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was anyone of note who could be of use to the Japanese.
We were all lined up in the early dawn, and left standing
there for hours, and hours, until the late afternoon, and a
sorry crowd we looked by then. Those who fell from
fatigue were bayoneted and dragged away to the death pile.
We straightened our lines somewhat as high-powered cars
drove up with a roar, and bemedalled men jumped out. A
visiting Japanese major casually walked down the lines,
looking over the prisoners. He glanced at me, then looked
at me more carefully. He stared at me, and said something
to me which I did not understand. Then as I did not reply he
struck me across the face with the scabbard of his sword
major said something to him. The orderly ran off to the
records office, and after a very short time he came back
with my record. The major snatched it from him, and read
it avidly. Then he shouted abuse at me, and issued an order
to the guards with him. Once again I was knocked down
by their rifle butts. Once again my nose so newly repair
and rebuilt was smashed and I was dragged away to the
guard room. Here my hands and feet were tied behind my
back, and pulled up and tied to my neck, so that every
time I tried to rest my arms I nearly strangled myself. For
a long time I was kicked and pummeled, and burned with
cigarette ends while questions were shot at me. Then I was
made to kneel, and guards jumped on my heels in the hope
that that pain would compel me to answer. My arches
snapped under the strain.
The questions they asked! How had I escaped? Who
had I spoken to while I was away? Did I know that it was
an insult to their Emperor to escape? They also demanded
details of troop movements because they thought that I,
as a lama from Tibet, must know a lot about Chinese dis-
positions. Of course I did not answer, and they kept
burning me with their lighted cigarettes, and going through
all the usual routine of torture. Eventually they put me on
a crude sort of rack, and pulled the drum tight so that it
felt as if my arms and legs were being dragged from their
163
sockets. I fainted and each time I was revived by having
a bucket of cold water thrown over me, and by being
pricked with bayonet points. At last the medical officer in
charge of the camp intervened. He said that if I had any
more suffering I would assuredly die, and they would then
not be able to get answers to their questions. They did not
want to kill me, because to kill me would be to allow me to
escape from their questions. I was dragged out by the neck,
and thrown into a deep underground cell shaped like a
bottle, made of cement. Here I was kept for days, it might
have been weeks. I lost all count of time, there was no
sensation of time. The cell was pitch dark. Food was thrown
in every two days, and water was lowered in a tin. Often
it was spilled, and I had to grovel in the dark, and scrabble
with my hands to try and find it, or to try and find anything
moist from the ground. My mind would have cracked
under the strain, under that darkness so profound, but my
training saved me. I thought again of the past.
Darkness? I thought of the hermits in Tibet, in their
secure hermitages perched in lofty mountain peaks in in-
accessible places among the clouds. Hermits who were im-
mured in their cells, and stayed there for years, freeing
the mind of the body, freeing the soul from the mind, so
that they could realize greater spiritual freedom. I thought
not of the present, but of the past, and during my reverie
inevitably came back to that most wonderful experience,
my visit to the Chang Tang Highlands.
We, my Guide, the Lama Mingyar Dondup, and a few
companions and I, had set out from the golden roofed
Potala in Lhasa in search of rare herbs. For weeks we had
journeyed upwards ever upwards into the frozen North
into Chang Tang Highlands, or, as some call it, Sham-
ballah. This day we were nearing our objective. That day
was indeed bitter, the bitterest of many frozen days. Ice
blew at us driven by a shrieking gale. The frozen pellets
struck our flapping robes, and abraded the skin from any
surface which was left exposed. Here, nearly twenty-five
thousand feet above the sea, the sky was a vivid purple,
few patches of cloud racing across were startling white in
164
comparison. It looked like the white horses of the Gods,
taking their riders across Tibet.
We climbed on, and on, with the terrain becoming more
difficult with every step. Our lungs rasped in our throats.
We clawed a precarious foothold in the hard earth, forc-
ing our fingers into the slightest crack in the frozen rock.
At last we reached that mysterious fog belt again (see
Third Eye) and made our way through it with the ground
beneath our feet becoming warmer, and warmer, and the
air around us becoming more and more balmy and com-
forting. Gradually we emerged from the fog into the lush
paradise of that lovely sanctuary. Before us again was that
land of a bygone age.
That night we rested in the warmth and comfort of the
Hidden Land. It was wonderful to sleep on a soft bed of
moss, and to breathe the sweet scent of flowers. Here in
this land there were fruits which we had not tasted before,
fruits which we sampled, and tried again. It was glorious
too, to be able to bathe in warm water, and to loll at ease
upon a golden strand.
On the following day we journeyed onward, going higher
and higher, but now we were not at all troubled. We
marched on through clumps of rhododendron, and passed
by walnut trees, and others the names of which we did not
know. We did not press ourselves unduly that day. Night
fall came upon us once again, but this time we were not
cold. We were at ease, comfortable. Soon we sat beneath
the trees, and lit our fire, and prepared our evening meal.
With that completed we wrapped our robes about us, and
lay and talked. One by one we dropped off to sleep.
Again on the next day we continued our march, but we
had only covered two or three miles when suddenly, un-
expectedly, we came to an open clearing, a spot where the
trees ended, and before us we stopped almost paralyzed
with amazement, shaking with the knowledge that we had
come upon something completely beyond our understand-
ing. We looked. The clearing before us was a vast one. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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