[[1]] *1
To Sir Francis Palgrave
Camp Sikkim Himal:, March 17. 1849
My dear Uncle your kind letter of last March only reached me after my return from
the Snows in the end of January; & I have delayed answering it untill meeting with
Mr. Hodgson, who will see that I do not stray very far from the truth in telling you
what I have seen of the Buddhists -- Lamaism is the new court religion of Sikkim, &
was introduced from Thibet [Tibet] when the Lepchas, the aborigines of the country,
brought a king from beyond the Snows some 3 or 4 centuries ago. Although the
bordering country, Bhotan [Bhutan], had always been Buddhist, Sikkim was not so
before 1400 A.D. The Lepchas had no religious worship whatsoever: they believed in
Demons, & in a presiding spirit who dwelt & still dwells on the top of Kunchain, &
after whom, & his wife Junga, that mountain is named. Exorcists they had in the
shape of Doctors, who scared the Demons out of a sick man, or off the road the
traveller was going to journey.
The Lepchas, & indeed all the aboriginal tribes of India who are now driven into the
holes & corners of the land, are of Mongolian origin. A great majority of these were
early driven from the plains of India, into the Sub--Himalaya, the Vindhya, the Ghats,
&c, by the successive irruptions of the Asians, who now people the whole Gangetic
valley, & who in the remotest parts have mixed but a little with the Aborigines. The
Lepchas probably were never harassed, or occupied any other soil than that they
now do, &, except in their country having fallen under the monastic sway of ] Lhassa,
Sikkim may be supposed to present one of the least disturbed parts of the East. Of
their earliest history I gathered a few fragments from the kind monks; but of the
written records scarce any survived the Ghoukha [Gurkha] war of [blank space in
mss], when their Libraries were burned & temples plundered. In the earliest times
they say a few Buddhist priests immigrated from Thibet, & owing to the difficulty of
the passes & pleasance of the country on this side the snow, were content to remain
in the hills between the Teesta & Great Rungeet rivers. As they grew in numbers
they waged war with the Nepalese & extended their frontier to the Cosi, driving out
the Maghars the then dominant race in East
[[2]] Nepaul. The first part of the story, about Buddhists originally peopling the land,
is affable; as Buddhism is comparatively a recent institution. My informants, however
stuck to it, till it occurred to me to ask how priests bound to celibacy could carry
wives over, or else how people a country. After trying to satisfy me with sundry
fables, one of which tallied with Deucalian’s Exploits, they acknowledges that the
Priests found a people already in Sikkim, in the lowest stage of barbarism, to whose
amelioration they devoted themselves by counsel & intermarriage. In East Nepal I
found ample proof of Sikkim having once extended to the Tambar, and have no
reason to doubt that it did much further West.
On the arrival of the chosen monarch & his 3 Lamas Buddhism became the
acknowledged religion of the land. The priests built temples for worship & Instruction;
& the Lepchas were earnestly invited to listen. These however are a thoughtless
people, who lead a vagrant life; only cultivating a spot as long as the ground yields
10 fold produce without labour. The Bhoteas or Thibet immigrants, on the other
hand, are settlers & industrious, which & other very obvious causes soon led to the
country falling almost wholly into the hands of the Bhothea priests & Chiefs. The
sway of both powers is mild; & the Lepchas are very happy under it; those who
choose turn Buddhist; & any one wishing to worship Kunchain Junga may do so in
the Lama temple. Indeed I found that the animal offerings to the mountain were
made through the priests of Buddh[a]. -- As the influence of the Clergy is great, no
Lepcha can rise to much power except through their good will; &, accordingly, when
a Lepcha finds himself growing rich he at once becomes religious, : the poorer do
not see the use of troubling their heads about the matter. Though so scantily
inhabited, there are 20 temples & convents (monastic habitations) in Sikkim & about
800 priests: the Nunneries are very few & daily diminishing; the nuns being little else
than slaves of the priests.
