In recent decades, Tibet has become a political cause — and not without reason. The Dalai Lama was forced to flee in 1959 and has since lived in exile in India. Many Tibetans suffered terribly, and many were forced to leave their homes as China turned their homeland into the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China (so designated in 1965). Monasteries were destroyed; lives upended.
But in recent years, Tibet has also become a destination — no longer closed off from the world. (Lhasa was declared an open city in 1984, then shut down again after riots in 1987, and opened once more in 1990 after martial law was lifted.)
It is a different Tibet, this one you now go to see. But it still retains an aura of mystery, still hangs onto much of its unique culture, still offers untold lessons in faith and devotion that make the effort worthwhile.
Tibet is not an easy place to visit because of recent political history, but also because of its geographical location. It was able to maintain its isolation for so long because of its remote position; it was not given its designation as "the roof of the world" lightly.
Unless you are an intrepid adventurer who likes hiking across mountaintops, you will likely make contact with Tibet in its capital city, Lhasa, still accessed from only a handful of cities, including Chengdu and Xi'an in China or Katmandu in Nepal.
Lhasa, built on one of the lower plateaus in Tibet, sits at approximately 13,000 feet above sea level. Altitude sickness can be a real hazard, particularly if you try to do too much too soon after your arrival.
But if you happen along on one of those gorgeous days when blue sky and wispy clouds provide a backdrop to the mountaintops and monuments, altitude won't be the only thing that takes your breath away.
You will quickly come to appreciate the people who have lived here for so long and who built such a civilization.
According to folk legend, the first Tibetans descended from a race of monkey-kings.
For a long time, there was merely a loose collection of nomadic tribes wandering about the mountainous valleys.
But Tibet once held its place as a world power.
During the reign of Songtsen Gampo, in the 7th century A.D., the Tibetan empire, carved out by a swift, strong and highly organized army, stretched from the plains of northern India to the Chinese frontiers in the east and the borders of the Turkish empire in the west.
As a gesture of peace toward their aggressive neighbor, Nepal and China each offered the king a bride from their royal families.
Tibet was feared and powerful. Then it found a new religion.
Gampo's forays into India and China had introduced him to Buddhism, and those precepts and ideas were strengthened by his two Buddhist wives. However, as it became more widely accepted — or perhaps to make it more widely acceptable — the developing philosophy incorporated much of the native animistic-oriented Bon religion the Tibetans had practiced. The result was a sect that was very different from other Buddhist groups. But this religion would become the defining characteristic of Tibet, more important than language, ethnicity, history, military might or other factors.
Over the next few centuries, Tibet's political influence slowly declined. When Mongol hordes, under Genghis Khan, threatened invasion, the Tibetans did not put up any resistance. Over the next centuries, they would trade Mongol for Chinese overlords, but for the most part, they had little contact with their masters or the rest of the world.
Starting in the early 1300s, and definitely by the mid-1600s, the Dalai Lamas became the political as well as the spiritual leaders. It was a system with a few inherent problems. The belief in the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama meant that a lag time existed between the death of one and the years it took to find the incarnated boy and raise him to the age of leadership. But with regents and advisers, it worked well enough — especially in their closed society.
And Tibet did pull itself in and shut itself off from the rest of the world. It became the Shangri-La, the Land of Snows, the Forbidden City of myth and legend.
If you go to Lhasa today, you'll find it is really two cities in one. There's the modern city, built after the Chinese arrived en force; built with the same square-box architecture, the same layouts, the same sidewalk patterns you find in other Chinese cities.
Luckily, some of the old Lhasa still remains, in the tight and twisted streets around Barkhor Square, in particular. The square, and the Jokhang Temple it fronts, still capture the essence of old Tibet. Pilgrims come daily to the temple; some from far distances; some prostrating themselves every step of the way. To stand in the square and watch for even a short time is to see devotion personified. For the most part, the pilgrims wear the sometimes tattered but still colorful clothes of their culture; and their faces wear the evidence of hard years of duty and labor, making for an engrossing study of humankind.
The temple, built by Songsten Gampo, is considered the most sacred place in Tibet. It is with respect and reverence that you follow the pilgrims inside.
In the dim interior, the believers make their way around the circuit, stopping to make yak butter offerings at each of the altars and shrines, which contain golden statues of Buddha and other figures from Tibetan history. The smell of the burning butter permeates the air. Nowadays, most of the butter is brought in yellow bags, processed in Nepal and shipped to Lhasa. There are no longer enough yaks to make enough butter in the city.
From the golden roof of the temple, you can get a sweeping view of the city and its mountain setting.
