as a black, bony, four-armed lady with barred teeth, riding a horse. In her upper right hand she holds a chopper, and her second right arm holds a large red scull cup. h e upper let hand brandishes a diamond-shaped dagger. h e body of the goddess is covered with snakes, wreaths made of human skulls, and necklaces of severed heads. Her own head is topped with a crown of l owers. h e upper part of her body is covered with elephant skin and her hips with skin of an ox. Sometimes she is also pictured as standing amid a cemetery.

A gory legend, which one will never i nd in current cof ee-table books about Tibetan Buddhism, recounts how this goddess turned into such a ferocious being. Palden Lhamo was married to the king of Ceylon, who did not care about Buddhism, and that drove her crazy. As a die-hard true believer, Palden Lhamo took a horrible oath: if she failed to convert her husband to the true faith, she would destroy all her children in order to interrupt the royal lineage so hostile to Buddha’s creed.

No matter how hard she tried, the goddess could not convert her ini del husband, and, eventually, while the king was away, she had to fuli ll her terrible oath by murdering their only son. Not only did the queen kill the little one, but she also skinned him, ate his l esh, and drank his blood from a skull cup. Having completed this ferocious act, Palden Lhamo saddled her horse, using the son’s skin as a saddle, and galloped northward. Furious, the devastated father shot at her with a poisonous arrow and hit her horse. h e runaway queen pulled out the arrow and uttered magic words: “May the wound of my horse become an eye large enough to overtake the twenty-four regions, and may I myself extirpate the race of these malignant kings of Ceylon!” Sadly, the legend does not have a happy ending. Unpunished, the sadistic mother continued her journey through India, Tibet, and Mongolia, eventually settling in southern Siberia. 20 One does not need to guess twice to i gure out the brutal moral of the story: loyalty to one’s faith is supreme.

Modern-day literature about Tibetan Buddhism, which has been adjusted to Western ideas of human rights and universal peace, does not mention these facts from the past lives of the terrible ones, which is 15

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perfectly i ne: people who do not wish to be stuck in a medieval time tunnel usually change their religion and move on. For example, Celestial Gallery, an oversized cof ee-table book composed by current ad-herents of Tibetan Buddhism in the West, asks us not to fear Palden Lhamo’s garlands of skulls because she is simply “the wrathful mother who tramples on the enemies of complacency and self-deception” and challenges us to step on the path of spiritual evolution. h e same book also reveals that her demonic forms symbolize our own dark forces we have to deal with. 21

h e worship of wrathful dharmapalas was, and still is, very popular in the Tibetan Buddhist world. Common folk believe that prayers to the terrible ones are more ef ective than those addressed to benevolent gods, who are good anyway. In the past, to appease the ears of Palden Lhamo, Mahakala, Begtse, and other angry gods, lamas usually played thighbone trumpets made from human or tiger thighbones. Equally pleasing for these deities were sounds produced by skull drums made of human skins stretched over two human craniums. People could solicit the help of these gods through various of erings. h e most ef ective one, at least in the past, was blood, preferably from humans. h e best

blood was to be taken from a corpse or extracted from people suf ering from a contagious disease, for example leprosy. Menstrual blood of widows and prostitutes was also considered very ef ective. Another type of good blood could come from the blade of a sword or from a young healthy man killed during battle. 22 h e text of a 1903 sacrii cial prayer addressed to Genghis Khan (who had been turned into a protective deity) to ward of enemies of the faith, robbers, and lawbreakers prescribed, “Mix the following in brandy in equal parts: the blood of a man who has been killed, swarf from an iron bar by which a man has been killed, and of er this with l our, butter, milk and black tea. When this kind of sacrii ce is of ered, without any omission, then one will certainly be able to master anything, be it acts of war, enemies, robbers, brigands, the curses of hated opponents, or any adversity.” 23

16

As soon as Maitreya is born, he will walk seven steps forward, and where he puts down his feet a jewel or a lotus will spring up. He will raise his eyes to the ten directions, and will speak these words: “h is is my last birth. h

ere

will be no more rebirth at er this one. Never will I come back here, but, all pure, I shall win Nirvana!”

—Prophecy of Buddha Maitreya

Two

Power for the Powerless:

The Mongol-Tibetan World and Its

Prophecies

In modern times, the people of Mecca were no longer a threat to Tibetan Buddhism. In fact, now the mlecca were on the defensive, trying to shield themselves from the advances of Western civilization.

