China | Gansu Province | Labrang Monastery

Someone told me the best place to stay in Xiahe, the tiny village around the monastery, was the Tara Guesthouse, but they did not tell me how to find this place. No matter, the moment I got off the bus a young Tibetan guy came up to me and said, "Taxi to Tara Guesthouse?" The guesthouse turned out to be a half mile or so west and only a hundred feet from the southeast corner of the monastery. When I went in and asked for a room, a young, thin, Tibetan guy asked me what country I was from and when I said the USA he said, "Do you know Tara?" I thought he meant did I know about the goddess Tara who of course I have written about many times on this blog (see Zanabazar Museum post below). I said yes, I knew about Tara, to which he replied, "Well, she called from New York City this morning and told me I was to expect an American guest arriving this afternoon." For a moment I was confused. Was Tara now communicating with people via the international phone lines? Finally I asked, "What exactly is Tara doing in New York?" The guy replied, "She is there on business, but she will be back here in two or three weeks." It turns out the Tara is the name of the Tibetan woman who runs and apparently owns this guesthouse. I was not, as far as I know, the American she was expecting to arrive today.

Anyhow, the guesthouse has a dozen or so rooms arranged around an open courtyard. I got one of the deluxe rooms for 60 yuan, or about eight dollars, a night. This had a sleeping platform in it with two mattresses and a low table inbetween. Very comfortable. The bathroom was on the opposite side of courtyard, and there was hot water every morning from seven to nine for washing up.

I immediately headed for the Khora, the circumabulation route around the monastery, an entrance to which was just fifty feet from the front entrance to the questhouse. I have done a lot of these khoras and this turned out to be one of the most impressive I have ever seen. As I finally discovered, it is 1.9 miles long, encircling the entire monastery complex, and is lined on three side with barrel-sized prayer wheels. Every few hundred feet the line is broken by a small pavilion with two similar sized prayer wheels in the entranceway and an eight-foot high one in a back room. In total there are supposedly 1174 prayers wheels, although I did not try to count them myself.

Even now, at four in the afternoon, there are several hundred Tibetans doing the Khora, many in traditional clothes, with the women draped in elaborate silver, torquoise, and coral jewelry. From where I started the khora runs south and then west along the bank of the surging Daxia River, yellow like the Yellow River and about seventy-five feet wide at this point. Across the river rise steep hills covered with sparkling green grass and copses of fir trees, quite a different scene from the badlands around Lanzhou. At one point between the khora and the river are a row of workshops where artisans are turned out clay statues and wood carvings. One statue of Buddha, the lotus base and body up to the navel already completed, will be at least seven feet tall when done. Standing in the back of the workshop are four foot high statues of Green Tara and Amitayus, the clay work of which is done but as of yet not painted or glazed, or however they will be finished. The wood carvings are apparently ornaments for over doorways. The line of prayer wheels is broken here and there with entrances to several temples and each is decorated with quite eloborate wood carvings, all of obviously recent provenance.

One such entrance leads to the 31 meter high Gongtang Stupa. To enter the temple at the base of the stupa and climb to the top level requires a ten yuan ticket. In the temple a very surly Tibetan monk barked at me, demanding to see my ticket. He seemed surprised when I had one, in fact disapppointed, as if he was looking forward to showing me the door. Anyhow, I circled the very elaborate temple, in the middle of which are stacked in a huge pile reaching up into the second floor some 20,000 volumes of Tibetan Buddhist texts. At the back of the temple was a nice statue of White Tara and beside it an offering bowl where people had deposited a big pile of yuan bills. I got out a 20 togrog Mongolian bill and propped it up on one side of the offering plate. At a another plate further on I left another 20 togrog note. When I came back to this temple the next day the big piles of yuan were still there but both togrog bills are gone. This bills have a depiction of a Mongolian nobleman wearing a traditional Mongolian hat on them and of course Mongolian writing in both Cyrillic and Tradition Mongolian scripts and I knew from previous trips to Tibet that these bills were highly prized for their curiousity value. In fact I exchanged several of them for yuan at twenty or thirty times their actual value. Still, I was a bit surprized someone had filched them from the offering plates. This is no-no in a temple. But perhaps I should be blamed for creating the temptation.

