Mongolia | Autobiography of the Diluv Khutagt | Part 3
The Nine Famous Khutagts of Zavkhan Aimag; Diluv Khutagt is second from left.
Diluv KhutagtPart 3
Continued from Part 2 . . . Between my seventh and ninth years [1890–1892] there was great trouble in the monastery concerning the succession of the new Narvanchin Gegeen. The new Gegeen was born to the wife of a very poor shav’ who had worked on the monastery lands of the former Narvanchin Gegeen. She had been married to a Mongol and later went to Khovd with a Chinese named T’ing, who was a clerk in the Chinese government service. T’ing was not his real name, but one he had assumed after he had become involved in some sort of a rebellion in Hunan, where he came from, and had been exiled to Khovd. Later, because he was well-educated, he became influential with the Chinese and Mongol officials there.
T’ing paid some money to his wife’s former husband and adopted the child; then he was removed to Ili, in Sinkiang. When they discovered that the child was the Narvanchin Gegeen, a deputation had to be sent all the way to Ili to get him. Moreover, the Chinese were holding the boy for a ransom of 35,000 lan.
The expedition that went to get the child consisted of about 40 men with their horses and camels. Fortunately my monastery had many good connections with the Torguud Mongols of the Altai, who lent them transportation. The envoy returned without the boy because they refused to pay the 35,000 lan, but in the meanwhile, they had spent from one spring to the next sending messengers back and forth, offering money, having their offers refused, and pleading unsuccessfully with the Uliastai authorities. They spent the summer at Bortala and the winter at Ili before they finally gave up and came home. The next autumn a new delegation was sent with not more than 12 people in all, including servants, and they went to Ili, spent a long time talking, offered 10,000 lan, which had been raised by subscription, and came home with the child. He was about the same age as I was. In the delegation was one man from the monastery who was a good talker, and one from the Aimag administration who was much too soft. If the Aimag representative hadn’t been so docile, we should not have had to pay nearly so much as 10,000 lan.
In my seventh year (1890) I went to the Zasagt Khan’s Banner. There I met the prince of the region. When he emerged from his tent to greet me, all his little lap-dogs came tumbling out after him. They jumped under the hem of my gown and bit my ankles so hard that I had to sit down to make them stop. This, unfortunately, looked like a very undignified prostration. The summer the question of the Narvanchin Gegeen was settled I spent in the Zasagt Khan’s Banner as a guest and with great ceremony. The borders of his Banner were only about 60 miles from where my monastery was.
When I was 12 years old [1895], the Ar Bogd [Urga Living Buddha] came on a state visit to Erdene Zuu, a large monastery east of mine where there was a great festival held by the four Aimags of Khalkh. There was a ceremony held on that occasion, known in Tibetan as Danshug and in Mongol as Bat Orshil, like the Mandal which was held at Narvanchin when I was five, except that it was more magnificent and with presents on a larger scale. At a Mandal the presents are freewill offerings but at a Danshug the sums are fixed and pro-rated. The Bogd’s Danshug offerings from four Aimag amounted to about 10,000 lan every year, which was supposed to be fixed by the Aimags themselves. This was impoverishing to the area as there were very large expenses for race horses, wrestlers and archers as well as for tents, mare’s milk and provisions. Our Danshug rating at Narvanchin was 500 sheep, but as our expenses amounted to much more than that we always lost money on the festival.
In the horse races there were five classes according to the ages of the horses and also separate races for stallions and for amblers. The first prize in each class was a young camel. The first prizes for the wrestlers were also camels from each aimag. By courtesy, the home wrestler always won the first prize. The second prize, for the real winner, would be from the host monastery—a good ambler, silk for a gown and some silver.
The Narvanchin Gegeen and I both went to this assembly. I attended the horse-races, but I spent the rest of the time studying with a learned lama who was there and I did not go to the wrestling or feasting. I went to Erdene Zuu by the southern route and came back by the northern route. On the way there I passed through four Banners and everywhere there was feasting and entertainment, and the exchanging of presents.
When I was 13 [1896] 1 had the smallpox and was kept in isolation for about a year. In my 11th year there had also been an epidemic, and I had been vaccinated and taken away to the mountains. In the epidemic that occurred when I was 13, I was vaccinated by a wandering Russian who practiced vaccination and other forms of “medicine”. As payment we gave him a “pock-marked” horse. When that didn’t take, a Mongol doctor was called and I was vaccinated again. This time it took, but of all the many children vaccinated by this doctor, I was the only one to get smallpox.