Beginning around the 1500s, Moslem encroachments on the followers of Buddha subsided, replaced by assertive advances by the Chinese, later joined by the Russians and, at the very end of the nineteenth century, by the English. h ese new “barbarians” did not care about converting the Mongols and Tibetans to their religions. h eir major interests were power and land for the Chinese and Russians, and trade for the English.

In the 1600s and 1700s, the Manchu Dynasty that ruled China secured control over Mongolia, Tuva, and Tibet. In the meantime, the Russian Empire rolled into southern Siberia and the Far East, taking over the Altai and Trans-Baikal area, clashing with China over spheres of inl uence. Finally, in the 1890s, Britain, i rmly established in India, began banging on the gates of Tibet, demanding that the “Forbidden Kingdom” open itself to international trade. When it refused, in 1904, like a bolt of lightning, the English thrust into the heart of Tibet, crushing Buddha’s warriors armed with swords and antiquated muskets. China and Russia did not like such aggressive advances in their backyard, and 19

C H A P T E R T W O

soon the three powers became involved in the Great Game over who would control Inner Asia.

Rulers of China and Russia subdued the princes in Mongol-Tibetan countries and turned them into their vassals, leaving Buddhist clergy alone. Frequently, Buddhist monks were pitted against secular princes, who were treated as potential rebels. In the 1600s and 1700s, Tibetan Buddhism began to l ourish, and lamas were free to conduct missionary work. As a result, by the end of the eighteenth century the “yellow faith”

had spread all over Mongolia and made successful inroads in southern Siberia. h e privileged status of the Buddhist teaching, which eventually crippled secular power, might explain why later monasteries and monks usually headed social and political movements in the Tibetan-Mongol world. It also explains why, in modern times, at i rst Tibet and then Mongolia became theocracies (states headed by clergy).

Tibet was ruled by the Dalai Lama (“Ocean of Wisdom” in Tibetan), the chief religious leader and administrator. Yet he did not enjoy total power. h e Panchen Lama, abbot of the Tashilumpho monastery, traditionally exercised control over the eastern part of the country. Panchen Lamas, whom many viewed as the spiritual leaders of Tibet, did not pay taxes and even had small armies. h is special status originated from the seventeenth century, when Lobzang Gyaltsen, abbot of the Tashilumpho monastery, spiritually guided the i t h Dalai Lama (1617–82), the great reformer who built up Tibet. As a gesture of deep gratitude to his spiritual teacher, the Lhasa ruler endowed the abbot with the title of Panchen Lama, “Great Scholar,” and granted Tashilumpho a special tax-exempt status. In modern times, this privileged status of the Panchen Lamas became a liability, undermining and chipping away Tibetan unity and sovereignty, to the joy of its close neighbors, some of whom did not miss any chance to pit the Ocean of Wisdom against the Great Scholar.

h eologically speaking, Panchens stood even higher than Dalai Lamas. Tashilumpho abbots were considered the reincarnation of Buddha Amitabha (one of the i ve top Buddhas, in addition to Gautama), 20

P O W E R F O R T H E P O W E R L E S S

whereas Dalais were only reincarnations of Avalokitesvara, who was only a bodhisattva and the manifestation of Buddha Amitabha. 1 Besides, the faithful linked Panchens to the Shambhala prophecy; at the end of the eighteenth century one of the Tashilumpho abbots composed a guidebook to this great northern land of spiritual bliss and plenty, 2

and many monks came to believe that in the future the Great Scholar would be reborn as a Shambhala king to deliver people from existing miseries. Despite such impeccable religious credentials, real power in Tibet belonged to the Dalai Lama.

In Mongolia, traditionally much power was concentrated in the hands of the Bogdo-gegen (Great Holy One). h is third most prominent man in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, at er the Dalai and the Panchen, was considered the reincarnation of the famous Tibetan scholar Taranatha, who had lived in the 1500s. At i rst, Bogdo reincarnations were found among Mongol princely families, but, haunted by the specter of Mongol separatism, the Manchu emperors curtailed this practice and ordered that all new Bogdo come only from Tibet. 3 At er the country freed itself from the Chinese in 1912, the Great Holy One was elevated to the head of the state and, just like Tibet, Mongolia became a theocracy.

Tibetan Buddhist countries were mostly populated by nomads who raised horses and sheep. About 30 percent of the entire male population were lamas. Tibet was the only country that, besides the nomads, had large groups of peasants and crat smen. As parts of the Chinese Empire, Mongolia, Tibet, and Tuva, as well as the Kalmyk, Buryat, and Altaians within the Russian Empire enjoyed considerable self-rule. As long as they recognized themselves as subjects of their empires and agreed to perform a few services (usually protecting the frontiers and paying tribute), they were let alone. Moreover, in China, the Manchu Dynasty, following the old tactics of divide and rule, went further, segregating Tibetan Buddhist people from the rest of the populations. Mongols and Tibetans were not allowed to mingle with the Chinese, wear their clothing, or learn their language. At the same time, Chinese peasants were forbidden to settle in Tibet and Mongolia.

