Trekking: Upper Mustang- The Last Forbidden Kingdom
Upper Mustang: The Last Forbidden Kingdom
Whether one accumulates information from the great work and worldly
pleasures of Michael Piessel, or the struggles of Kawaguchi in the cold rivers
of Kali Gandaki , or the nostalgic local references made by Manjushree Thapa.
One thing that is accepted is the lack of information about the secret forbidden
kingdom of Lo in Upper Mustang. Most avid explorers
and people, of course, need only to be told that something is forbidden and
they will rush to try it, so a form of unofficial race.
Numerous images and pictures will circulate many avid travellers’
minds upon contemplating briefly from glancing at such overwhelming information
presented before them. However there is an almost quaint correlation between
what is before our eyes and the thoughts we are able to have in our heads:
large thoughts at times requiring large views, and new thoughts, new places. Des
Esseintes concluded, in Huysmans's words, that ‘the imagination could provide a
more-than-adequate substitute for the vulgar reality of actual experience'.
Mustang is that place.
The forbidden kingdom will take you across less travelled
roads and constant changing geographical plain while contemplating about the
enormous scale of Kali Gandaki River. Vegetation is
now sparser, the riverbeds widens, and the wind begins to pick up. Roofs are
now flat instead of slanted. Such dry and desolate place surrounded by
water and life seems almost unimaginable.
I arrived at Lo-Manthang, Mustang few day before the full moon of April
2016. I have been consciously drifting around Nepal as part of my placement
opportunity at Earthbound Expeditions. I decided to spend my twenties available
to whatever teacher and teaching I happened upon at unusual places. My only
intention was to live and die without regret. I knew that the only true choice
in life is to open one’s eyes or not but I knew that opening my eyes in this
sense is the task of a lifetime and not accomplished in a blink. In the great
words of Wordsworth “we have eyes, yet see not, ears that hear not, and hearts
that neither feel nor understand.' Nature's ‘loveliness' might in turn, makes
us locate the good in ourselves.”
The trip to Mustang takes less than two weeks however the days in
nature can scarcely be expected to impact the psychological effects lasting
longer than a few hours. Two factors have always dominated life in these
areas: the cold and the sheer emptiness. Professor Giusppe Tucci, summed
it when he says that "man is truly overwhelmed by nature's pitiless
vastness". Mustang offers a landscape that makes you feel small and where problem
seems insignificant. I had arrived at Lo- Manthang riding a wave of inexplicable
good fortune that seemed to inflatable the vulnerability of a young man. I could
see that I was corrupted by luck which I mistook for power, although, I was in
some way correct for seeing myself as a seeker. I was also a sort of an ignorant
tourist who wonders through the unfamiliar kingdom of Lo wearing sandals.
Night-time at this altitude doesn’t really happen, seems
like it will and seems like it has. I realised that once the sky begins to
change colour at around eight o’clock it slid into a long lazy sunset. It’s dark
enough to see a few stars but it’s definitely not what you would call night,
the sun is in no hurry.
In Mustang, from I miss the most is the hours spend open to
the sky in the most serene and peaceful ecstasy. I have heard of people who
have never seen a star fall. To get to the rooftops, you must scramble over vertical
placed ladders perfectly balanced at the bottom by just an indentation on the
ground. One night on the rooftop nearing the forbidden kingdom of Lo-Manthang,
I fell asleep after counting thirty of them, the night I saw the beautiful sky
night illuminate its true beauty in what could only be described by experiencing
it first-hand.
I guess I was trying to find the meaning of love and desire
without clinginess. I glanced at the stars as soon as one dropped out of the
sky and suddenly as the light was lost, I understood. The love and the gratitude
I felt at that moment comprised the lesson I was seeking. I hadn’t been
anxiously awaiting the event nor did it occur to be disappointing that it
lasted just an instance seconds. That’s the nature of falling stars and of everything
else. I had never really been startled by a full moon as I have been in Mustang
as I manoeuver through the whitewashed walls around city at late nights, staring
at the moon from time to time.
Many characteristic can be visible as soon as you enter the Forbidden
City. One of the most prominent is the laughter of children. Kawaguchi
described him trying to learn Tibetan, how he would sit with
the children, carefully watching the way they
used their lips, tongues, and teeth, as he worked towards
perfect imitation. Frequently, just when he thought he has
got the hang of it, he would make a complete mess of things, and
he felt that the good- natured laugher that greeted his failures
was another reason why he progressed so quickly. Another aspect
is the hospitability of the people of Lo, the constant smell
of rancid yak butter, incense, dung fire smoke, putrefying mutton- the smells
of Mustang itself- pervade all, and everywhere one sees the smiles of a people
who are at home, wherever there is room to stretch out and make a cup of
slated, buttered tea.