Of the temples the most ancient were those built on the coming over of the Rajah
from Thibet. They are those of Tassiding [Tashiding], Changachelling [Sanga
Chelling], Pemiongchi [Pemayangtse], & one or two others. Of all those I saw
Tassiding is the most remarkable in point of size & decorations, & as containing no
admixture of modern Hindu worship: in all of the others more or less of the
[[3]] the latter has crept in, with obscenities, in proportion as they are of more recent
origin. There are 3 Temples at Tassiding, placed on the flattened top of a very
remarkable hill buried amongst the mountains of Sikkim. All are used as places of
worship, & contain various adored figures of Budh, of Sakya, & of sundry Lamas &
Rajahs (as the reigning chiefs of Thibet &c are improperly called). In other temples,
women, the wives of the above are also introduced, for some of the Buddhist sects
are allowed to marry, & even have 2 wives: provided they can pay for the
dispensation to the head Lama of Sikkim, who is responsible to Lhassa alone.
Besides the temples there are 2 classes of religious edifices, Chaityas & Mendengs:
the former are monuments raised to or placed over the remains of Lamas or great
people; the latter long stone walls with ledges, along which run parallel rows of
inscribed slabs. The Chait of Sikkim, & I believe of Thibet is always of this form; [a
sketch of Chaitya appears here to the right of the text] the hemisphere is the mystic
portion, the rest, though uniformly similar here are accessory portions. A Temple or
Chait has no further sanctity than as being consecrated to the individual in whose
memory or to whose sanctity it is raised, or to the Buddh or Sakya, who, you know,
were mortal men, whose piety & learning procured for them the attributes of the
Infinite. At Tassiding there are some 50 (I quite forget the number) Chaits close to
the temple, of all heights, from 6 to perhaps 60 feet, surrounded with mendengs, &
Shadowed by weeping cypresses. The Mendeng slabs contain the mystic words “Am
mani Pudini am”? repeated ad infinitum in 3 Thibetan characters. It is as bearing this
sacred invocation to “Him of the Lotus & the Jewel”, (Sakya), that the mendeng is
adored. In short, they hallow the Temple & Chait & mendeng, as we do the church,
the tomb, & the Bible -- the difference appears to me more in degree than in
essences. In either case the worship is transferred from the object to the building , &
consists in little more than repeating the above to all, in walking round, each or any
whenever they occur from right or left, & kotowing where there are no puddles. More
rarely they measure their length all round.
The masonry of the temples is excellent: they are oblong squares tapering from all
sides upward, & roofed with bamboo thatch, which projects many feet to protect the
often rich decorations from the weather. They consist of 2 stories, of one large
apartment each; the lower temple with its altars & images opposite the door, whether
that points E[ast]. W[est] or S[outh].: the upper is a
[[4]] garret for the inferior monks. All the head Lamas & superior monks occupy
houses hardby, mere slits form the windows & give very little light; the walls being 7-9 feet thick below & 2 above; the inner surface is perpendicular,: the other slants
outwards,: this buttress--form of wall gives great strength. A wooden staircase leads
outside to the garret, & a very handsome projecting wooden portico, then a vestibule
to the temple. The walls of both vestibule & temple are plastered & richly covered
with paintings, chiefly of Lamas in prayer, or exhorting. The columns & architraves &
beams are all of wood, the latter beautifully painted & gilded with groups of flowers,
Dragons &c: the projecting ends of the innumerable bearing each a mystic symbol in
gold on a ground of some bright color. The stalls for the books occupy one side. &
opposite the door are the idols, some of very good design, others as bad. Lamas in
prayer are always conspicuous; & one is often the chief, sometimes the only idol. On
the altars before them juniper wood is burned; & there lay the musical instruments,
all very unremarkable; the most so, the perforated human thigh bone, which is either
simple, or sheathed in silver with spreading Dragon--wings. -- Cymbals, sliding
trumpets, trombones 6 & 10 feet long, cups, & great drums, conchs, various utensils
for water, the bell & the darge. At sunset & sunrise the traveller is wakened by these
instruments; & the monks assemble for prayer & worship; when the temple is closed.
