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

318 TIBET.through the walls, near their foundation, for the sole purpose of admittingdogs, or other beasts of prey. On the rock above, a platformoverhung the inclosure, which had been constructed for theconveniencyof precipitating the dead bodies with greater ease, over the walls,into the area. And here, I understood, the only rites performed, inhonour of the dead, were merely such as tended to facilitate the destructionof the body by dogs, or birds of prey.But though this wasthe general receptacle, yet there were some who declined the use ofit, and conveyed their friends to the summit of some neighbouringhillj where, 1 was told, they disjointed and mangled the dead body,that it might become a more easy prey to carnivorous birds. I concluded,that there was a strong prejudice in their minds, of some ideaof pollution attached to " being given to the dogs,"' which was sufficientto create a prelerence of the contrary practice.In Tibet, as well as in Bengal, an annual festival is kept in honour ofthe dead. On the 29th of October, as soon as the evening drew on,and it became dark, a general illumination was displayed upon thesummits of all the buildings in the monastery ; the tops also of thehouses upon the plain, as well as in the most distant villages, scatteredamong the clusters of willows, were in the same manner lighted upwith lamps, exhibiting alltogether, a brilliant and splendid spectacle.The night was dark, the weather calm, and the lights burnt with aclear and steady flame.The Tibetians reckon these circumstances ofthe first importance, as, on the contrary, they deem it a most evilomen if the weather be stormy, and their lights extinguished by thewind or rain.