The Figures In These
Had Only Been Furnished With Flesh-Coloured Spots Where Their Faces
Were To Be, And The Foreign "Pigtail" Was Employed, Seated On A High
Platform, In Furnishing Them With Features And Casts Of Expression
In Accordance With The Spirit Of The Scenes Which They Helped
To Compose.
This he did certainly with very great skill, and the
operation was a most interesting one to watch.
The floor was covered
with pigments, and materials of all kinds, and the little community,
in the midst of the surrounding apparent solitude, were working away
like a hive of bees. They appeared to have a hive-like dislike also
of the approach of a stranger, and one old Lama, with a twisted mat
of hair erected on the top of his head - a drone of the hive -
took a particular dislike to me, and scowled savagely as I quietly
examined the curious designs upon the walls.
The eternal "Um mani panee" formed a very large part of the decoration,
being painted over the walls in every variety of coloured letters. In
the inner part of the temple was a large coloured statue, with eight
arms, and two-and-twenty heads.
The heads were placed in threes, looking every way, in the shape of
a pyramid, a single head crowning the whole.[29] One of the hands
held a bow, but the implements contained in the others were entirely
Buddhist in character, and to me unknown.
Behind this figure was a star, with innumerable radiating arms from
the centre, while from the points of the fingers were five other
rows of hands, continuing the star-like circle.
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