Beautiful Ghosts (61 page)

A sad consequence of the West’s awakening to such art has been the looting of temples. While only a small part of Tibet’s treasures survived the wholesale destruction of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, those that did survive were often in remote, unprotected temples, caves, and ruins. Thieves, some highly sophisticated in technique, have plundered more than a few in recent years, including the famed Nyetang shrine south of Lhasa, the extraordinary collection housed in the small museum in Tsetang, and ancient artwork from the thousand-year-old temple of Toling in far western Tibet. Centuries-old statues in shrines on the pilgrim’s route around sacred Mount Kailash were bypassed by the Cultural Revolution but did not survive a ring of thieves who raided the shrines ten years ago. Time too is taking its toll on surviving treasures. Pamela Logan’s
Tibetan Rescue
captures the challenges of one international effort to save the crumbling frescoes of the remote Pewar Monastery.

Tibet’s earth-taming temples, of which Zhoka is a fictional example, were the depositories of some of the land’s most significant early art. While such temples may not figure prominently in contemporary Buddhist teaching, during the extraordinary years when early Buddhists were embracing the animists who traditionally inhabited Tibet, such temples were the most important structures in the country. Their construction involved marvels of engineering and art. Like a Tibetan thangka, there was no aspect of their creation that was not symbolic or carefully planned to address the deities they evoked. Traditionalist Tibetans will still point out that before the earth-taming temples were built, Tibet was a land plagued by earthquakes.

*   *   *

Finally, as I will never hesitate to point out, although the characters and places in my novels are fictional, the struggle of the Tibetan people to maintain their faith, culture, and integrity unfortunately is not. The lands of traditional Tibet may be inhabited by deities, but they are also populated by thousands of silent heroes, who can teach us much about bravery and endurance on the raw edge of life, living for the things that are most important.
Lha gyal lo.

Eliot Pattison

Also by Eliot Pattison

Skull Mantra

Water Touching Stone

Bone Mountain

BEAUTIFUL GHOSTS
. Copyright © 2004 by Eliot Pattison. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

www.minotaurbooks.com

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Pattison, Eliot.

Beautiful ghosts / Eliot Pattison.

     p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-27759-8 (hc)

ISBN 0-312-33509-1 (pbk)

EAN 978-0312-33509-0

1. Shan, Tao Yun (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Monasteries, Buddhist—Fiction. 3. Ex-police officers—Fiction. 4. Tibet (China)—Fiction. I. Title.

PS3566.A82497B43 2004

813'.54—dc22

2003062543

eISBN 9781466850385

First eBook edition: July 2013