When I was 14 [1897], I went to Uliastai on temple business and to make the acquaintance of important Chinese and Manchu officials. I had to make two trips because my colleague the Narvanchin Gegeen got a bad toothache and in the middle of my first trip I was summoned back. (In those days we never pulled an aching tooth but usually lanced it with a hot needle or cauterized it or cut the gums around it.) The distance from the Narvanchin Monastery to Uliastai was about 400 li or 130 miles, but I was fond of riding and could make the journey in one day on one horse.
At the same time that we were worried about the Narvanchin Gegeen’s toothache, we worried about the life of his Chinese stepfather, who had a dropsy which he died of the same year. The stepfather had been living part of the time in Uliastai and kept five Chinese servants. He had learned Mongol very well from his wife, but the Mongols were afraid of his influence with the Uliastai officials.
In that year I went back to my native Banner to make a sacrifice, as is customary with high lamas. This was a sacrifice to “earth and mountains” and not lamaistic, though lama prayers were recited. In the same summer, after I returned from my native Banner, I visited the snow-crested mountain Otgon Tengri, means “youngest son”. This mountain is in Sain Noyan Aimag. At that time it was sacrificed to by the Manchu Janjin on behalf of the Manchu Emperor, by the Ar Bogd, by the Aimag and by the Banner in which the mountain was situated, Khoshuuch Beis’s Banner. I was there when these sacrifices were being made. There were special prayers written in Mongol which were also not lamaistic. Otgon Tengri is much higher than Mount Fuji in Japan.
According to custom, I would have begun to take care of the administration of the temple at 18, but actually I was only 11 when 1 began to be interested in such matters. When my power became official at 18 I had already had a good deal of experience, as I had been taking an active part in administration since the age of 15. In the administration of the monastery the Narvanchin Gegeen and I had equal power, and all our decisions were joint decisions; we never disagreed.
When the Narvanchin Gegeen was brought to the monastery at the age of nine he spoke only Chinese but he later learned to speak Mongol as well as anyone else. (While he lived in Ili, however, he had been heard to say “I want to go home” in Mongol, and he knew the Mongol expression for building an oboo and putting a khadag on it. These were considered signs of his really being the Narvanchin Gegeen.)
In my 16th year [1899] I did not leave the temple, as I had in previous summers, but spent three months in solitude, fasting, and reading scriptures.
My 17th year [1900] was the year of the Boxer Rebellion in China, but Mongolia remained undisturbed. The Manchu Emperor did order the mobilization of Mongol troops at Uliastai, but they were never moved from there into China.
The Zasagt Khan [Aimag) troops mutinied, but not those of Sain Noyon Khan. If those two had united they could have taken Uliastai. In this year I went back to my old home again for a visit.
In my 18th year [1901] I was again officially invited to visit the Banner in which I was born. In the spring of this year I went to pray at the camp of the Khoshuuch Beis (Khoshuuch means “Leader of the Vanguard”) among the leaders of whose Banner there was a dispute. It was hoped that my prayer would rectify the hidden sins in men’s minds and put an end to the quarrel. In this regard we were successful. Some lamas are not good at intoning prayers and become restless, but one who has a natural bent for it, as I had, never got tired. On the other hand, at this age, I was rather impatient of the formal teaching of the scriptures by my tutor.
In this same year I had a dream; I dreamed that I went to wash my hands and face in the river that flowed below the monastery. As I lowered my hands into the water after washing my face a moon came out of my mouth and went bobbing and floating downstream. It was the süld part of my soul leaving me. I awoke, feeling weak and listless, and called in my religious teacher. He discovered what the trouble was and prayed for the return of the süld. After several days the süld came back and I was well again.
The süld is the “spirit”—that part of the soul the Tibetans called la and the Chinese call ling. The other part of the soul is called süns and the Tibetans call it nam she, the Chinese hun. The süns is the physical life. When it enters, the body lives, when it leaves, the body dies. The süld can leave the body. One then feels listless and the mind is vacant but one is still alive. Cases of “losing” one’s süld are frequent. In recalling the süld some article of the patient’s clothing is carefully weighed on a scale. Prayers are then read. If the clothing then increases in weight the süld has returned.
I remember another dream from my childhood, which occurred when I was six years old. About ten miles northwest of my monastery there was a range of hills. One of these was a red peak and another was black. I dreamed that in the dip between these hills 1 had become a wolf. I had six companions, so there were seven of us.
All seven of us wolves went up into that gap in the hills and sat there in a row looking towards the north, where there was a wide stretch of land covered with dense grass. None of us could say anything, because we were wolves. But, with no words spoken, I knew what they wanted. There was a big flock of sheep grazing on that plain to the north, and my companions wanted me to go and snatch one of them. They would accompany me, running along to one side, but I was to kill the sheep myself. I did not want to do it, hut I knew I had to. So I went along.