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C H A P T E R T W O

At the end of the nineteenth century everything changed. Famine and population pressure in China put an end to no-settlement policies.

While mountainous Tibet was of little interest, the pasturelands of the Mongols looked very appealing, and the Manchu began to squeeze them from their native habitats and curtail their traditional law. By the beginning of the twentieth century, southern (Inner) Mongolia was l ooded with Chinese, and in all major cities of the northern (Outer) part of the country, Mongol oi cials were replaced with Chinese mandarins.

Simultaneously, between the 1880s and 1910s, at er serfdom in Russia was terminated, hundreds of thousands of settlers l ocked to southern Siberia in search of good pasture and plow lands. Although Siberia was large enough to absorb many of these newcomers, in the Altai and the Trans-Baikal, the most lucrative settlement areas, Russian newcomers began to clash with local nomads over land. Between 1896 and 1916, to speed up colonization and link the eastern borderlands to the rest of the country, the Russian government built the Trans-Siberian railroad.

To the dismay of indigenous folk, the Russian Empire, like its Manchu counterpart, cracked down on their traditional self-rule and law. Jealous of Russian advances and fearful that the Russians would roll southward into Mongolia and on to the Far East, the Chinese doubled their colonization moves, expanding to Manchuria and further into Inner Mongolia, where the number of Mongols soon shrank to 33 percent.

Replicating Russian steps in Siberia, in 1906 the Chinese government built a railroad to Inner Mongolia, drawing this borderland area closer to Beijing. h e centuries-old policy of noninterference was shredded.

From then on there would be no peace between the Mongols and the Chinese. As one historian of the period wrote, the entire Mongol history in the i rst half of the twentieth century became saturated with anti-Chinese sentiments. 4

Although the rugged terrain of Tibet did not attract the hordes of settlers and it was fortunate to avoid the fate of Mongolia, the Forbidden Kingdom was not immune to anti-Chinese sentiments. Tibetans equally distrusted the Manchu Empire, which wrecked their sovereignty in 1908

22

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by bringing a detachment of troops to Lhasa, stripping the Dalai Lama of his power, and giving decision-making authority to two governmental inspectors (ambans) sent from Beijing. Besides, in eastern Tibet, the Manchus kicked out all local administrators and replaced them with Chinese bureaucrats. Although these measures were a response to the 1904 military strike at Tibet by the English, the Forbidden Kingdom recognized them as an attack on its sovereignty.

Anti-Chinese Prophecies in Tibet and Mongolia Resorting to prophecies such as Shambhala was one way for Tibetans and Mongols to empower themselves to deal with the Chinese advances.

As early as the 1840s the French missionary Abbé Huc, who visited the Tashilumpho monastery, described how this particular myth served as a spiritual resistance against China’s infringement on Tibetan sovereignty.

h e version of the prophecy that he heard said that when the Buddhist faith declined, the Chinese would take over the Forbidden Kingdom.

h e only place where the true faith would survive would be the Kalon (Kalachakra?) fellowship, a sacred brotherhood of the Panchen Lama’s devoted followers, who would i nd refuge in the north somewhere between the Altai and Tuva. In this mysterious faraway northern country, a new reincarnation of the Panchen Lama would be found.

In the meantime, the subjugated people would rise up against the invaders in a spontaneous rebellion: “h e h ibetans will take up arms, and will massacre in one day all the Chinese, young and old, and not one of them shall trespass the frontiers.” At er this, the infuriated Manchu emperor would gather a huge army and storm into Tibet, slashing and burning: “Blood will l ow in torrents, the streams will be red with gore, and the Chinese will gain possession of h ibet.” h at was when the reincarnated Panchen Lama, the “saint of all saints,” would step in to free the faithful from the ini dels. h e spiritual leader of Tibet would assemble the members of his sacred society, both alive and dead, into a powerful army equipped with arrows and fusils. Headed 23

C H A P T E R T W O

by the Panchen, the holy army would march southward and cut the Chinese into pieces. Not only would he wipe out the enemies of the faith, but he would also take over Tibet, Mongolia, all of China, and even the faraway great state of Oros (Russia). h e Panchen Lama would