In Exile From the Land of Snows (41 page)

Following his appointment, Lobsang Jigme’s duties became increasingly crucial to Tibet. The Dalai Lama was ten years old when the new medium took over and, to begin with, things went smoothly. As the Dalai Lama himself recalled, the relationship with Dorje Drakden, his personal
protector, was on a most intimate footing. “In one respect the responsibility of the Dalai Lama and that of Nechung are almost of an equal status but in different fields,” he reflected. “My task is peaceful; his is forceful. From another aspect, though, the Dalai Lama is like a commander and Nechung similar to a lieutenant or subordinate. So the Dalai Lama never bows down to Nechung, but Nechung bows to the Dalai Lama. In any case, as a friend to a friend, Nechung is very close to the Dalai Lama. When I was very small, it was touching. Nechung liked me a lot and he would take care of me. Suppose I was not dressed properly when the trance took place. Once the trance had begun, Nechung would literally arrange my shirt, fix my robe and so on. Then later, during my childhood, the relationship between the Cabinet and the oracle deteriorated. During every trance when Nechung was asked about the welfare of the Dalai Lama, he used to respond enthusiastically with a positive statement, but when he commented on the government’s policies and concerns, he always gave a big ‘if’ and was sarcastic.”

During the late 1940s, prior to the Dalai Lama’s majority, corruption in the Regency’s administration was such that Tibet’s protector overtly opposed the government. On one particularly dramatic occasion, the Cabinet, aware of its precarious position with Dorje Drakden, requested Shinjachen, in the person of the Gadong medium, to intercede with him on their behalf concerning a specific point. Shinjachen complied, but the moment he had completed making the request for the Cabinet, Dorje Drakden struck him hard and both trances instantly ended. The Dalai Lama continued: “You see, dealing with Nechung is not easy. It needs time and patience. He is very rigid, almost like a great man of the old society. He is not talkative, he’s reserved. Very much reserved. He does not bother with minor things. He takes a tremendous interest only in the bigger issues.”

Regardless of the country’s own internal decline, Dorje Drakden did not neglect to warn of the external threat from China. The Dalai Lama vividly recollected the first such indication, which occurred in 1945. “On that occasion,” he related, “when Nechung was questioned concerning the welfare of Tibet, he didn’t say a thing. Instead, he faced eastward and began shaking his head up and down. It was quite frightening, because for an ordinary person the helmet would have broken his neck. At least fifteen times he did this—very violently—and then the trance went off.” In 1945, no one in Tibet imagined that Chinese aggression, driven off more than three decades earlier, would soon reconstitute itself. In 1948—two years before the invasion—Dorje Drakden directly warned that in the Year of the Iron Tiger—1950—Tibet would face extreme danger. He instructed
that a specific
shabten
or religious activity be undertaken, one component of which was the construction of a large chorten at a designated spot. Such acts could not eliminate the threat of conquest, but it was believed, as part of the Protector’s efforts, that they would deter the invasion for a good number of years, during which time the situation might improve on its own, so that when the onslaught did come, it would do so with considerably less destructive force. However, in the self-seeking climate of the time, this and other advice was ignored. As the invasion approached, Dorje Drakden repeatedly alluded to the need for the Dalai Lama to take temporal power. Finally, in November 1950, following Lhasa’s first word of the attack, Shinjachen insisted that Tenzin Gyatso take control. Confused and defeated, the government had to agree.

In 1951, Lobsang Jigme inexplicably fell ill once more. This time, he contracted arthritis, due, perhaps, to physical stress from repeated possessions. Soon all of his major joints were so inflamed that he could no longer walk and had to be supported by two helpers. The doctors at the medical colleges could not effect a cure. Again, he lived in daily pain—save for those occasions when he underwent trance. In the meantime, Dorje Drakden continued to use him, giving the vital instruction that the Dalai Lama go to India in 1956 to forge the first contacts with Nehru and the Indian government, on which, subsequently, the Tibetan refugees’ survival was to depend. Then, in 1958, a year before the Dalai Lama’s flight, the Choekyong prophesied: “In this great river where there is no ford, I, Spirit, have the method to place a wooden boat.” His meaning was clear; the Dalai Lama would have to flee, guided by him through the impassable “river” of Chinese troops.

In the early hours of March 20, 1959, Lobsang Jigme woke, with the rest of the city, to the sounds of the Chinese bombardment. Two miles east of Lhasa, Sera Monastery was attacked, but four miles west, Drepung remained unmolested. As the evening of the twentieth approached, Nechung Monastery was hit by stray bullets from fighting near the PLA’s Nordulingka camp, little over a mile away. Concerned for the
kuden’s
safety, those in charge suggested that he move up the hill to Drepung, where he would not be so isolated. While the monks were in prayer, Lobsang Jigme and one companion went before the statue of Hayagriva in the main assembly hall. It had been this wrathful form that Padmasambhava adapted to subdue Pehar Gyalpo. Hence, the deity was employed by all Nechung
kudens
to invoke the Protector by visualizing themselves as such, within a celestial mansion, just before possession. Placing two balls of barley paste in a sacred vessel, one with a message to go to Drepung, the other to stay at Nechung, they watched as, in the midst of the appropriate
ritual, the note with Drepung written on it came out. That night, in darkness, the Nechung
kuden
made his way, assisted by attendants, up the hillside. What was normally a half-hour walk took almost three times as long, since the PLA periodically shot bright flares over the mountainside, forcing the party to hide behind large boulders. The journey was successful, though, and the next morning Lobsang Jigme awoke to find Drepung in a feverish pitch of activity. Rifles, mortars and ammunition had been delivered, as they were to all the major monasteries around Lhasa, from the Potala arsenal. It was assumed that Chinese tanks would arrive to shell the cloister at any moment. Cut off from Lhasa by artillery and small-arms fire throughout the valley, the abbots of Drepung requested that Lobsang Jigme go into trance, permitting them to consult Dorje Drakden on the best course to follow. The trance was conducted, and in their request the abbots noted that because Sera had already been shelled they now feared Drepung would be as well. Dorje Drakden replied that if the Chinese were unprovoked, they would not fire a single cannon shot at the monastery. Whatever course they followed, he indicated, within three days all the fighting would be over. (Both statements were accurate: the morning of March 23 dawned with the revolt suppressed and Drepung unharmed.)

