Shangri-La

Decades ago I read the 1933 novel Lost Horizons by James Hilton.  Shangri-La was an isolated valley in the Himalayas where peace prevailed, where people lived for over a hundred years, and Buddhist priests preserved ancient wisdom to rebuild the rest of the world in case it destroyed itself.

We checked into the Shangri-La Hotel in Lhasa for three nights.  The concept of Shangri-La as a paradise has resulted in the name being used for many different hotels and other organizations.  In the novel, Shangri-La was somewhere in or near Tibet.  So my short visit in Tibet will be a search for any of the elements of an idyllic place that originally inspired the novel.

Tibetan culture has been primarily Buddhist ever since the seventh century when Indian Buddhists introduced the religion in Tibet.  Unlike India, Tibet was never colonized by the British.  The Himalayan mountains protected Tibet from foreign invaders.  That ended in 1949 following the victory of the Communists led by Mao Zedong and the establishment of the People’s Republic of China.   China declared the “liberation of Tibet” and sent troupes to enforce China’s claim that Tibet had historically belonged to earlier Chinese dynasties and thus should be part of modern China.  The Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, even traveled to Beijing to meet with Mao to try to persuade him to pull back the Chinese forces.  He was unsuccessful, and in 1959 he fled to India, taking residence in Dharamsala, India, a city facing the Himalayas.  The Dalai Lama is now in his eighties and has stated that he will probably be the last Dalai Lama.  Any posting of the Dalai Lama’s picture is forbidden by China in contemporary Tibet.

During China’s Cultural Revolution in 1966-69, many Buddhist temples were destroyed.  Modern China has wisely decided that it should not suppress the Buddhist religion, which is deeply ingrained in Tibetan culture.  Thus, many historic Buddhist buildings, foremost among them the impressive Potala Palace, have been restored.  The Potala Palace, which was home to the Dalai Lamas from the 7th century until 1959, is now a museum and Chinese government administrative building.

Jokhang Temple

We toured the Jokhang Temple, which dates from the 7^th century. The photo above is from the inner courtyard.  Photos were not permitted inside.  It was packed with Tibetan worshippers, totally outnumbering our Viking tour groups.  Photography was forbidden in the inner temple which contains one of Buddhism’s most famous sculptures of Buddha. Visiting the Jokhang Temple is a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage goal for Tibetan Buddhists, similar to Islam’s requirement that Muslims visit Mecca at least once in their lives.  My photos are from the outer rooms of the temple complex, which are filled with sculptures and artworks.

The streets around the Jokhang Temple were filled with pilgrims circum-ambulating the temple, always in a clockwise direction.  Walking once around the temple complex takes 15-20 minutes.  In the courtyard of the temple were many worshippers prostrating themselves repeatedly and ritualistically.  Some worshippers prostrated themselves as they slowly circumambulated the temple.  The ritual of prostrating oneself was described as taking three steps, and then kneeling, bringing the hands together in a prayerful gesture, and then prostrating oneself, lying fully flat with the arms outstretched above the head.  This ritual action is then repeated countless times.  Some pilgrims travel long distances taking days, weeks, or even months, depending on the distance to be covered, prostrating themselves repeatedly as a sign of religious devotion.

The Potala Palace

Lhasa’s Potala Palace is the most famous image representing Tibet.  Its initial construction began in the seventh century, when the first Dalai Lama united Tibet under his rule from Lhasa.  The term Dalai Lama is of Mongolian origin, meaning “ocean of knowledge”.  Starting in the 1600s, the seventh Dalai Lama initiated the periodic expansion of the Potala Palace. A new room was constructed for each successive Dalai Lama.  Every Dalai Lama was buried in the palace, leaving his main room as a lasting tribute.  The huge tomb of the seventh Dalai Lama is covered by fifty kilos of gold.  The expansion of the Potala Palace continued into the beginning of the twentieth century.  The Potala Palace is Tibet’s most important historical reservoir of relics of Tibet’s Buddhist heritage.

Lhasa lies at almost 12,000 feet elevation.  Climbing the stairway up to the Potala Palace was a physical challenge.  The initial approach is a long staircase of over three hundred steep steps.  Photos were not permitted once one entered the palace.  There were even steeper stairways inside the palace.  Thus, the total number of stair steps up and down the approach and inside the palace is over one thousand steps. 

Visiting a nunnery and a monastery

We also toured a nunnery (home for nuns) and a monastery (home for monks).  Earlier in Tibetan history families might dedicate their children from an early age to become monks or nuns.  But under the Chinese, prospective nuns and monks must reach the age of eighteen before they can dedicate their lives to this religious lifepath.  Nuns and monks must remain celibate for life.  Their training is rigorous and serves to illustrate the ideals of Buddhist practice through their ascetic lifestyles.  Both nuns and monks wear easily identifiable crimson robes and have short-cut hair.

Both the nunnery and the monastery open their campuses to visitors at certain times every day to witness the training of the nuns and monks to develop their ability to articulate Buddhist doctrines.  Both the monk and nun teachers use a dramatic sweeping arm motion, clapping their hands in a symbolic gesture “to banish ignorance and wrong ideas.”

Polyandry  

Polygamy is defined as a man having multiple wives.  Polyandry is defined as a woman having multiple husbands.  I was surprised to learn that both polygamy and polyandry are common in Tibet. 

Our local guide accompanied us throughout our stay in Lhasa.  She was a nice woman whom I estimate to be in her late twenties.  Her mother was married to two men who were brothers.  It was a novel experience to speak with her about growing up with two fathers.  The two fathers raised our guide and her siblings with equal responsibility. 

This lovely young woman explained (without our directly having asked) that her mother did not sleep with both husbands at the same time.  She explained that her mother and her two husbands each had separate bedrooms.  If one of the brothers wanted to have sex with their wife, he would leave his shoes outside her door as a sign. 

Our guide was not concerned about which brother might have been the actual sperm donor leading to her conception.  She simply grew up with two fathers that she loved.  She expressed that she was sorry that her husband did not have any brothers that she could also be married to.  She was sorry to not be able to repeat the family setting that she grew up with, having a loving mother and two loving fathers.