This is the story of how I became a human being as well as of how I became a lama; and so I shall first tell about the circumstances of my birth and about the poor family into which I was born, and then relate how is was that I became the Diluv Khutagt, the fifth of my incarnation since it first came to Mongolia in the reign of the Emperor K’ang Hsi [r. 1662–1723].
My grandfather’s name I do not know, but I do know that the name of my clan was Onhit and that my father was born when my grandfather was 86 years old. For this reason he was always called “Pa-shi Liu”—Chinese for “Eighty-Six.” The foreign language was used to avert bad luck. I was born when my father was 67.
I was born in western Outer Mongolia at a place called Oigon Bag, after Lake Oigon, on the south side of the mountain called Bayan Aimag, in the Banner of the Tüshee Gün in Zasagt Khan Aimag. The name of the ruling prince was Tsogtsambar. (Outer Mongolia was then divided into four aimags, or provinces). I was born in the cyclical year of the Monkey, the ninth year of the Emperor Kuang Hsü (1884) on the eighth day of the tenth moon, in the hour of the Dragon, according to the 24 divisions of the day, about sunrise. I had an elder sister and an elder brother, who were 14 and 10 years old respectively at the time of my birth. My mother was then 48.
The family into which I was born were poor sheep-herders, living in a round felt-covered tent. In the year after I was born we had only 20 sheep, four cows and two horses. Camels were very rare in that district and we had none, but we also had no yaks, which were common. The year in which I was born was a difficult one for everybody. There had been a jud (an ice frost, sheathing the grass) that winter, and the cattle had died in large numbers. We had more cattle before this bad winter. My father did all the herding. He died when he was 85. In that winter it was said that many people saw emanations of light coming out of the tent in which I was born. People thought that something mysterious must be going on, in that winter, with strange emanations of light and with a baby born to such an old man, and so I was called “The Lord of the Ice-Plague,” but my given name was Jamsranjav.
The place where I was born was about 300 miles from the large monastery of
Narvanchin. In this monastery there were two Khutagt [or “Living Buddhas”]—one the Narvanchin Khutagt, the other the Diluv Khutagt. The one with the longer seniority in the monastery was the Narvanchin Gegeen, but the one with religious seniority was the Diluv. They both died the year I was born. When the emanations of light began, people began to think that the Narvanchin Gegeen had been born. The people of the monastery began to say, “Where shall we seek the Narvanchin Gegeen? And where is the Diluv Gegeen to be found?”
The Diluv Gegeen (my predecessor) died at the age of 28, in the first month of summer. He had been on a pilgrimage to the caves in the mountains called Tsogt. Some of the branches of these caves have never been entirely explored. On the way back he stopped at the town of Uliastai, where, because he was fond of liquor, he spent several nights. It happened that there was at Uliastai at the same time another important lama, known as Gün Bandid, who came from the Banner in which I was born. (A Banner was the traditional territory of a tribe. Each of the four eastern aimags contained about 20 Banners). Although this Bandid Lama had some reputation as a healer, he was also known as a drinker.
Mongols do not like to drink alone. Like Chinese and Tibetans they like to drink competitively, urging on their companions and proud if they can drink them under the table. Getting drunk is sometimes psychological. My predecessor used to drink with a high official from Zasagt Khan Aimag. Once when this official was visiting him in Uliastai they both had a long bout of drinking, and the visitor was not only not drunk but it looked as if the supply of liquor was going to give out. If the visitor had drunk his host dry and was still on his feet, my predecessor, a great drinker himself, would never have heard the last of it. He was saved by a quick thinking steward who got hold of several of the huge wicker jars lined with oiled paper in which Chinese merchants used to bring fiery grain liquor by caravan to Mongolia, and had them filled with water. They were so heavy that it took two men to carry one of them. He had several carried to a storage shed next to the room where the men were drinking. Then the visitor was invited out to look at them. They still smelled strongly of the liquor with which they had been saturated on the long caravan journey. Then the visitor was slapped on the back and jovially urged to return to the drinking bout. “Come on,” was the cry; “There’s a lot to be drunk up yet.” The psychological effect on the champion drinker was that what he had already drunk rushed to his head and from being apparently sober and on the edge of a great triumph he became so drunk that he could not go on and the Diluv Gegeen’s reputation was saved.
The Diluv and the Bandid Lama sat up drinking for three nights. Then the Bandid Lama called in the Diluv’s followers and retainers, and said, “Your master is about to depart. You must beg him not to depart.”
This caused the Diluv’s people to be very worried, and they went to him and cautioned him because they took the Bandid Lama’s words to mean that their master was near death; but the Diluv was not worried. “We will go back to Narvanchin,” he said, “and I am going to live to be 40.”
Not long after the Diluv got back to Narvanchin, he fell sick and died. It was discovered that he survived, according to his prophecy, not by 40 years, but by 40 days.
The Bandid Lama, who had gone home in the meantime, lived near the place where I was born, 300 miles, or three day’s ride on fast horses, from the Narvanchin monastery; but the morning the Diluv died he got up and said to his attendants, “The Diluv has arrived,” and went into his prayer-tent to welcome him. Word was sent to Narvanchin immediately that the Diluv’s spirit had come into the district of the Bandid Lama. This was just before I was born.
Messengers were sent to all the other Living Buddhas to ask help in finding the new Diluv. Some recommended the best direction in which to search by the casting of dice, some by a system of divination based on the rosary of 108 prayer beads and some by contemplation and inspiration. Sorcerers called “Choijin” were also consulted, who speak when inspired, and after recovery do not remember what they have said. In this way the direction of search was determined, and with it a list of about 40 children born shortly after the Diluv’s death in circumstances thought to be miraculous. The list came from the monasteries of the region. Sometimes an investigator is sent out to corroborate such a list, sometimes it is merely accepted and left unquestioned.