Before the end of the trance, the senior attendant of the Nechung
kuden
stepped forward to ask Dorje Drakden what should be done for the medium himself. Dorje Drakden replied that after Lobsang Jigme recovered from possession, he should leave Drepung immediately and begin walking south. He was to follow the same route the Dalai Lama had taken. The Protector guaranteed that nothing untoward would happen, and then, wrapping blessed barley grains in a white scarf which he gave to the attendants, he instructed them to burn a single grain whenever difficulty was encountered. Whatever thoughts occurred to them at the moment, he said, they should immediately act on.

When Lobsang Jigme regained consciousness, he looked up from the bed on which he had been placed and saw the small group of monks weeping over him. He inquired if shells had fallen on Drepung and if so whether or not any of them had been hurt. They replied in the negative. “Then why are you all crying?” he asked. After conveying Dorje Drakden’s message, the senior attendant said, “This is the Choekyong’s advice, but how can we follow it? You are a sick man. During the celebration of the Buddha Jayanti in 1956 you went by car through India and even under those conditions suffered tremendously. Now we have to walk and ride for weeks. How can we possibly cope with this problem?” As Lobsang Jigme had no answer for them, one and all lapsed into silence, pondering Dorje Drakden’s other statement: the stunning news of the Dalai Lama’s flight
from the Norbulingka—unknown to Tibetans and Chinese alike until the following week.

Lobsang Jigme’s own escape began the same day. In extreme pain, he spent two months walking from Drepung, through the heart of the fighting in Lhoka, to India. On numerous occasions he just missed capture by the PLA, who were consistently delayed by a series of unexpected events. After arriving safely in the NEFA and being processed through Missamari, he went to see the Dalai Lama in his temporary quarters at Birla House in Mussoorie. Thereafter, he took up his duties once more as a medium, alongside the Gadong
kuden
, also in exile.

Six out of Nechung Monastery’s 115 monks managed to escape Tibet. In 1962, Nechung Rinpoché, the monastery’s abbot, fled, bringing with him the most precious vessel of the Protector, originally stored at Samye, thirteen centuries before. A few years later Dr. Yeshi Dhonden succeeded in curing Lobsang Jigme of his incapacitating arthritis and by 1983, with Nechung Monastery’s two most important figures actively at work, dozens of young monks had been ordained and a new monastery built across from the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Gangchen Kyishong. Here, once more, the daily invocations of Dorje Drakden proceeded with a full complement of monks—much of the refugees’ progress being attributed by them to the ongoing guidance of their Protector over a quarter century of exile.

1959–1965

P
EKING MOVED QUICKLY
following the Lhasa uprising. Martial law was ordered on March 20, just prior to the shelling of the Norbulingka. On March 23, the day after the revolt was crushed, the Military Control Committee of Lhasa was established, followed by others throughout Tibet, save in Shigatse, which, under the jurisdiction of the Panchen Lama, had remained peaceful. Five days later, on March 28, the Tibetan government was dissolved and Tibet was no longer an occupied if self-governing land but a conquered territory.

In Lhasa corpses littered the streets. Almost 10,000 people had died in
three days of fighting. By the PLA’s own account, 4,000 “rebel troops” had been captured along with 8,000 small arms—Smith & Wesson .38s, Colt 45s, Sten guns, Enfields and Mausers—81 light and heavy machine guns, 27 mortars, 6 pieces of artillery and 10,000,000 rounds of ammunition. Nevertheless, to ensure its control the PLA imposed a 7:00 p.m. curfew, confiscated every conceivable weapon, down to kitchen knives four inches long, and then arrested virtually every adult male in the city, filling dozens of large houses and temples to capacity. Lhasa’s two jails, Ngyentseshar in the city proper and Shopa Lhekung just below the Potala, were emptied of their jubilant inmates, their cells refilled by the capital’s citizens. The Ramoché Cathedral, still in flames from the bombardment, served as the initial collection point for hundreds of monks and was soon joined by the Central Cathedral, which received close to 1,000 monks from 28 monasteries around the city. Outside Lhasa, 8,000 prisoners were detained in the Norbulingka, and the three great monasteries of Sera, Drepung and Ganden, all encircled by Chinese troops, saw those who had remained of their 20,000 members locked in assembly halls under heavy guard.

Disposal of corpses was a particularly difficult problem. While the wounded were left to die, thousands of cadavers were collected in piles and burned for three days beneath the willow trees of the summer palace. Because fuel was so scarce in Tibet, cremation was temporarily suspended and communal graves dug. The stench from decomposition, however, compelled the Chinese to disinter the corpses and burn them as well. Meanwhile, with stacks of captured weapons covering the Norbulingka’s charred grounds, specially detailed troops began requisitioning its priceless art treasures for shipment to China.