Shamanism is very big in Mustang, door are decorated and ritualistic
animal heads are hung in front of door to ward away the evil spirits. These
spirits seems to haunt those who believe in superstition that might be seen as insignificant
to those in the west. Your livestock’s dies? Demons. Your crops don’t grow?
Demons. At one moment in time Shamanism reached the position of a state
religion. The influence of Buddhism is apparent in every aspect for the people
of Lo- Manthang and Mustang altogether. Buddhism first came
to Tibet not from India- the Indian influence would come
later- but from Nepal and China, and by this time has already undergone a
series of mutations, for Buddhism is one of the world's most adaptable
religions.
This attribute has always been at once the faith's
greatest strengths and weakness and strengths because it has
facilitated its dissemination and made it more attractive to people
of varying backgrounds; weakness because the original teachings has
sometimes been watered down, obscured, or occasionally seen lost
altogether. The sixth century was by coincidence to see the initial
spread of Buddhism to the two lands where in the end it
probably diverged most sharply
from the original teachings: Tibet and Japan.
The beauty of the Buddhist culture is portrayed by the characteristics of people living in such conditions. The patience, kindness and hardworking ethic translates into the slow pace of life. Scriptures that date back to the 6th century are well kept. It’s hard to imagine that one of the Tibetan scholars took upon himself the task of adapting a current north-Indian alphabet to the oddities of the Tibetan language, making it possible for the first time to write thing down in Tibetan. Which is the reason for all the stunning piece of artworks and engraving all over the city of Lo.
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Padmasambhava and
Tiji Festival
It is believe that people of Lo Manthang started to
celebrate the Tiji festival from 15th century on the time of Lama
Lowo Khenchen, one of the greatest Buddhist teacher and son of King Amgon
Sangpo. During the three-day masked dance Tiji festival in Lo Monthang, upper
Mustang, the chosen monk representing Dorge Shunu reveals his various forms and
an ancient Thangka painting of Guru Rimpoche Padmasambhava is being displayed
as the beating of drums and chanting fill the air of Lo Manthang. Thus the
festival depicts the victory of good over evil.
Here enters one of the most enigmatic
and flamboyant characters in all Asian history. Padmasambhava, universally admired
in Tibet as the patron saint of the country- cast doubt on his
reliability as an observer, and were to earn
him the distrust and dislike of many Tibetans. It's not that
Padmasambhava is an easy character to understand, there is nothing saintly in
the conventional sense about him. The aura of hero-worship that commonly
surrounds such figures makes it hard to separate legend from reality.
Padmasambhava (Sanskrit for "lotus born") is
more commonly thought of as Guru Rimpoche (a combination of Sanskrit
and Tibetan meaning "Precious Teacher"), Lobon Rimpoche (lobon
is Tibetan for, "teacher"), Padma Chugne (a
Tibetan translation of "Padmasambhava"),
or sometimes Urhyan Rimpoche, after his birthplace. He also has eight
forms, each with its own title.
Padmasambhava birth story was miraculous, as indeed it has to be, for the whole point of this coming was that the Buddha, having been born of woman, was not "pure" enough to teach Tantras. Only someone born of a lotus would be worthy of this task. Naturally enough, he came from an areas where miracles were common: Uddayana or Irgyan, which lay somewhere to the northwest of today's Kashmir. One day, legend has it, the King of Urgyan discovered a beautiful ten-year-old boy seated in a lotus in the Indus River, and being childless he took the boy home to be raised in the palace as his son and heir.
Padmasambhava birth story was miraculous, as indeed it has to be, for the whole point of this coming was that the Buddha, having been born of woman, was not "pure" enough to teach Tantras. Only someone born of a lotus would be worthy of this task. Naturally enough, he came from an areas where miracles were common: Uddayana or Irgyan, which lay somewhere to the northwest of today's Kashmir. One day, legend has it, the King of Urgyan discovered a beautiful ten-year-old boy seated in a lotus in the Indus River, and being childless he took the boy home to be raised in the palace as his son and heir.
The story of his early life has much in common with
that of the Buddha, who was also raised as a prince and gave up the
comforts of a privileged position to become
a wondering ascetic. The manner in which Padmasambhava took his
leave of worldly life, however, shows him to have been a
very different sort of person from the gentle Prince Siddhartha.
