1936 - 1937 Mission Diary

The official diary of the Gould mission to Lhasa sent by the British government. Read more about the mission diary.

December 8th, Tuesday.

Today is the anniversary of the death of Tsong Kapa (literally the man from the onion country) the founder of Ganden Monastery. To celebrate it all the officials of Lhasa must go in the early morning to the Potala to pray at each of the many altars and to drink tea.

Today also is the day authorised by the Tibetan Government for the winter season to start. From now all officials wear fur lined robes and wide flat hats trimmed with black-fox skin. In the evening, in honour of Tsong Kapa, butter lamps were lit all over the town. On our own walls hundreds of these lamps glittered in the frosty night air like a village fair, while the great monastery of, Drepung, poised on the mountain side, resembled a modern city with its myriad points of lights.

Author: Frederick Spencer Chapman [see handwritten annotations in Diary by Hugh Richardson in MS. Or. Richardson 2, Bodleian Libary, Department of Oriental Collections, University of Oxford]

Page Reference: Pt X p.3

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