Till sunset, the time for a repetition of the music & offerings. On certain festivals the
Temple is open all day; the head Lama always attending & the monks reading &
expounding the scriptures by turns; the Praying cylinders from an inch to 7 feet high,
are in great requisition. On these occasions the people come, lay their offerings on
the altar, are blessed by the Head Lama placing his hands on their heads; & after
kotowing to the idols & lamas they may retire, or stay & listen to the exhortations, or
take a pull at the cylinders as inclination or superstition moves them. Everything
proceeds most orderly, decently, & reverently. The superstitious awe of the people is
very palpable; there is no screaming nor making attitudes: muttered prayer, profound
kotows, & deep attention to the unintelligible scriptures are all you see of the priest-worship; except the wreathing smoke of the incense, & the revolving cylinders,
beating time as each revolution is made. The reading monk sits cross--legged, with
the scroll on his lap, the right hand raised, the 2 first fingers erect in the attitude of
commanding attention. There are many sites and customs in common with
[[5]] those of the Roman Catholic Church. Laying on of hands in the blessing. The
monastic Institutions for males & females. Garb & shorn crowns, altars, pro cessions,
Incense burning, bell, rosary -- cardinal’s hat, glory round the heads of paintings &
images, decorations on the walls of the temples, & much else that will suggest itself
to you; as celibacy, chanted service, penance, &c, &c. Still Mr Hodgson much doubts
any of this being immediately borrowed either from the Nestroian’s Christians (of
whom there are members in Little Bucharia, & who certainly introduced the Alphabet
into the East or from the latter Jesuit missionaries, who quoted the above mentioned
similarities in worship with their own, as the most cunning and effectual device the
Devil could command toward frustrating their proselyting [proselytizing] efforts. The
indifference to the points of the compass in the placing their buildings, to the crucial
form, absence of the crozier, & many other wants, struck me very much; as these
would be more readily adopted or imitated than shaving the head in a cold climate,
or celibacy by the lustiest & most prolific of mountaineers.
I wish I could give you a more lucid account of these matters; but my notes are not
brought together; I am very ignorant. I will send to my father sketches of the temples,
Idols, &c. which may help this lame story, & will further get a better account from
Hodgson of all he knows. In the mean time I would refer you to H[odgson]’s
Buddhistic Researches, in a pamphlet, which Richardson of Cornhill has, -- to
various vols. of Asiatic Researches, to the works of Lassen, Burnouf, Cousin &c.;
though none of these latter are at all explanatory. I have several fine inscribed slabs
from the monks of Pemiongchi, & others in 2 Thibetan characters; but they have cost
me so much already, that I fear I must leave them behind "am Mani Pudini Am" is all
they contain, very beautifully cut. It is most improbable that any inscribed stones will
throw any light on the origin of Buddhism: all are invocations. Even the rock-inscriptions I have seen, with, most rarely, the Lama writer’s name & convent in the
corner. The Jesuits make no mention of the sites being imitated from those of the
early Christians. The histories &c are written on Nepal Paper throughout Thibet. I
have a leaf of the Lepcha history on a black ground with gold letters beautifully
printed by hand by the monks. In the grand Library at Lhassa or Dijaretie there may
be much [more]; but not on the inscribed stones in all probability. Best love to my
Aunt & many congratulations on Frank’s success. Ever your affectionate nephew |
Jos. D. Hooker.
[[6]] P.S. Pray ask me definite questions & I will do my best to get the answered. The
Lepchas have a traditionary Deluge. & I can answer for the Himal. having been
under water to 17,000 feet since the tertiary Epoch, but that is higher than mount
Arafat. I saw a "Fo" In a Nepalese temple.
ENDNOTES
1. This letter is a copy, written in a hand not that of the original author, JDH, and is
not signed by him. The copy was probably made by JDH's mother or sister so that
one version could be circulated amongst friends and family.
Please note that work on this transcript is ongoing. Users are advised to study
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