PLACES: LHASA PART 2

DEPRUNG MONASTERY

Deprung Monastery, a spiritual haven.

Early next morning we visited Deprung Monastery which lies a few kilometers out of Lhasa. Its name means "rice heaps" refering to the series of white buildings resting against the olive mountains, which make up the Monastery. We followed the pilgrims path, past a row of big brass prayer wheels which we spinned to gain merit. Next the colourful Buddha on the Cliff blessed us, then we ran into beggars sitting on the steps and we gained more merit by dipping some yuan into their bowls. The beggars are not greedy, if your notes are too big, they are quite happy to return you some change !

Spinning the Prayer Bells help us to gain Merit.

Blessings from the Buddhas on the Cliff.

Deprung is a monastic university providing religious education to monks from age 8 to up to 70 in some cases. In its heyday it held more than 7000 monks within its walls. I don't know what the current official count is, but red robed lamas are encountered everywhere and it is still very much a spiritual haven. In one of the chapels Tibetans were receiving blessings by having their heads tapped by a lama. We quickly offered our heads for tapping too and he good naturedly obliged ! Elsewhere monks were making religious artefacts for sale, studying scriptures and I also spied them engaged in lively debates demonstrating the hand clapping gestures.

By midday, our group arrived at the main prayer hall just in time for the midday service. The beautiful sound of tolling bells greeted us, as monks in maroon robes flocked from all corners of the monastery to assemble in the hall. To sit in that ancient hall, high up in mountains, listening to haunting mantras chanted by hundreds of monks, was an extraordinary experience. I wished I could have stayed, but all too soon our guide was giving us the signal to move on.

Here I try my hand at haiku to recollect memories of Deprung:

Deprung Monastery -

temple bells reverberate on cold crags

all around

Main Prayer Hall at Deprung call us to Prayer

Deprung lamas in their cloisters.

JOKHANG TEMPLE

Our next stop brought us to the Jokang Temple located in the old parts of downtown Lhasa. As the spirtual heart of Lhasa, the Jokang Temple is the most vennerated and revered shrine in the whole of Tibet. First built in the 7h century the three storey building with an open roof, has undergone extensive rennovations particularly under the 5th Dalai Lama in the 17th century. Its open roof gives a bird's eye view of the Potala Palace overlooking the old city. On the roof too are a series of gold bells, dharma wheels and other symbolic articles.

Courtyard, Jokang Temple, Lhasa.

In the past, Tibetan Buddhists make ardous trips over high mountains and passes, braving innumerable dangers to make the pilgimage to this Holy of Holies, which holds the golden statute of Buddha Sakyamuni. This statute located in the main hall of the Jokang Temple was first brought from Changan in China, by Princess Wencheng in the Tang dynasty. Drawn as if by a magnet, these pilgrims who come from afar, circumambulate three pilgrimage circuits, the Lingkhor, the Barkhor and the Nangkhor that surround the Jokang Temple, some prostrating all the way, some walking and spinning prayer wheels and chanting mantras while counting their rosary beads. The fervour and faith generated by these pilgrims, was said to cast a powerful field of sanctity over the Jokang.

Present day Jokang Temple sits within a plaza like area with many shopping streets enclosing as well as leading off the temple complex. Except for a small clutch of prostrating pilgrims around the entrance of the temple, and a few walking the pilgrim's circuits, I did not see much fervour. Perhaps it had to do with the timing. It was mid afternoon and the temple doors were shut so this might have limited the religious activity. We had to use a side entrance to enter and inside tourists outnumbered the pilgrims. We followed the usual round of chapels, statutes, niches, deities, commemorations, and frescoes as our guide babbled the various historical details.

After praying in the Jokang, we went to people-watch on Barkhor Street plaza which is next to the temple. The melee of Tibetans, Han Chinese, Nepalese, tourists, monks, pilgrims, families out with kids, the elderly praying, the young licking on their iced lollies, each person doing his own thing, was not unlike a scene on our busier HDB squares backhome. Further off there was a maze of vendors, shops, hawkers and wares to gladden any shopaholic's heart.

Before I came to Tibet, I had read about the atrocities committed by the Chinese. Were the Tibetans sitting so placidly beside me seething with suppressed hostility, I wondered? Were there hidden electronic surveillance cameras watching the crowds on the square? Did it make them subdued? I can't fathom the political or tumultous events that these people had suffered in the past, but they do seem to have settled down to some hard won peace. Whether it was a massive sham or not, I sure wish my Tibetan and Han Chinese friends many more decades of blessed peace.