Three years in Tibet : with the original Japanese illustrations / by the Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi.

  • Ekai Kawaguchi
Date:
1909
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Three years in Tibet : with the original Japanese illustrations / by the Shramana Ekai Kawaguchi. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    46/772 (page 16)
    Tibet. 'J'o inention a few of tliese : when an nn])leasant rumor bad just begun to be circulated, soon aftei' Hai Sarat’s de])ai-turo from Tibet, about his secret mission, the higli Jjama >Sengchen knew at once that death was at liis door, but was not afraid. For, when it was liinted at by his friends that he would become in- volved in a serious ])redicament, owing to his acquaintance with Rai Sarat, he re])lied that he had always consider- ed it his heaven-ordained work to try to ])ro])agate and to perpetuate Ruddhism, not among his own countrymen only, but among the whole human race ; that whether or not Sarat Chandra I.)as was a man who had entered ^ribet with the object of stealing away Ruddhism,” or to ])lay the part of a spy, was not his concern—the question had in any case never occurred to him—and that if he were to sutler death for having done what he had regarded it as his duty to do, he coidd not help it. '^rhat this holy Lama was an advocate of active ])ropa- gandism may be gathered from the fact that, besides sending various Ruddhistic images and ritualistic uten- .sils to India, ho had caused several persons to go out there as missionaries, my teacher, the iilanchurian Lama Serai) Gryamtso, in the (Thoom])ahl 'I'emple of Darjeeling, being one of these. Unfortunately, this undertaking did not prove a success, but none the less it shows the lofty aspirations which actuated the high Lama, who, as 1 was told, had deeply lamented the decadence, or rather the almost entire disap})earance, of Ruddhism in the land ol its origin, and was sincerely anxious to revive it there. It is nothing uncommon in Ja])an to meet with Ruddhist pi-icsts interested in the work or iilea of foreign ])ropa- gandism ; but a ])erson so minded is an extreme rarity in that hermit-country ^I’ibet, and that Lama Sengchen was such a one indicates the greatness of his character, and that he was a man above sectarian differences and inter-