I slunk through the dense grass, almost crawling, until I saw a fine big black-headed one, and I seized it by the throat. There was a bad taste of blood or something in my mouth, and I could see a pitiful look in its eyes. Then I started back, dragging it by the throat. All this time I had a feeling of extreme unwillingness, but I knew that I was doing what I had to do.
Every Mongol, once in his life, usually in childhood, has a disease called “mouth sickness”, with fever, and sores in the mouth. They never die of it, and it can be cured in a few days, but it is very distressing. One cure is for a relative to ride a horse very fast, to heat it up. Returning to the tent, he strips the bridle from the horse and puts the bit in the mouth of the sufferer. In entering the tent he lifts the hanging door felt from the wrong side. It should be lifted from the right in entering and from the left in leaving. Another cure for the mouth sickness is to castrate a dog and thrust the warm testicles into the mouth of the patient. Dogs are not normally castrated as it makes them afraid of wolves. These treatments may be different according to whether the patient is a boy or a girl, a man or woman, but I have forgotten.
When I was 19 [1902] I made two journeys to Khovd, one in winter and one in summer. Khovd is 14 post stations from Uliastai or 15 days ride—well over 300 miles. My reason for going to Khovd that year was because there was a big and prosperous monastery there, on the north bank of the Buyant River, which had no incarnation of its own. The name of this monastery was Tügeemel Amarjüüch (“creating universal peace”). Originally the position of Living Buddha [for this monastery] was assumed by the Narvanchin Gegeen and the Jalkhanz Gegeen in alternating periods of three years but later another sometimes substituted. One of my previous incarnations resided there three times. He lived to be 70. This monastery was an imperial monastery for the whole northwest region, not a local Khovd foundation. I believe it was founded by Ch’ien Lung. This big monastery was the monastery of the Frontier Region of Khovd, and did not belong to any Banner or Aimag, so that it had no lands, shav’ or herds of its own; however, the Banners with which it was most associated were Myangad and Dambi Ööld.
There were no incarnations in any of the 20 Banners of the Khovd region. In some of the banners, however, there were female incarnations called Dar Ekh, notably in Dambi Ööld Banner. The Dar Ekh had no temples and no regular incarnation successions but appeared here and there irregularly. They had husbands, and usually had a reputation for healing. The most famous one appeared in the Ch’ien Lung period [1736-1796] and this started the fashion. She lived to a great age. Most of the Mongols from the extreme northwest were not Khalkh Mongols, but since many of them came to my monastery as pilgrims I knew their dialect from my youth up.
T’ing paid some money to his wife’s former husband and adopted the child; then he was removed to Ili, in Sinkiang. When they discovered that the child was the Narvanchin Gegeen, a deputation had to be sent all the way to Ili to get him. Moreover, the Chinese were holding the boy for a ransom of 35,000 lan.
The expedition that went to get the child consisted of about 40 men with their horses and camels. Fortunately my monastery had many good connections with the Torguud Mongols of the Altai, who lent them transportation. The envoy returned without the boy because they refused to pay the 35,000 lan, but in the meanwhile, they had spent from one spring to the next sending messengers back and forth, offering money, having their offers refused, and pleading unsuccessfully with the Uliastai authorities. They spent the summer at Bortala and the winter at Ili before they finally gave up and came home. The next autumn a new delegation was sent with not more than 12 people in all, including servants, and they went to Ili, spent a long time talking, offered 10,000 lan, which had been raised by subscription, and came home with the child. He was about the same age as I was. In the delegation was one man from the monastery who was a good talker, and one from the Aimag administration who was much too soft. If the Aimag representative hadn’t been so docile, we should not have had to pay nearly so much as 10,000 lan.
In my seventh year (1890) I went to the Zasagt Khan’s Banner. There I met the prince of the region. When he emerged from his tent to greet me, all his little lap-dogs came tumbling out after him. They jumped under the hem of my gown and bit my ankles so hard that I had to sit down to make them stop. This, unfortunately, looked like a very undignified prostration. The summer the question of the Narvanchin Gegeen was settled I spent in the Zasagt Khan’s Banner as a guest and with great ceremony. The borders of his Banner were only about 60 miles from where my monastery was.