I proceeded up through the second and third floors of the stupa and emerged on the top floor, where in the traditional niche in the stupa is a six foot high statue of Amitabha. Also from this vantage point is a great view of the entire monastery complex stretching out to the north, with the glittering copper roofs of the main temples at the base of the mountains about a half mile away.

Continuing on the khora I crossed the the main road of Xiahe, which cuts right through the middle of the monastery complex and proceed along the khora to the northwest corner of the compound, where the prayer wheels end. From here the khora cuts east between the northern wall of the monastery and the very steep hillside behind. After another twenty minutes or so I was back to where I started. Conveniently, the Gesar Restaurant was just across the way so I popped in for some butter tea and a plate of momos, Tibetan dumplings. I love Tibetan food, but I have to admit I have had a lot better. Also in the restaurant were six young Tibetan monks aged perhaps ten through twelve stuffing their noodle chutes while keeping their eyes glued on the Woody Woodpecker cartoons (dubbed in Chinese) playing on the TV.

I went back to my hotel only to discover that in the room next to me that the young Chinese woman who had sat next to me on the bus here. I had established very early that she did not speak a word of English, and she soon had her headphones of her MPEG player and was lost to the music, but I could not help staring at her several times. She appeared to be a Chinese version of a girl who had been in my class in high school. Actually, I had probably not thought of this person in thirty years, but now her double, or a least a Chinese version of her double, was sitting next to me. The resemblance was uncanny.

I got up just at daybreak the next day and did the whole khora again. Then breakfast of pancakes covered with local honey. This seems to be a big product around here. Curiously the trucks with the hives that we passed were headed to Xiahe and not to lower country as one would expect at this time of the year. Here at 9600 feet summer and the flowering season for plants is pretty much over. In any case, the honey was delicious.

After breakfast I headed over to the main part of the monastery. Labrang was founded in 1709 and quickly developed into one of the leading Gelug, or Yellow Hat monasteries. It had six colleges and in its heyday had over 4000 monks in residence. Of course the communist takeover of China and the subsequent Cultural Revolution took its toll, with many of the temples and stupas destroyed or damaged, but now once again Labrang is, at least according to its boosters, the largest university of Tibetan Buddhism in the world, with six colleges, forty-eight temples, 2000 monks, and over 20,000 volumes of sutras.

You can now walk around the monastery grounds pretty much as you wish, but unlike many Yellow Hat monasteries in Tibet the temples are all locked and are only opened to the public twice a day when a monk or two gives a guided tour lasting about an hour. Whether this situation prevails in the wintertime when Tibetans traditionally go on pilgrimages and flock to temples such as these is unclear. Anyhow, I joined a group of about thirty people, all of whom were in three different groups on extended tours of China, Labrang just being one of their stops. There was one group from France, one from Australia, and one from England. As far as I could tell none of them were Buddhists and for them this was just another tourist attraction on their itinerary. As it turned out, one of the Tibetan guides with one of the tour groups led the tour, and not a monk, as it was said his English was better.

We only got to look at three temples: the Medicine Buddha Temple, connected with the College of Tibetan Medicine, the so-called Grand Gold Tile Hall, and the huge Grand Sutra Hall, the center of the monastery. Curiously, in both the Gold Tile Hall and the Grand Sutra Hall there were prominently displayed photographs of the 14th Dalai Lama, something you will seldom if ever see in Tibet itself. There were of course photographs also of the last Panchen Lama and his young successor, the one chosen by the government and not the Dalai Lama's pick. The guide gave a brief introduction to the idea of reincarnated lamas and how they are chosen, and mentioned the line of reincarnated lamas here at Labrang. All of these seemed to be news to many in the tour groups, despite the plethora of books, TV specials, movies, and whatnot on this subject in recent years. Then in the Grand Sutra Hall there was another photo of the current Panchen Lama, just a boy in his teens, and the guide let slip that this one was chosen by the government. Someone in the tour group, who had obviously paying attention to his little spiel on how reincarnations are chosen, piped up, "But how can the government determine who is a reincarnation?" "Well, you see, now, this is a political decision," and very quickly shooed the group out of the hall." The Grand Sutra Hall, by the way, is immense, with 140 pillars and said to be capable of holding 4000 chanting monks at a time.

