A LIVING DEATH

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 2682, 12 January 1924, Page 1

A LIVING DEATH

MONASTIC HERMITS OF TIBET

Tn order that lhoy may obtain the pence of Nirvana iiy a lesser number of rebirths than their fellow creatures, the members of a monastic order in Tibet voluntarily

condemn themselves to lifelong soliiary confinement, spending their time in the contemplation of the futility of human endeavour. The huts of the hermits are grouped round a central monastery, says an Englishmen resident in Tibet in n dispatch to the “Daily Mail," the whole settlement being situated on the slopes of the mountainside. The monaslry is inhabited bv a few T.amas.

Parents who desire their sons to take the hermit's vows hand the boys over to the Lamas at the age of seven or eight, thus condemning their children to n lifelong living death. Up to the age of eleven years they are taught the Lamaist scriptures, after which they tire placed in a completely dark cell for a period of six months, during which time they are supposed to meditate on what they have learnt. They must not speak, and the only intercourse allowed with the outside world is the taking in of their daily food, which is placed by the attendants on a small ledge communicating with the. interior of a cell by means of a small wooden trap-door, which must only be opened for the purpose of taking in the small bundle of parched barley flour which forms their diet. Water comes to the hermit’s cup by means of a channel in the wall. Having completed the first period of six months' solitary imprisonment, the boys arc brought back to tin* monastery to continue their studies, and these completed, they retinal to their cells, this time for three years, three months, and three days. On the expiry of this second term of preparation for their lifelong self-imposed invprsonment the hoys again return to the monastery for further instruction in their religion. This second period of meditation is usually completed by the age of seventeen or eighteen and bv this time most of the youthful ascetics seem to have become semiimbeciles. After the first two periods have been eonfpleted tlie willpower of the candidates has become so weakened that very little difficulty is experienced by the Lamas in persuading them to enter on the third and tinal term which is terminated only by death.

On the occasion of niv visit to the Nyaiigto-Kiypu hermitage the Lamas, who do not object to visitors, showed me the cell of a monk who had, they stated, spent twentyfive years there without ever coming into the light of day or speaking one word.

Standing outside the cell nothing was to be heard, but. as evidence that it was occupied the attendant tapped on the trap-door, which after a minute or two was slowly drawn aside to allow the passage of a gloved hand, which, after fumbling on the ledge, was withdrawn, and the trap once more closed. Even the hermit’s hand was not allowed to see the Ight!