When I was 12 years old [1895], the Ar Bogd [Urga Living Buddha] came on a state visit to Erdene Zuu, a large monastery east of mine where there was a great festival held by the four Aimags of Khalkh. There was a ceremony held on that occasion, known in Tibetan as Danshug and in Mongol as Bat Orshil, like the Mandal which was held at Narvanchin when I was five, except that it was more magnificent and with presents on a larger scale. At a Mandal the presents are freewill offerings but at a Danshug the sums are fixed and pro-rated. The Bogd’s Danshug offerings from four Aimag amounted to about 10,000 lan every year, which was supposed to be fixed by the Aimags themselves. This was impoverishing to the area as there were very large expenses for race horses, wrestlers and archers as well as for tents, mare’s milk and provisions. Our Danshug rating at Narvanchin was 500 sheep, but as our expenses amounted to much more than that we always lost money on the festival.
In the horse races there were five classes according to the ages of the horses and also separate races for stallions and for amblers. The first prize in each class was a young camel. The first prizes for the wrestlers were also camels from each aimag. By courtesy, the home wrestler always won the first prize. The second prize, for the real winner, would be from the host monastery—a good ambler, silk for a gown and some silver.
The Narvanchin Gegeen and I both went to this assembly. I attended the horse-races, but I spent the rest of the time studying with a learned lama who was there and I did not go to the wrestling or feasting. I went to Erdene Zuu by the southern route and came back by the northern route. On the way there I passed through four Banners and everywhere there was feasting and entertainment, and the exchanging of presents.
When I was 13 [1896] 1 had the smallpox and was kept in isolation for about a year. In my 11th year there had also been an epidemic, and I had been vaccinated and taken away to the mountains. In the epidemic that occurred when I was 13, I was vaccinated by a wandering Russian who practiced vaccination and other forms of “medicine”. As payment we gave him a “pock-marked” horse. When that didn’t take, a Mongol doctor was called and I was vaccinated again. This time it took, but of all the many children vaccinated by this doctor, I was the only one to get smallpox.
When I was 14 [1897], I went to Uliastai on temple business and to make the acquaintance of important Chinese and Manchu officials. I had to make two trips because my colleague the Narvanchin Gegeen got a bad toothache and in the middle of my first trip I was summoned back. (In those days we never pulled an aching tooth but usually lanced it with a hot needle or cauterized it or cut the gums around it.) The distance from the Narvanchin Monastery to Uliastai was about 400 li or 130 miles, but I was fond of riding and could make the journey in one day on one horse.
At the same time that we were worried about the Narvanchin Gegeen’s toothache, we worried about the life of his Chinese stepfather, who had a dropsy which he died of the same year. The stepfather had been living part of the time in Uliastai and kept five Chinese servants. He had learned Mongol very well from his wife, but the Mongols were afraid of his influence with the Uliastai officials.
In that year I went back to my native Banner to make a sacrifice, as is customary with high lamas. This was a sacrifice to “earth and mountains” and not lamaistic, though lama prayers were recited. In the same summer, after I returned from my native Banner, I visited the snow-crested mountain Otgon Tengri, means “youngest son”. This mountain is in Sain Noyan Aimag. At that time it was sacrificed to by the Manchu Janjin on behalf of the Manchu Emperor, by the Ar Bogd, by the Aimag and by the Banner in which the mountain was situated, Khoshuuch Beis’s Banner. I was there when these sacrifices were being made. There were special prayers written in Mongol which were also not lamaistic. Otgon Tengri is much higher than Mount Fuji in Japan.
According to custom, I would have begun to take care of the administration of the temple at 18, but actually I was only 11 when 1 began to be interested in such matters. When my power became official at 18 I had already had a good deal of experience, as I had been taking an active part in administration since the age of 15. In the administration of the monastery the Narvanchin Gegeen and I had equal power, and all our decisions were joint decisions; we never disagreed.
When the Narvanchin Gegeen was brought to the monastery at the age of nine he spoke only Chinese but he later learned to speak Mongol as well as anyone else. (While he lived in Ili, however, he had been heard to say “I want to go home” in Mongol, and he knew the Mongol expression for building an oboo and putting a khadag on it. These were considered signs of his really being the Narvanchin Gegeen.)
In my 16th year [1899] I did not leave the temple, as I had in previous summers, but spent three months in solitude, fasting, and reading scriptures.
My 17th year [1900] was the year of the Boxer Rebellion in China, but Mongolia remained undisturbed. The Manchu Emperor did order the mobilization of Mongol troops at Uliastai, but they were never moved from there into China.
The Zasagt Khan [Aimag) troops mutinied, but not those of Sain Noyon Khan. If those two had united they could have taken Uliastai. In this year I went back to my old home again for a visit.
