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.

    52/772 (page 22)
    slope of Kanchcfijunga, tlie second liig-hest snow-capped peaks in the Kange and brings the traveller to Warong, a village on the frontier of Tibet; and the third, which takes one direct from Sikkim throngh Khampa-Jong to Lhasa. As, however, each of these roads is jealously guarded either with a fortified gate or some sentinels, at its Tibetan terminus, it is a matter of jiractical impossibility for a foreigner to gain admittance into the hermit-country by going along any of them. Rai Sarat was of opinion that, if 1 were to present myself at the Nyatong gate, tell the guards there that 1 was a Japanese ])ricst who wished to visit their country for the sole purjiose of studving Ruddhism, I might possibly be allowed to pass in, provid- ed that I was courteously persistent in my solicitations; but I had I'easons for thinking little of this suggestion. At all events, what I had learned from my Tibetan tutors did not sustain my friend’s view ; instead, however, my own information led me to a belief that a road to suit my purpose could be found by proceeding through either the Kingdom of Bhutan or of Nepal. It ajijieared to me, further, that the route most advantageous to me would be by way of Nepal ; for J3hutan had never been visited by the Buddha, and there was there little to learn for me in that connexion, though that country had at one time or another been travelled over by Tibetan priests of great renown; but the latter fact had nothing of importance for me. I had been told, howevei*, that Nepal abounded in the Buddha’s foot- steps, and that there was in existence there comjilete sets of the Buddhist ’I'exts in Samskrt. ’I’liese were inducements which I could turn to account, in the case of failure to enter Tibet. Moreover, no Japanese had ever been in Nepi'd before me, though it had been visited by some Kuropeans and Americans. So 1 decided on a route vi<l Ne])al.