China | Gansu Province | Xiahe

From Lanzhou I took the morning bus to Xiahe, the town connected with Labrang Monastery. From Lanzhou from Linxia there is a new four-lane highway complete with impressive bridges arching over deep valleys and one tunnel 2.4 miles long. Linxia itself seems to be inhabited almost entirely by Huis, Chinese Moslems. Almost every man in the city is wearing the distinctive white cap of the Hui Moslems, and most of the adult women are in black veils that frame but so not cover the face. There must be a dozen or more mosques in the city. Although the surrounding hills are dessicated and desert-like the broad river bottom seems incredibly fertile with impressive fields of corn, potatoes, sunflowers, and wheat. The wheat has been cut and is drying in shocks exactly like the ones made on American farms when I was a child. The streets of the city are lined with vegetable vendors, and whenever the bus stops people run up to the windows selling apples, huge plums, pears, grapes, and melons.

Past Linxia the four lane died and we entered a long period of road construction. Bizarrely, we got behind a huge tractor trailer truck loaded with bee hives. The truck itself was surrounded by millions of bees and we had to keep all our windows closed. We no sooner got by this truck than we got stuck behind yet another loaded with hives. After bumping along for several hours we emerged on a brand new two lane highway and sailed the last twenty miles into Xiahe.

Xiahe itself, located at 9600 feet altitude, is just one street and cannot, apart from monks, have a population of more than a thousand or two. Labrang Monastery, with several thousand monks in residence, is the big attraction here. Labrang is one of the six main monasteries of the Gelug sect of Tibetan Buddhism - four in Tibet and two in China. Now I have been to them all.

China | Gansu Province | Lanzhou

From Beijing I winged west 800 miles to Lanzhou, in Gansu Province, the old Silk Road city at the eastern end of the Hexi Corridor, the narrow passageway between the inhospitable deserts to the north and the impassable mountains to the south. Lanzhou is now a city of over three million, stretched out in a narrow ribbion for at least twenty miles in the narrow valley of the Yellow River.

The airport is forty-five miles from town, apparently since there is no flat space nearer. The country from the airport to town is barren, dessicated hills, looking in some places like the Badlands of South Dakota.

As soon as I got to town I headed for Baita Park, on the other side of the Yellow River, which actually is yellow. According to published sources, each square meter of water contains seventy pounds of silt. A half hour climb up the steep hills rising almost from the river bank brought me to the so-called White Stupa. The reason for this trip was to if possible discover if this stupa is the tomb of Sakya Pandita, the thirteenth century Tibetan lama who was instrumental in first introducing Buddhism to Mongolians. My guidebooks says the stupa "may" have been erected on the orders of Chingis Khan to honor a Tibetan lama who had impressed him for one reason or another. This is highly unlikely, since it was Chingis's grandson Kodan who first invited Tibetan lamas to Lanzhou and was apparently converted to Buddhism by them.

Sakya Pandita did die in Lanzhou and was buried in a stupa here, but it is still unclear if it is the White Stupa now found on the top of one of the hills in Baita Park. Some sources say this stupa in fact dates from the Ming Dynasty. In fact, the bottom half of the stupa is built in the traditional Tibetan style, while the top half of the seventeen meter high structure is in the form of a Chinese pagoda. This suggests that the Tibetan stupa existed first, built during the Mongol period, and the that the Chinese pagoda top was added later, perhaps during the Ming Dynasty. There seems to be no tourist literature about this in English, and I cannot find any scholarly references either. So it remains uncertain if in fact Sakya Pandita is buried here.

I spent two more days tramping around Lanzhou looking at all remaining historical sites and did not see another identifiable foreigner the whole time. Even Western franchizes are in short suppy here: all I saw was a half dozen or so Colonel Sander's Fried Chicken outlets and a supposedly authorized Apple dealer selling iPods.

China｜Beijing | Turpan

Ran out of green tea so I had to pop down to Beijing to buy some more. Ms R and I had dinner at our favorite Uighur restaurant. The owner and waitresses in this place are all from the city of Turpan in Xinjiang, located in the Turpan Depression several hundred feet below sea level and famous for its grapes and hospitality.


Ms R

The grape trellis-covered main thoroughfare of Turpan, where I visited several years ago.


