful Sanskrit
iiiM-ript ions, contains numerous statues of pure gold covered with precious stones
and costly robes. The head of this convent is popularly supposed to stretch his
power beyond the grave, rewarding and punishing
charge is the Government treasury.
the souls of the dead. In his
Sainayeh lies some 24 miles to the west of the important town of C/ictaiig, on
the right bank of the Tsangbo, and the starting-point for traders proceeding to
Bhutan and Assam. The frontier entrepot in this direction is Chona-jong, where