Chapter 49 - A Race against Time and Obstacles

The moment Phiyang Lama had left, time became again a reality and the race against it began anew. By now it had become clear to us that not only every day, but every minute of our working time, was precious. We would get up with the first ray of the sun that penetrated our cave-like dwelling through the chinks between the rough stone-blocks that formed its walls, and we would return only when it became too dark for our work in the temples and the sun sank behind the rocks. We dared not waste a moment on a midday meal and only cooked and ate after sunset. Sometimes we would even work on our tracings and notes in the light of a candle before going to sleep, as long as the warmth of our hot evening porridge kept our fingers from freezing. The temperature in our little room never rose above freezing-point, and often it happened that, when we neglected our cup of hot tea for a few minutes while talking, the tea would be frozen solid in the meantime.

To wash our hands and faces, we had to break the ice in our wash-basin, which froze over immediately after it had been filled from the wooden keg, which Wangdu brought every day from the stream in the valley and which had to be kept in his cave near the fireplace. Since fuel (consisting mainly of brushwood, rarely of yak dung) was scarce and had to be brought from a considerable distance down in the valley, it would only be used for cooking on the common fireplace between our cubicle and the cave entrance.

Our main food consisted of chapāties with a little rancid butter, which we had bought at Tholing Gompa at an exorbitant price, and in the evening we added to this a porridge of sweetened milk and wheat-flour. When finally even the Tholing butter came to an end, we had to send the Trapa of the Chamba Lhakhang first to Tholing and later, when the Gompa too was short of butter, to the Dogpas (nomadic herdsmen) of the Chang-Thang. The good man came back from there after a month with only two balls of somewhat mature butter, sewn into raw hide (with the hair inside), weighing a little more than a pound each!

But the Buddhas of the Lhakhangs were feeding us with such inspiration that we gave little thought to physical food. Yet we could not help observing that our stores were diminishing at an alarming rate. We then discovered that there was a big hole in the wall, just behind the place where we kept our bags with foodstuffs. We quietly repaired the wall and moved our food to a safer place -- out of reach of anybody who might thrust his arm through the hole.

For a few days everything went well, but then we noticed that pilferage was going on again. Could it be that the padlock, with which we locked the heavy wooden door of our cubicle every day before we left for our work, was opened in our absence? To make sure, we sealed it every morning. We never found the seal broken, nor anything wrong with the walls; but again foodstuffs were pilfered. We were sure that it could only be Wangdu or one of his friends or relatives, who came to visit him from time to time; but it was a riddle to us how anybody could get into the room without either opening the door or breaking through the wall. This latter possibility, however, had to be ruled out, because it would take too long (especially as the one or the other of us made a point of suddenly turning up at odd hours) and would leave traces, which we would be quick to detect, since we had been alerted by the previous experience.

Besides Wangdtu, there was his brother-in-law, who served us alternately with him, because he claimed that he should also have an opportunity of earning some money. However, what first seemed to be a friendly arrangement between the two men developed into a kind of rivalry, and one day they quarrelled, and each of them tried to oust the other from our service. We were just inside the room, when a fight before our door started. Apparently each of them tried to push the other away and prevent him from entering. Suddenly, with a mighty crash they literally fell with the door into the room—and now we saw to our dismay that the door had come off from the hinges! So this was the solution of the riddle: every day, after we had locked the door and sealed the lock, the thief had simply lifted the door out of its hinges, taken whatever he wanted from our bags and put the door back. Thus, when we came back in the evening, we found our lock and its seal intact. From now on we sealed the hinges every day, and this was a complete success. No more foodstuffs were stolen.

Meanwhile a month and a half had passed and nothing was heard of the Dzongpön of Tsaparang who probably was now far away on the road to Shipki. Not finding us there, he would send for us, and by that time another month might have passed, which would allow us to finish our main work. On the other hand, it might happen that the passes were already closed by heavy snowfalls in the outer Himalayas -- in which case there would be little sense in trying to force us to return to India. We cared very little what might happen, as long as we could get on with our work.

It was in the middle of December when the feared blow fell. One evening a number of rough-looking fellows arrived and put up in Wangdus cave, carousing noisily half the night. On the following morning a rather sinister-looking one-eyed man (the other had been blown out in a fight on the Chang-Thang, as we learned later) called on us and informed us that the Dzongpön had given orders that we had to leave Tsaparang and that he had been ordered to escort us to the frontier pass.

Since several of our panels were only half finished, I told the man that we would be ready to leave Tsaparang, if only the Dzongpön would give us a few days more to finish the work in hand. In order to play for time, I immediately wrote a letter to the Dzongpn̈ and sent it off with one of his servants. I did not expect a favourable reply, but I knew that it would take at least a week for the man to return with the Dzongpön's answer. The latter, as we teamed from his men, had come back from Shipki and was staying at Shangsha, his usual headquarters.

It worked out exactly as I had expected; the messenger came back after one week, and this was just sufficient for us to finish our work. Li had completed her set of frescoes of the Life of the Buddha and I had traced practically all the frescoes of the White Temple and most of the big ones above the Life of the Buddha in the Red Temple. Li had also succeeded in tracing a most interesting series of panels, representing scenes from the inauguration of the temple, which give a very good idea of contemporary life and show what the people, who built the temple, looked like.

One day after the messenger had returned, both the temples were sealed on the Dzongpön's order. It was a sad day, when we celebrated our last pūjā in each of these temples before the golden images that had smiled their blessings upon us daily for almost three months. Now that we took leave of them, it was like saying goodbye for ever to our dearest friends. To us they had been living embodiments of wisdom and compassion. They had given us courage and inspiration, and we had lived and worked under their protection. They had taught us the Dharma in wordless sermons of beauty, that would be enshrined in our hearts and live in us as the noblest vision of ultimate perfection. We left the temples with deep gratitude. Our task had been fulfilled and what we had gained, no worldly power could take away from us.