A LIVING DEATH.

Otaki Mail, 4 January 1924, Page 3

A LIVING DEATH.

(By An .Englishman Iu Tibet.) 1." order that they may obtain the reave oi Nirvanr. by ■■■ lesser number o rebirths than their fellow creature-, the members of a monastic order here in Tibet voluntarily condemn themselves to lifelong solitary confinement, spending their time in the contemplation of the futility of human endeavour. The huts of the hermits are grouped round a central monastery, the whole settlement being situated on the slopes of the mountainside. The monastery is inhabited Lv a few Lamas. 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 a lifelong living death. Up to the age of eleven years they are taught the Lamaist scriptures, after which they are placed in a completely dark cell for a period of sis months, during which time they have learned.

They must cot 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 siu.'.ll ledge sommunicating with the interior of the 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 fprms their diet. Water com'es to the hermit's cup by means of a ehann:! in th>- wall.

Having completed the first period of sis months' voluntary imprisonment the boys are brought back to the monastery to continue their studies, and. these completed, they re*.urn to their cells, this time for three years, thremonths, and three day;-.

On the 'expiry of this second ct-rm of preparation for their liielorg s'elf-in-.-posed imprisonment the boys again return to the monastery for further instruction in their religion. This second period of meditation is usually completed by the r.ge of seventeen or eighteen, and by thi; time of the youthful ascetics seem to have become ■ r sem]L-imbeciles. lifter the first (wo "periods have been completed the willpower of the candidates has become so weakened that very little- difficulty is esperieneed by tlve L?rr.ns in persuading them to enter on the third and final term, which is terminated onl? by death.

pa the occasion on my visit to the Nyangto-Kyipu hermitage the Lamas. who do not object to visiters, showed me the cell of a monk who had, rhey stated,' spent twenty-five years there without ever comiEg into the light of day 0T speaking one word. - Standing outside the coll nothing was to be heard, but as evidence that it wa= occupied the attendant tapped on the trap-door, which after a minute or two was slowlv drawn aside to allow the passage of* a gloved hand, which, after fumbling on the ledge, was -withdrawn, and the trap closed once more. Even the hermit's hand was not allowed to see the light!