Sky Burial by Blake Kerr

Author:Blake Kerr [Kerr, Blake]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Tibetan History
ISBN: eBook ISBN: 9781559397247
Publisher: Snow Lion Publications
Published: 1997-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

At ten, when we all met at the main entrance to the Jokhang, a group of Chinese and Tibetan men were looking intently at two posters glued to the monastery walls. One poster was printed in Tibetan, the other in Chinese. I stepped closer to read them and two of the men raised their truncheons. I had to jump back to avoid being hit. Apparently, the men were police.

“Keep walking,” Mark said. As we continued on he explained, “These are posters from the underground. I saw them go up early in the morning before the undercover police staked them out. They say, ‘Ten to twenty people died yesterday. Ten to twenty more may die. It does not matter. The Chinese have been here for thirty years. Now is the time to act.’”

By now, circumambulating the Jokhang had almost become second nature. Not only did I recognize individual vendors selling jewelry, but also monks who had stayed in the same place reciting scriptures for weeks. One pilgrim stood out more than the rest. Regardless of the time of day he was naked from the waist up and did prostrations around the Jokhang. At first his spasmodic movements and piercing stares had frightened me. Today he smiled, and I felt an unspoken kinship with him.

Convinced that a side door near the Jokhang’s main entrance would open, Andrew stationed himself next to fifty older Tibetan men and women doing full-length prostrations. Like inchworms moving in place, they stretched out over the stones and then stood up, raising their clasped hands to the sky. Andrew devoted his undivided attention to the wooden door, which was obviously bolted on the outside. A small eddy of onlookers gathered in the stream. Even the Tibetans were wondering what he was doing. Andrew was a menace; I was sure he would get us all arrested. Heidi slipped a hand under Andrew’s arm and gently coaxed him away.

Mark led the four of us past the prostrators into the temple’s main entrance. Five somber Tibetan monks with well-muscled arms blocked the stairwell. Mark explained that Heidi and I were Western doctors and we were led up the steep stairs to the roof. Strings of prayer flags ran from the tips of the many-terraced roof to the tops of its golden spires, and carved wooden dragons jutted out from the corners like medieval gargoyles. We crossed several terraces, ran twice across open stretches, and climbed down some steep stairs to a dank room permeated by the smell of rancid yak butter and incense.

Our first patient told Mark that he had been shot in the stomach. He pulled up his shirt to reveal bloody gauze wrapped around his abdomen. Fortunately, the laceration skimmed but did not enter his side. “Kelsang was standing in front of the police station when a policeman on the roof shot him,” Mark said. I had been so absorbed with Kelsang’s wound that I had not heard him talking the whole time.

“How many demonstrations has Lhasa had?” Andrew asked.

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