An Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet - Prajna Quest

TIBET. -317they fell to the ground. They had acquired indeed such an apparentintimacy with man, that they would sometimes take these pellets evenfrom his hand ; Avhile kites and eagles kept at a loftier distance, andsoared above, watching where they should descend next, and sharewith dogs and ravens in the funeral obsequies.The tribute of respect is paid, in this region, to the manes of thedead, in various ways.The sovereign Lamus are deposited entire, inshrines prepared for tiieir remains, which ever after are looked uponas sacred, and visited with religious awe. The bodies of inferiorLamas are usually burnt, and their ashes preserved with great care inlittle metallic idols, which have places assigned them in their sacredcabinets. Common subjects are treated with less ceremony ;some ofthem are carried to lolty eminences, where, after having been disjointed,and the limbs divided, they are lefta prey for ravens, kites, and othercarnivorous birds. Others, with less respect, are committed to theusual receptacle of the dead. The last, but less frequent, mode ofdisposing of the dead, iscommitting them to the waters of the river.Burial, that is, inhuming the corpse entire in the earth, is altogetherunpractised.On one side of the monastery of Teshoo Loomboo Isaw the place,the Golgotha, if I may so call it, to which they convey their dead.It was a spacious area, enclosed on one part by the perpendicularrock, and on the others by lofty walls, raised probably with a viewto seclude from public observation, the disgusting objects containedwithin them. At the top it was totally uncovered, so as to be perfectlyopen to the birds ; and at the bottom a narrow passage was left