The Mosque in Turpan

Monument on the lake bed of Iding Lake near Turpan, indicating the second lowest place on earth, after the Dead Sea - 505 feet below sea level. Contrary to expectations I did not get reverse altitude sickness here. The temperature, however, was a blistering 118 degree F.

Mongolia | Khentii Aimag | Yestiyn Rashaan #2

Unfortunately, the roof of the main bathhouse at Yestiyn Rashaan has fallen in - probably from snow overload - rendering three of the baths within unusable. Given the remoteness of these hotsprings it is no telling if or when the bathhouses will be repaired.


One of a dozen or more mineral springs which were studied by Zanabazar. Each is by tradition supposed to affect a different part of the body. The sign at each springs tells what is is supposed to be used for.

Mongolia | Khentii Aimag | Continental Divide

Our group at Biren Buren Pass, the Continental Divide of Inner Asia. East of here drains into the Kherlen River, in the Pacific Ocean Watershed, and west of here into the Tuul River, in the Arctic Ocean watershed.

Mongolia | Khentii Aimag | Yestiyn Rashaan

Just completed a 180 kilometer horse trip from Mongonmort to the Yestiyn Hotsprings in Khentii Aimag and back.

Historical Consultant and horse wrangler Mojik

Ruins of Sardgiyn Khiid, monastery founded by Zanabazar in 1654 and destroyed by Galdan Bolshigt in 1688.


The bath houses at Yestiyn Hotsprings. These hotsprings were frequented by Zanabazar, who did a detailed study of their medicinal properties.

Mongolia | Ulaan Baatar | Zanabazar Art Museum

“During his lifetime, he was the greatest Buddhist sculptor in Asia.”—Art Historian Patricia Berger, on Zanabazar

Wandered into the Zanabazar Fine Arts Museum. I have of course been here dozens of times but I went back again for one more look at Zanabazar’s art works. There is also an art show by ubiquitous Mongolian Buddhist artist Purevbat in progress but the walls are plastered with signs warning that photography is prohibited and violators will be prosecuted, so no photos of that.

Anyhow, when you enter the main part of the museum you are first confronted with a large statue of the museum’s namesake on a landing off the staircase to the second floor. Just beyond, the middle hall on the second floor contains as its centerpiece Zanabazar’s magnificent twenty-seven inch-high Sitatara, or White Tara, considered by many to be his greatest work.




White Tara
Zanabazar came about his devotion to Tara naturally. The famous Tibetan lama Taranatha, believed to be the previous incarnation of Zanabazar (see Incarnations of Javsandamba), was the author of The Golden Rosary Illuminating the Origins of the Tantra of Tara, one of the main texts of the Tara mythologem, and was himself one of the main proponents of the so-called Cult of Tara. (Taranatha also wrote History of Buddhism in India.) During Zanabazar’s first trip to Tibet (1649-51) he visited Punksokling Monastery, which had been established by Taranatha in 1614, and acquired there several works of art, some of which may have been Taras which later inspired his own work. According to legend the White Tara in the Zanabazar Art Museum is modeled on Zanabazar’s wife or consort, Dorjiinnaljirmaa, as a young teen-aged woman. Curiously, monks now tell two versions of this legend. In one Dorjiinnaljirmaa was a beautiful girl as depicted in the Tara statue. In another version Dorjiinnaljirmaa was remarkably ugly, and the statue represents an idealized version of her. It should be noted that this statue of White Tara has been known to have a strange effect on whose who view it. Two people I know claim that while standing in front of the statue Tara actually spoke to them inside their heads, while others assert that they had vivid dreams about Tara after viewing the statue. I myself was first inspired to write Guide to Locales Connected with Life of Zanabazar while standing here in front of White Tara.

In the same room with White Tara are four of Zanabazar’s famous set of five Transcendent, or Dhyana Buddhas. Each is twenty-eight inches high, similar in general design, but with distinctive hand gestures associated with each Buddha and slightly different facial expressions and ornamentation. This set of five statues was created by Zanabazar in 1683, presumably at his workshop at Tovkhon. The record is unclear, but the statues may be been intended for Sardgiyn Khiid, the construction of which was nearing completion at that time and which Zanabazar meant to make the center of Buddhism in Mongolia. The Five Transcendent Buddhas are:




Akshobya—Hands in earth-touching gesture; represents the Center of the Buddhist universe, suppresses wrath.