The young man would become the Buddha slipped away at night. Padmasambhava,
having found his own attempts at the quiet departure blocked, chose the unusual
expedient of getting himself banished for committing public murder; of a man, a
woman, and a child whom he killed from a distance, standing on the
palace roof in front of the assembled citizenry (his victims
apparently has harmed Buddhism in present or past lives).
The next few years were spent undergoing an unusual form of
education in cemeteries and cremation grounds, where he is said to have met and
learned to deal with every sort of demon
or spirit imaginable. In between these lurid experiences he visited the
great centres of learning, where he received a more orthodox education, and it
is even believed that the sages old manifested themselves to teach him all they
had known.
Monasteries and Sects
Many big monasteries visited had a common smell to them. It
is a compounded of the burning butter in the lamps and the butter tea drunk by
the monks, who throw the dregs on the floor, where they soon go rancid. This is
one reason why shoes are not removed on entering a temple: the floors are
usually sticky with the residue (the other is that it is often far too cold).
The odour is powerful and all- pervading; “strangely enough the people of Lo
regard this smell as a sweet one, but I declare myself emphatically to the
contrary.
Of all Asians it is probably the Japanese and the Tibetan
who have developed the most appealing interior design. Owing to physical
circumstances, most Tibetan houses are of necessity plain and simple but there
is always a shrine, with a colourful carpet or row spread on the low benches
that also serve as beds; what furniture there is often gaily decorated, and
pillars and beams are usually carved and painted too. The interior of the more
well-to-do homes are both elaborate and tasteful, achieving much the same sense
of balance as their Japanese counterparts.
In the eleventh century, when the sect was founded, theories
of reincarnation had not progressed sufficiently for the head of the Sakyapa to
be an incarnated lama, so that one of his duties was to marry and produce an
heir. In theory, once the heir has been successfully proceed, the lama was
supposed to live separately from his wife; but, needless to say, theory and
practice sometimes diverged. On this rare occasions when there was no heir the
title has gone to the eldest nephew, ensuring that the Sakya Pandit- as he was
called- remained a descendant of the founder. At one time a pries- king whose
status was comparable to that achieved later by the Dalai Lamas, he was still
treated with considerable respect but the Nyingmapa as well as his own
adherents. Thus there were well established rule on how he should be greeted.
Priest will salute him with the rite of “three bows” (full prostrations on the
floor) which was laid down by Buddha is a mark of reverence due only to high
priest and not laymen.
It is safe to say that to the Tibetans both incarnations
represents a very holy figures: the Panchen Lama a more purely spiritual one,
the Dalai Lama a fusion of the spiritual and political. While no Dalai Lama until
the thirteenth has any significant contact with a Westerner (the ninth, who
died as an adolescent, granted a brief audience to Thomas Manning), the third
incarnated lama developed a close friendship with the Scotsman George Bogle,
the first representative in India to visit Tibet. The Dalai Lama was an infant
at the time for Bogle’s visit, and the regency in Lhasa would not grant the
Scotsman permission to proceed to the capital. So instead he stayed at
Shigaste, studying Tibetan, carrying out both official and unofficial
instruction from Warren Hastings- and possibly finding time as well to become
the first Briton to marry a Tibetan.
All of Sakya’s manuscripts were handwritten rather than
printed, and most prized of all were those penned in gold and silver on huge,
dark blue pages, six feet or more long, and said to have been prepared under
the order of Kublai Khan.
The printing is all done by
hand, a page at a time, by first spreading ink on the block, then smoothing the
paper over it. The long rectangular sheets are then gathered between wooden
covers- not bound but merely tied together, the loose pages being flipped over
onto a separate pile when read (though, often enough, these handmade volumes
remain objects of veneration, seldom opened.
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Along the way I came to see myself and at least imagined other
saw me as a guy who had the aware of stepping into the unknown, a guy who could
handle any situation. That became a central thread into my identity and
stories, now I’m comforted and enriched by that self-image. It’s an aspect that
can never be taken away from me- this sense of adventure, willingness to
comfort risk. This stories and experiences into the hardship of life was given
to me by people and their names I never asked on a cold April morning in 2016.
If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then
perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest—in all
its ardour and paradoxes—than our travels. Travelling along contradictory geographical
plains across Upper Mustang has provided to be challenging, rewarding and everything
that come in between new patterns of anxiety inevitably form on the horizon of
consciousness.
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