As soon as
life has left the body of a Lama, it is placed upright, sitting
in an attitude of devotion, his legs being folded before him, with
the instep resting on each thigh, and the sides of the feet turned
upwards. The right hand is rested with its back upon the thigh, with
the thumb bent across the palm. The left arm is bent and held close
to the body, the hand being open and the thumb touching the point of
the shoulder. This is the attitude of abstracted meditation.
"The bodies of inferior Lamas are usually burnt, and their ashes
preserved with the greatest care, and the monuments in which they
are contained are ever after looked upon as sacred, and visited with
religious awe." - Turner.
[19] - jo khula kariga so kui nahin kariga
[20] - "Tibet may be considered the head-quarters of Buddhism in
the present age, and immense volumes are still to be found in that
country (faithful translations of the Sanskrit text), which refer to
the manners, customs, opinions, knowledge, ignorance, superstition,
hopes and fears of a great part of Asia, especially of India in former
ages." - Csoma de Koros, PREFACE TO TIBETAN GRAMMAR.
[21] - These stones would appear to be peculiar to Thibet, although
the sentence inscribed upon them has been occasionally discovered
elsewhere. Mention of it is thus made in the Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal: - "On the main road from the Valley of Nipal to
Tibet stands a diminutive stone, 'Chaitya.' Upon this is inscribed
a variety of texts from the Buddha Scriptures, and amongst others
the celebrated Mantra, or charmed sentence of Tibet. The system of
letters called Lantza in Tibet, and there considered foreign and
Indian, though nowhere extant in the Plains of India, is the common
vehicle of Sanscrit language among the Buddhists of Nipal Proper,
by whom it is denominated Ranja, in Devanagri ra.mjaa
"Ranja, therefore, and not, according to a barbarian metamorphosis,
Lantza, it should be called by us, and by way of further and clearer
distinction, the Nipalese variety of Devanagri. Obviously deducible
as this form is from the Indian standard, it is interesting to observe
it in practical collocation with the ordinary Thibetan form, and when
it is considered that Lantza or Ranja is the common extant vehicle
of those original Sanscrit works of which the Thibetan books are
translations, the interest of an inscription traced on one slab in
both characters cannot but be allowed to be considerable. The habit
of promulgation of the doctrines of their faith by inscriptions
patent on the face of religious edifices, stones, &c., is peculiar
to the Buddhists of Thibet. The Mantra is also quite unknown to the
Buddhists of Ceylon and the Eastern peninsula, and forms the peculiar
feature of Thibetan Buddhism."
[22] - This was the only explanation of the mounds of inscribed stones
which I was able to obtain from a native source; and some foundation
for the story may be traced in the legend - which will be found in
Appendix B - upon which M. Klaproth has founded the only explanation
of the mystic inscription, which I have been as yet able to discover.
