hermitages, where Indian pundits are said to have lived in times of yore. Flocks of pigeons were hovering about them, and walnut and willow trees grew around, giving them a peaceful and secluded appearance.
The sands are slowly but surely burying Samye, and a large portion of the town, including some of the temples, is already lost under them. There is a prophecy attributed to Padma Sambhava, to the effect that Samye will be engulfed in the sands, and it is in a fair way of being accomplished.
November 1.—I again visited the Wu-tse. The principal room in the gong khang (upper hall) is full of all kinds of weapons and armour sacred to the gods, protectors of religion (Darmapalas). In the beautiful temple of Behor and Noijinhamara[1] is a room called the wu-khang, where the breath of the dying is kept in a jar specially consecrated to this purpose.[2]
A few notes on the famous lamasery of Samye and Padma Sambhava find place here.
The temple was built by King Tisrong detsen, whose capital was on the hill of Haboi-ri, just south of where Samye now stands, at the suggestion of the Indian sage Santa Rakshita, and with the assistance of Padma Sambhava, the originator of monasticism in Tibet.[3] It was a copy of the great temple of Odantapura in Central India. Its three stories were each in a different style of architecture, one Tibetan, another Indian, and the third Chinese: so it was after a while given the name of San-yang or "three styles," which in Tibetan is pronounced Samye,[4] though it was originally named Mi-gyur lhun-grub Tsug-lha-khang, "the temple of the unalterable mass of perfection."
- ↑ Behor must be Bihar gyalpo, one of the five great patron saints or Chu-gyong, of Tibet. Noijinhamara may be the god of wealth.—(W. R.)
- ↑ Wu-khang would appear to mean "central room or house." I have never heard of bottling up the breath or spirit of the dead among any Buddhist people. This must be a survival of some pre-Buddhist superstition.—(W. R.)
- ↑ Tibetan historians inform us that Padma Sambhava (Peme chyung-nas) was called to Tibet from Kafiristan (O-rgyan) by Santa Rakshita (Dji-wa tso), who could not withstand the onslaught of the Bonbos. See Emil Schlaginweit, 'Die Könige von Tibet,' p. 52 et sqq.
- ↑ Written Bsam-yas. I do not believe that this interpretation of the word Samye is correct. San yang, it is true, means "three styles" in Chinese, but Chinese yang would never be pronounced ye in Tibetan. Waddell, op. cit., 266, translates the name, "the academy for obtaining the heap of unchanging meditation." Nain Singh visited Samye (he calls it Sama-ye Gomba) in 1873. "It is surrounded by a very high circular wall, 112 mile in circumference, with gates facing the four points of the compass. On the top