The people of Narvanchin monastery considered the list over a period of about three years, during which it was narrowed down by a process of elimination by the drawing and casting of lots; but according to the regulations of the time the naming of the new Living Buddha had finally to be done by the Manchu Emperor at Peking, to whom a final list was submitted.
At this time I was between two and three years old. I liked to play by sitting astride the fence of the corral and pretending to ride horse-back. Then I would say, “I am going back to Zavkhan Tsagaan Tokhoi.” My parents asked their neighbors, who asked other people, but no one had ever heard of such a place. There is such a place, however. It is a big hollow near the Zavkhan River and near the caravan road from China to Uliastai. Many people used to camp here in the autumn. The hollow is about five miles across and holds pasturage for 5,000 horses and 10,000 sheep.
At this time there was a man called Gonchig, who was the stepfather of the incarnation of the Diluv who had just died. As there was some talk that I might be the new incarnation, Gonchig came to visit my family and to enquire. On the day he came, but before he had arrived, I was heard to say, “A man is coming today from my home.”
I personally can remember Gonchig’s arrival, and that he was a thin man with a thin wispy mustache, wearing a fur-lined vest over his gown. He had two attendants with him, one his familiar servant, the other an official guide. Seeing this man, I thought of him as someone I knew very well. I approached Gonchig and he took me on his lap, as he sat cross-legged in the tent. My mother started to pour tea for the three visitors and Gonchig took from the breast of his gown a small silver-lined bowl from which to drink. “Why, that’s my bowl!” I said. Gonchig wept. Picking me up, he placed me on a small stool on the carpet before the family altar at the back of the tent, where I liked to sit. It was only a common little wooden stool with all the paint worn off, but I have always kept it. Gonchig prostrated himself before me and bowed three times. He gave me a khadag and the little silver-lined bowl, filled with raisins from Sinkiang. I had this bowl up until the time I left Outer Mongolia, when I left it at the monastery. It had belonged to my predecessor.
The word quickly got round that I had recognized my predecessor’s step-father and his drinking-bowl, and with it the rumor spread that I was the new Diluv. I do not remember the things that happened between Gonchig’s visit and the time I went to the Monastery, but it was in this time that I was confirmed by the Emperor at Peking.
The monastery took me when I was five years old. It was in the third month of spring (about April), when the ground was still lightly covered with snow. When the monastery envoys arrived, they made their camp next to my father’s, and I remember that my mother was very busy preparing their welcome. During the daytime I would play about the camp of the envoys, but at night I would cry and ask to return to my mother’s tent. Sometimes I wanted to go with them. sometimes I didn’t.
I do not remember exactly what happened in the ceremonies of invitation that preceded my departure, except that part of it was the placing of an amulet around my neck and that one of the local officials got very drunk. When I left the whole family came along, bringing all their cattle and possessions with them, even the family dogs. Later they settled near the monastery. I made my trip in a camel cart.
It was the first month of summer when we reached the monastery, and I was greeted outside its precincts with such ceremonies as are made for high lamas. Omens were consulted to determine the best day for my entry. I know now what these ceremonies consist of, of course; but I do not remember the actual event.
Shortly after my arrival came the ceremony called Mandal, which in the Narvanchin monastery was held on the fifteenth day of the sixth lunar month, very close to the time of the big Summer Festival. (Elsewhere Mandal occurs at different times; at Khüree [Urga] it comes in the autumn.) I remember the horse races and the great excitement of the occasion.
When I was first taken to the monastery and my family was camped near by, naturally I wanted to return to my family. The monks gently restrained me and soon I became used to seeing my parents less and less and accustomed to being in the monastery. The family stayed rather close to the monastery in summer and moved somewhat farther away to winter quarters.
I began to learn Tibetan immediately and at the age of five I could recognize the Tibetan letters. At six, with no feeling of hard work, I had committed to memory 3,000 sholog of text, (a sholog is about 36 words so this would be roughly 108,000 words), and at seven I could translate most of this into Mongol. From the time I was six years old I began to attend religious ceremonies, to memorize the proper forms of prayer, and to have religious instruction, and by the time I was 12 I could translate scriptures from Tibetan into Mongol and from Mongol into Tibetan, although I had no speaking knowledge of Tibetan, which was only a written language to me. Of course knowledge of the meaning of religion came to me only gradually, partly through having texts explained to me by a tutor . . .
to be continued . . .
Wandered by Gandan Monastery and visited the Kalachakra Temple, where monks are creating a Kalachakra Mandala in preparation for the Kalachakra Ceremony beginning on May 7 and continuing through May 29. The mandala itself, made from sand of various colors, takes six days or so to create. It is based on the three dimensional Kalachakra Mandala found in Kalapa, the capital of the Kingdom of Shambhala, which is itself based on the Dhanyakataka Stupa, where according to tradition the Buddha taught the Kalachakra Tantra to Suchandra, the first of the 32 Kings of Shambhala. There is much else of interest in the temple, increasing representations of the 722 Kalachakara Deities.
Monks fashioning the Kalachakra Mandala
Monk working on the Kalachakra Mandala
Monk working on the Kalachakra Mandala
Colored sand used to fashion the Mandala
Monk working on the Kalachakra Mandala
Monk working on the Kalachakra Mandala
Detail of the Kalachakra Mandala
A painted version of a finished Kalachakra Mandala
