Dibyesh Anand - Geopolitical Exotica

The account of the visit to Lhasa is filled with contradictions. While the text is replete with criticism of the "vampire priests," "parasitic priesthood," and "sheer barbarians," it also expresses nostalgia for the enigma supposedly lost with the invasion and considers Tibet's "charming land and interesting people" (1905, 448). When visiting Yamdok Lake, Waddell mentions his pleasure at leaving warlike surroundings and entering "again the world of dreams and magic which may be said to be ever with us in the mystic Land of the Lamas" (292-93). Upon approaching Lhasa, he compares his excitement and anticipation to "the emotions felt by the Crusaders of old on arriving within sight of Jerusalem, after their long march through Europe" (326) and exclaims: "Here at last was the object of our dreams!-the long-sought, mysterious Hermit City, the Rome of Central Asia, with the residence of its famous priest-god-and it didn't disappoint us!" (330).

Taking a dig at the theosophist imagination of Tibet as the land of the mahatmas, he writes, "Thus we are told that, amidst the solitude of this 'Land of the Supernatural' repose the spirits of 'The Masters,' the Mahatmas, whose astral bodies slumber in unbroken peace, save when they condescend to work some petty miracle in the world below" (1972, 3). In fact, he writes, the Tibetans were entirely ignorant of any mahatmas living in Tibet, nor had they heard of any secrets of the ancient world being preserved in their country (1905, 409-10). Many commentators disclaimed the theosophist idealization of Tibet and deployed the trope of debasement and negation along the lines of Waddell's assertions, but the idealization of

Tibetan religion gained wider currency during the middle and later half of the twentieth century.

The Tibetan Book of the Dead has significantly contributed to the valorization of Tibetan religion and to the Western imagination of Tibet as a land of spirituality. It was allegedly written in the eighth or the ninth century and discovered in the fourteenth. It organizes the experiences of the bar-do, the "in-between"-usually referring to the state between death and rebirth. It was introduced to the West by Evans-Wentz (1949) for the first time in 1927 (and since then it "has taken on a life of its own as something of a timeless world spiritual classic"; Lopez 1998, 47).

The most idealized version can be found in Thurman's translation that seeks to represent Tibetan Buddhism as scientific rather than religious. Thurman dedicates the book

to the brave and gentle people of Tibet, who have suffered and are suffering one of the great tragedies of our time… [and prays] May the Tibetan people soon regain the sovereign freedom they have enjoyed since the dawn of history! And may the sunlight of Tibetan Spiritual Science once again shine brightly upon a freshened world! (1998; emphasis added).

In discussing the virtue of pacifism, Thurman argues that during the reign of the fifth Dalai Lama (1617-82), a unique form of government was created that was almost completely demilitarized and gave priority to nonviolence (1998, 9). Representing Tibet as a spiritual civilization, Thurman writes, "In Western culture, the last frontier of our material conquest is the universe of outer space. Our astronauts are our ultimate heroes and heroines. Tibetans, however, are more concerned about the spiritual conquest of the inner universe… So, the Tibetan lamas… [who are spiritually adept, the] 'psychonauts' are the Tibetans' ultimate heroes and heroines" (10).

Drawing upon the themes of Western materialism and Eastern spirituality, Thurman contrasts Tibetan "inner modernity" with Western "outer modernity." This difference of personality underlies the difference between the Western (American for Thurman) and Tibetan civilizations: "While the American national purpose is ever greater material productivity, the Tibetan national purpose is ever greater spiritual productivity" (11).

Thus, the idealization of Tibetan spirituality often goes beyond everyday religious practice, concerning itself with realms above religion. As the Tibetophile Hollywood actor Steven Seagal says, "My agenda has no politics. It has no economy. You see. It goes even beyond religion which is also big business and goes into simple human kindness and the way we're supposed to treat each other as human beings" (Frontline 1998c). A figure that has been integral to the Western imagination of Tibet as an abode of spirituality is the lama.

At the end of his time in Lhasa, Younghusband wrote about the Ti Rimpoche, the abbot of the powerful Ganden monastery (who was acting as the chief Tibetan negotiator since the Dalai Lama had fled Lhasa before the arrival of the British in 1904): he was a "benevolent, kindly old gentleman, who would not hurt a fly if he could have avoided it" and he "more nearly approached Kipling's Lama in 'Kim' than any other Tibetan" Younghusband had met (Younghusband 1910, 310, 325; emphasis added). Here we see how preexisting images shaped the West's encounter with Tibet. Kipling's fictional lama provided an image of the Tibetan lama against which the British during the early twentieth century measured the actual lamas. With Younghusband begins the tradition of looking for the "Teshoo Lama" figure-elderly yet childlike, respected yet loved, spiritually wise yet with little knowledge of, or interest in, the secular world.

Kipling's Kim, first published in 1901, presents the Orient for the visual consumption of the West. The novel is about the adventures of Kim in India-a white orphan boy who has grown up among Indians, easily passing himself off as one of them. He takes to the road as a chela (disciple, companion) of a Tibetan lama and discovers the diversity of north Indian life while "becoming a man." Initially accompanying the lama on his search for the "fountain of wisdom," Kim is picked up by the British and groomed for working in the British secret service.

Though the depiction of individual Oriental characters such as the Teshoo Lama is positive, it in no way disrupts the cumulative picture and the certainties of Orientalism for "no matter how much a single Oriental can escape the fences around him, he is first an Oriental, second a human being, and last again an Oriental" (Said 1993, 112; emphases in original). In Kim, it is the Europeans who provide the Orientals with the first accurate descriptions and proper explanations of their history, religion, and culture. This is evident in the confrontation of the lama with the British curator of Lahore museum. The curator, a "white-bearded Englishman," speaks to the lama, who is trembling with excitement at the sight of Buddhist images: "Welcome, then, O lama from Tibet. Here be the images, and I am here… to gather knowledge" (1976, 13). The lama tells the curator that he was an abbot at a monastery in Tibet. In reply, the curator brings out a huge book of photos and shows him that very place, suitably impressing the lama, who exclaims, "And thou-the English know of these things?" (14). [37]Throughout the novel, Tibet figures as a place far removed from the lives of those in India. When the lama enters the story he says to the boys playing in front of the Lahore museum that he is "a hillman from hills thou'lt never see" (12). On his journey in north India with Kim, the lama tells stories of "enduring snows, landslips, blocked passes, the remote cliffs where men find sapphires and turquoise, and the wonderful upland road that leads at last into Great China itself" (48). Later, on the second leg of their journey,

he told stories, tracing with a finger in the dust, of the immense and sumptuous ritual of avalanche-guarded cathedrals; of processions and devil-dances; of the changing of monks and nuns into swine; of holy cities fifteen thousand feet in the air; of intrigue between monastery and monastery; of voices among the hills, and of that mysterious mirage that dances on dry snow. He spoke even of Lhassa and of the Dalai Lama, whom he had seen and adored. (232)