Outside on the square, merchants set up shop, selling everything from prayer flags to pots and pans. More and more, you see stalls filled with goods designed to tempt visitors: jewelry, prayer wheels and other knicknacks. Prices are inexpensive, and you hardly want to bargain, but it is expected. The shopkeepers are aggressive, but friendly and take great delight in the fact you are even mildly interested in their wares.
Barkhor is a good place to start, because it gives you a feel for the people. But soon, you must make your way to the Potala Palace — certainly one of the most famous, most amazing buildings in the world.
Built on a hill overlooking the city, the palace dominates the skyline from almost every direction (at least on clear days; it is also frequently shrouded in clouds).
Only a few parts of the original 7th-century palace remain. Most of the Potala as it is now was built in the mid-1600s. (To their credit, in 1976 the Chinese launched a $2.5 million restoration project that saved the top four stories from crumbling.) The distinctive red and white color it retains originally served as a functional designation. The Red Palace was for religious use; the White Palace for secular functions.
With more than a thousand rooms, the palace provided living and administrative quarters for the Dalai Lamas as well as a burial place and shrine for eight of these rulers. Now it serves as primarily a museum; although here, too, the devoted bring their yak butter offerings to the shrines.
You will be taken to the top of the hill by bus; afterward, you can wander down the fairly steep path at the front of the palace if you want. Not all rooms are open to the public, but as you wander through those that are — through a rabbit-warren maze that goes up and down from the upper floor to the upper middle floor to the lower middle floor, past the jewel-encrusted tombs and the tiny chapels to the great assembly room on the lower floor — you can't help but marvel at the culture and the lifestyle that centered around this place. A trip through the palace is truly a multidimensional journey.
You find a connection to the more recent past at Norbuling-
ka, the Dalai Lama's summer palace, 2 1/2 miles west of the Potala. First built in the 1700s but rebuilt as recently as the 1950s, this palace is set amid flowers and trees in a lovely park.
At one time, one of Lhasa's biggest celebrations involved the annual move of the Dalai Lama from the winter to the summer palace. Now, you must try to imagine the impressive parade of nobles, soldiers, musicians, monks and animals.
Among the most touching parts of the summer palace, however, are the rooms where the current Dalai Lama lived. They are just as he left them when he fled to India in 1959. You wonder what he would think if he came back to them now.
Lhasa's monuments are unique and magnificent. Equally impressive, however, are the simple scenes you see in and around the city. You might see fishermen in square, yak-skin boats on the river. You might see farmers threshing grain the old-fashioned way: tossing it into the air so the grain and chaff separate. You will see pedicabs everywhere; maybe you will even go for a ride. (And if the chain on your bicycle part breaks down, no problem. The driver will open the tool box under your seat and fix it on the spot.)
Although there is a significant Chinese population in town now, you will find yourself watching for Tibetans: for the rosy-cheeked children, for the more traditional clothes, for the evidence that belief is still strong.
Daily prayer is a fact of life, and you will see Tibetans carrying prayer wheels wherever they go — spinning and praying as they walk along the streets. You will see the large rows of prayer wheels set up for passers-by to spin and send supplications to heaven. At one place, there's even a clever water prayer wheel, so it is in constant motion.
On the outskirts of Lhasa, several monasteries provide more insight into Tibetan belief and culture. At one time, every family gave at least one son to the priesthood, and the country's 2,500 monasteries housed more than 110,000 monks. Most of them are gone now.
Drepung was the largest of them all. With more than 10,000 lamas, it was, in fact, the largest cloister in the world. Approximately 300 monks live and work there today, diminished in number but keeping the faith alive. You can wander up and down through the complex, which was established in 1416. You will go past granaries, dark monastic cells and beautifully decorated chapels. You can see the huge wood-fired cooking pots used to prepare simple meals and smell the pungent spices mixed with vegetables and chicken broth.
At the Sera Monastery, you'll likely be greeted by the sound of voices. One of the traditions of this place is the Debating Garden, where the red-robed monks who are preparing for their monastic examinations practice by staging mock debates. You will probably wonder just what the debates are all about; judging by the sounds and the expressions, passionate topics are being discussed on both sides.
Here, you might also see children with smudged noses. They have been brought by their parents to be blessed by the monks, and a smear of black dust on the nose is a symbol of that blessing.
You might wish you could get one for yourself. A blessing from men of such devotion would surely carry some weight.
Instead, you will count yourself blessed enough to simply be there, to see how despite everything, faith and fortitude of one of the world's distinct cultures still linger on the Roof of the World.
E-mail: carma@desnews.com