In my 18th year [1901] I was again officially invited to visit the Banner in which I was born. In the spring of this year I went to pray at the camp of the Khoshuuch Beis (Khoshuuch means “Leader of the Vanguard”) among the leaders of whose Banner there was a dispute. It was hoped that my prayer would rectify the hidden sins in men’s minds and put an end to the quarrel. In this regard we were successful. Some lamas are not good at intoning prayers and become restless, but one who has a natural bent for it, as I had, never got tired. On the other hand, at this age, I was rather impatient of the formal teaching of the scriptures by my tutor.
In this same year I had a dream; I dreamed that I went to wash my hands and face in the river that flowed below the monastery. As I lowered my hands into the water after washing my face a moon came out of my mouth and went bobbing and floating downstream. It was the süld part of my soul leaving me. I awoke, feeling weak and listless, and called in my religious teacher. He discovered what the trouble was and prayed for the return of the süld. After several days the süld came back and I was well again.
The süld is the “spirit”—that part of the soul the Tibetans called la and the Chinese call ling. The other part of the soul is called süns and the Tibetans call it nam she, the Chinese hun. The süns is the physical life. When it enters, the body lives, when it leaves, the body dies. The süld can leave the body. One then feels listless and the mind is vacant but one is still alive. Cases of “losing” one’s süld are frequent. In recalling the süld some article of the patient’s clothing is carefully weighed on a scale. Prayers are then read. If the clothing then increases in weight the süld has returned.
I remember another dream from my childhood, which occurred when I was six years old. About ten miles northwest of my monastery there was a range of hills. One of these was a red peak and another was black. I dreamed that in the dip between these hills 1 had become a wolf. I had six companions, so there were seven of us.
All seven of us wolves went up into that gap in the hills and sat there in a row looking towards the north, where there was a wide stretch of land covered with dense grass. None of us could say anything, because we were wolves. But, with no words spoken, I knew what they wanted. There was a big flock of sheep grazing on that plain to the north, and my companions wanted me to go and snatch one of them. They would accompany me, running along to one side, but I was to kill the sheep myself. I did not want to do it, hut I knew I had to. So I went along.
I slunk through the dense grass, almost crawling, until I saw a fine big black-headed one, and I seized it by the throat. There was a bad taste of blood or something in my mouth, and I could see a pitiful look in its eyes. Then I started back, dragging it by the throat. All this time I had a feeling of extreme unwillingness, but I knew that I was doing what I had to do.
Every Mongol, once in his life, usually in childhood, has a disease called “mouth sickness”, with fever, and sores in the mouth. They never die of it, and it can be cured in a few days, but it is very distressing. One cure is for a relative to ride a horse very fast, to heat it up. Returning to the tent, he strips the bridle from the horse and puts the bit in the mouth of the sufferer. In entering the tent he lifts the hanging door felt from the wrong side. It should be lifted from the right in entering and from the left in leaving. Another cure for the mouth sickness is to castrate a dog and thrust the warm testicles into the mouth of the patient. Dogs are not normally castrated as it makes them afraid of wolves. These treatments may be different according to whether the patient is a boy or a girl, a man or woman, but I have forgotten.
When I was 19 [1902] I made two journeys to Khovd, one in winter and one in summer. Khovd is 14 post stations from Uliastai or 15 days ride—well over 300 miles. My reason for going to Khovd that year was because there was a big and prosperous monastery there, on the north bank of the Buyant River, which had no incarnation of its own. The name of this monastery was Tügeemel Amarjüüch (“creating universal peace”). Originally the position of Living Buddha [for this monastery] was assumed by the Narvanchin Gegeen and the Jalkhanz Gegeen in alternating periods of three years but later another sometimes substituted. One of my previous incarnations resided there three times. He lived to be 70. This monastery was an imperial monastery for the whole northwest region, not a local Khovd foundation. I believe it was founded by Ch’ien Lung. This big monastery was the monastery of the Frontier Region of Khovd, and did not belong to any Banner or Aimag, so that it had no lands, shav’ or herds of its own; however, the Banners with which it was most associated were Myangad and Dambi Ööld.
There were no incarnations in any of the 20 Banners of the Khovd region. In some of the banners, however, there were female incarnations called Dar Ekh, notably in Dambi Ööld Banner. The Dar Ekh had no temples and no regular incarnation successions but appeared here and there irregularly. They had husbands, and usually had a reputation for healing. The most famous one appeared in the Ch’ien Lung period [1736-1796] and this started the fashion. She lived to a great age. Most of the Mongols from the extreme northwest were not Khalkh Mongols, but since many of them came to my monastery as pilgrims I knew their dialect from my youth up.
Labels: Diluv Khutagt, Mongolia, Zavkhan Aimag
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