Not Being Able To Trust The Sepoy In Such A Delicate Undertaking, I Was
Unable To Get Any Information From The Lamas On Religious Subjects;
And All Signs And Suggestive Pointings, &C. Were Immediately And
Invariably Answered By "Um Mani Panee," So That We Left About As Wise
As We Entered.
The most interesting object in the place was a library
of Thibetian books.
It consisted of an upright frame divided into
square compartments, each with a word cut deeply into the wood over
it, and containing the volumes. These were merely long narrow sheets,
collected between two boards, also carved on the outside with a name
similar to the one on the shelf. The characters were beautifully
formed, and I tried to purchase a small volume, if a thing about two
feet long could be called so, but without effect. There were about
thirty of these books in the place, ponderous tomes, carefully covered
up, and little read, to judge by the quantity of dust collected on
them. They read us, however, a small portion of one, in a drawling,
sonorous tone, and with no very great facility.
These books, together with a number of rudely-printed papers, of the
nature of tracts, one of which I carried away, containing some of the
characters similar to that on the inscribed stones, appear to have been
printed at Lassa,[20] the capital of Thibet Proper, and from there,
the head-quarters of the religion in these parts, all the musical
instruments and other paraphernalia belonging to the temples are
also sent.
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