Vairocana—Hands in gesture of “turning the wheel of the law”; represents the East, suppresses ignorance.


Amitabha—Hands folded in contemplation; represents the West, suppresses passion.


Amoghasiddhi—One hand raised in the “fear not” gesture; represents the North, suppresses envy.
Ratnasambhava (currently located in the Choijin Lama Museum)—Hand outstretched in charity; represents the South, suppresses pride.

A foot-high bronze Buddha is attributed by the museum to Zanabazar, and a twenty-two inch high standing Manjusri, the Bodhisattva of Wisdom, is attributed to Zanabazar or his school.



Manjusri

The large painting of Zanabazar is according to tradition a self-portrait, done by Zanabazar himself, although art historians have pointed out Chinese influences in the painting which would have been alien to Zanabazar own style. Curiously, he is shown here with a full head of hair, instead of conspicuously bald, as he appears in most statues. A portrait of Zanabazar’s mother Kandjamts is also by tradition attributed to Zanabazar, although it is done in much the same style and the “self-portrait” and probably dates from a later period. There is also a chart showing Zanabazar’s famous Soyombo script which he invented in 1686 to transcribe Mongolian, Tibetan, and Sanskrit words, as well a red mineral paint handprint on silk cloth said to be from Zanabazar‘s own hand.

On the staircase leading to the second floor is a large painting identified as the “Red Warrior” by famous Russian artist, mystic, and Shambhalist Nicholas Roerich. This is probably the painting “Ruler of Shambhala” which Roerich donated to the Mongolian government when he visited Ulaan Baatar in 1927. According to Mongolian tradition the last Bogd Gegen will be reborn as a general in the army of the 25th King of Shambhala and lead the final battle against the enemies of Buddhism. Traditionally the King of Shambhala’s horse was blue, but Roerich may have made it red as a sop to the new communist rulers of Mongolia, who in 1924 had renamed the capital Ulaan Baatar (Red Warrior).

The museum has many other items connected with Zanabazar, including thangkas depicting various of the seven Bogd Gegens who succeeded him. As of this writing most of these are not on public display but they might well be in the future. Also, be advised that since Zanabazar’s works are considered world-class art they are often out on loan to museums around the world. Sometimes lesser pieces are placed the same display cases without making it clear that they are not in fact works of the Master. For instance, the stupa now on display in the main Zanabazar room is not Zanabazar’s famous bronze stupa usually found here, but a School of Zanabazar work. The stupa by Zanabazar is currently on loan to a museum in Germany.

Mongolia | Jewish Community

Here's some news. There is a Jewish Community in Mongolia. A rabbi from Irkutsk, in Siberia (where I used to live, by the way), just visited Ulaan Baatar. I knew there were lots of Israelis and Jewish tourists from elsewhere here, but no "community."

Rabbi Aaron Wagner visiting herdspeople (not my photo)

Mongolia | Zanabazar Hoopla

All kinds of news on the Zanabazar Front. On July 29-30 there was a Danshig Naadam held in honor of Zanabazar’s 370th birthday at Erdene Zuu, with newly elected Mongolian president Enkhbayar and host of other dignitaries in attendance.

New President Enkhbayar receiving the Seal of Mongolia from outgoing president Bagabandi (not my photo)

The first Danshig Naadam in Zanabazar’s honor was held in 1653 after his return from his first trip to Tibet. Like at the first one the traditional horse races, wrestling, and archery contests took place at the latest shindig. Unfortunately, I was in China stuffing myself with dumplings at the time and unable to attend. I also heard there was a celebration at Yeson Zuil and that there are plans to construct eight new stupas on the site of the old Eight Stupa Temple which was destroyed in the 1930s. This temple reportedly marked the spot where Zanabazar was born. I will post more details on this as they become available.

Then it was announced that a monument in Zanabazar’s honor is to be constructed in front of Gandan Monastery.

As one of his last acts in office outgoing president Bagabandi and his wife (center) showed up at Gandan Monastery

Finally an art show featuring the works of ubiquitous Mongolian Buddhist artist Purevbat opened with a blizzard of media coverage at the Zanabazar Art Museum, this also in honor of Zanabazar’s 370th birthday . . .

Banner heralding Purevbat's art show at the Zanabazar Art Museum