CHAPTER XLI
THE DUST OF CENTURIES
Have you ever seen the dusty cobwebs and the mould in the cellars of some ancient castle in Italy, France or England? This is the dust of centuries. Perhaps it touched the faces, helmets and swords of a Roman Augustus, St. Louis, the Inquisitor, Galileo or King Richard. Your heart is involuntarily contracted and you feel a respect for these witnesses of elapsed ages. This same impression came to me in Ta Kure, perhaps more deep, more realistic. Here life flows on almost as it flowed eight centuries ago; here man lives only in the past; and the contemporary only complicates and prevents the normal life.
“Today is a great day,” the Living Buddha once said to me, “the day of the victory of Buddhism over all other religions. It was a long time ago—on this day Kublai Khan called to him the Lamas of all religions and ordered them to state to him how and what they believed. They praised their Gods and their Hutuktus. Discussions and quarrels began. Only one Lama remained silent. At last he mockingly smiled and said:
“‘Great Emperor! Order each to prove the power of his Gods by the performance of a miracle and afterwards judge and choose.’
“Kublai Khan so ordered all the Lamas to show him a miracle but all were silent, confused and powerless before him.
“‘Now,’ said the Emperor, addressing the Lama who had tendered this suggestion, ‘now you must prove the power of your Gods!’
“The Lama looked long and silently at the Emperor, turned and gazed at the whole assembly and then quietly stretched out his hand toward them. At this instant the golden goblet of the Emperor raised itself from the table and tipped before the lips of the Khan without a visible hand supporting it. The Emperor felt the delight of a fragrant wine. All were struck with astonishment and the Emperor spoke:
“‘I elect to pray to your Gods and to them all people subject to me must pray. What is your faith? Who are you and from where do you come?’
“‘My faith is the teaching of the wise Buddha. I am Pandita Lama, Turjo Gamba, from the distant and glorious monastery of Sakkia in Tibet, where dwells incarnate in a human body the Spirit of Buddha, his Wisdom and his Power. Remember, Emperor, that the peoples who hold our faith shall possess all the Western Universe and during eight hundred and eleven years shall spread their faith throughout the whole world.’
“Thus it happened on this same day many centuries ago! Lama Turjo Gamba did not return to Tibet but lived here in Ta Kure, where there was then only a small temple. From here he traveled to the Emperor at Karakorum and afterwards with him to the capital of China to fortify him in the Faith, to predict the fate of state affairs and to enlighten him according to the will of God.”
The Living Buddha was silent for a time, whispered a prayer and then continued:
“Urga, the ancient nest of Buddhism. . . . With Jenghiz Khan on his European conquest went out the Olets or Kalmucks. They remained there almost four hundred years, living on the plains of Russia. Then they returned to Mongolia because the Yellow Lamas called them to light against the Kings of Tibet, Lamas of the ‘red caps,’ who were oppressing the people. The Kalmucks helped the Yellow Faith but they realized that Lhasa was too distant from the whole world and could not spread our Faith throughout the earth. Consequently the Kalmuck Gushi Khan brought up from Tibet a holy Lama, Undur Gheghen, who had visited the ‘King of the World.’ From that day the Bogdo Gheghen has continuously lived in Urga, a protector of the freedom of Mongolia and of the Chinese Emperors of Mongolian origin. Undur Gheghen was the first Living Buddha in the land of the Mongols. He left to us, his successors, the ring of Jenghiz Khan, which was sent by Kublai Khan to Dalai Lama in return for the miracle shown by the Lama Turjo Gamba; also the top of the skull of a black, mysterious miracle worker from India, using which as a bowl, Strongtsan, King of Tibet, drank during the temple ceremonies one thousand six hundred years ago; as well as an ancient stone statue of Buddha brought from Delhi by the founder of the Yellow Faith, Paspa.”
The Bogdo clapped his hands and one of the secretaries took from a red kerchief a big silver key with which he unlocked the chest with the seals. The Living Buddha slipped his hand into the chest and drew forth a small box of carved ivory, from which he took out and showed to me a large gold ring set with a magnificent ruby carved with the sign of the swastika.
“This ring was always worn on the right hand of the Khans Jenghiz and Kublai,” said the Bogdo.
When the secretary had closed the chest, the Bogdo ordered him to summon his favorite Maramba, whom he directed to read some pages from an ancient book lying on the table. The Lama began to read monotonously.
“When Gushi Khan, the Chief of all the Olets or Kalmucks, finished the war with the ‘Red Caps’ in Tibet, he carried out with him the miraculous ‘black stone’ sent to the Dalai Lama by the ‘King of the World.’ Gushi Khan wanted to create in Western Mongolia the capital of the Yellow Faith; but the Olets at that time were at war with the Manchu Emperors for the throne of China and suffered one defeat after another. The last Khan of the Olets, Amursana, ran away into Russia but before his escape sent to Urga the sacred ‘black stone.’ While it remained in Urga so that the Living Buddha could bless the people with it, disease and misfortune never touched the Mongolians and their cattle. About one hundred years ago, however, some one stole the sacred stone and since then Buddhists have vainly sought it throughout the whole world. With its disappearance the Mongol people began gradually to die.”
“Enough!” ordered Bogdo Gheghen. “Our neighbors hold us in contempt. They forget that we were their sovereigns but we preserve our holy traditions and we know that the day of triumph of the Mongolian tribes and the Yellow Faith will come. We have the Protectors of the Faith, the Buriats. They are the truest guardians of the bequests of Jenghiz Khan.”
So spoke the Living Buddha and so have spoken the ancient books!
CHAPTER XLII
THE BOOKS OF MIRACLES
Prince Djam Bolon asked a Maramba to show us the library of the Living Buddha. It is a big room occupied by scores of writers who prepare the works dealing with the miracles of all the Living Buddhas, beginning with Undur Gheghen and ending with those of the Gheghens and Hutuktus of the different Mongol monasteries. These books are afterwards distributed through all the Lama Monasteries, temples and schools of Bandi. A Maramba read two selections:
“. . . The beatific Bogdo Gheghen breathed on a mirror. Immediately as through a haze there appeared the picture of a valley in which many thousands of thousands of warriors fought one against another. . . .”
“The wise and favored-of-the-gods Living Buddha burned incense in a brazier and prayed to the Gods to reveal the lot of the Princes. In the blue smoke all saw a dark prison and the pallid, tortured bodies of the dead Princes. . . .”
A special book, already done into thousands of copies, dwelt upon the miracles of the present Living Buddha. Prince Djam Bolon described to me some of the contents of this volume.
“There exists an ancient wooden Buddha with open eyes. He was brought here from India and Bogdo Gheghen placed him on the altar and began to pray. When he returned from the shrine, he ordered the statue of Buddha brought out. All were struck with amazement, for the eyes of the God were shut and tears were falling from them; from the wooden body green sprouts appeared; and the Bogdo said:
“‘Woe and joy are awaiting me. I shall become blind but Mongolia will be free.’
“The prophecy is fulfilled. At another time, on a day when the Living Buddha was very much excited, he ordered a basin of water brought and set before the altar. He called the Lamas and began to pray. Suddenly the altar candles and lamps lighted themselves and the water in the basin became iridescent.”
Afterwards the Prince described to me how the Bogdo Khan tells fortunes with fresh blood, upon whose surface appear words and pictures; with the entrails of sheep and goats, according to whose distribution the Bogdo reads the fate of the Princes and knows their thoughts; with stones and bones from which the Living Buddha with great accuracy reads the lot of all men; and by the stars, in accordance with whose positions the Bogdo prepares amulets against bullets and disease.
“The former Bogdo Khans told fortunes only by the use of the ‘black stone,’” said the Maramba. “On the surface of the stone appeared Tibetan inscriptions which the Bogdo read and thus learned the lot of whole nations.”
When the Maramba spoke of the black stone with the Tibetan legends appearing on it, I at once recalled that it was possible. In southeastern Urianhai, in Ulan Taiga, I came across a place where black slate was decomposing. All the pieces of this slate were covered with a special white lichen, which formed very complicated designs, reminding me of a Venetian lace pattern or whole pages of mysterious runes. When the slate was wet, these designs disappeared; and then, as they were dried, the patterns came out again.
Nobody has the right or dares to ask the Living Buddha to tell his fortune. He predicts only when he feels the inspiration or when a special delegate comes to him bearing a request for it from the Dalai Lama or the Tashi Lama. When the Russian Czar, Alexander I, fell under the influence of Baroness Kzudener and of her extreme mysticism, he despatched a special envoy to the Living Buddha to ask about his destiny. The then Bogdo Khan, quite a young man, told his fortune according to the “black stone” and predicted that the White Czar would finish his life in very painful wanderings unknown to all and everywhere pursued. In Russia today there exists a popular belief that Alexander I spent the last days of his life as a wanderer throughout Russia and Siberia under the pseudonym of Feodor Kusmitch, helping and consoling prisoners, beggars and other suffering people, often pursued and imprisoned by the police and finally dying at Tomsk in Siberia, where even until now they have preserved the house where he spent his last days and have kept his grave sacred, a place of pilgrimages and miracles. The former dynasty of Romanoff was deeply interested in the biography of Feodor Kusmitch and this interest fixed the opinion that Kusmitch was really the Czar Alexander I, who had voluntarily taken upon himself this severe penance.