his wife at his side, his father replied, ‘No. We vow not to use more energy and vitality to create another life, so that our son may return to our heavenly court.’
The Storyteller Light in the Blind Eye
In his dream Jigmed the shepherd was moved to tears.
He awoke to see frost sparkling, like glinting needles, on the dying grass around him. Near his cheek, gleaming beads of ice had formed on his woollen blanket. He put one into his mouth. His teeth did not feel the cold of the ice, but his tongue tasted the salt.
As he recalled his dream he realised that the beads were his tears. He placed another on his tongue, its taste like that of water held in rocks or in the soil. His sheep often nosed up against cracks in the rock to lick the salt crystals. Each year, people travelled to northern lakes in search of the shimmering crystals, whose taste, once it entered their bodies, filled them with strength.
The morning air on the plateau was always chilly, and as he shivered, he thought of the village shaman. Whenever someone had a problem, whether they had lost a cow or lost their own soul and did not know if it would ever return, they would invite the shaman to their home. Once he had eaten, he would dim the light and recite an incantation, after which he would tremble all over. That was the sign that an all-knowing deity had possessed him, and would give the mortal helpful guidance through the shaman’s mouth. His rigid body swaying, he would speak in a muffled voice that seemed to come from another world: ‘The cow will not return because it has been devoured by three wolves’; ‘The person lost his soul because he offended an evil spirit when walking by a river, but he can regain his vitality if he sends offerings and speaks admiring words.’ Once the deity had left his body, the shaman would fall to the floor, like a log.
But this was a different type of possession. On the grassland, those who learn of heroic deeds are called divine messengers, for it is the deities who tell them stories in their dreams. In Jigmed’s youth, a blind storyteller had once visited his village. The storyteller had dreamed that Gesar, a deity dressed in gold, had opened his belly with a dagger and stuffed rolls of written scripts inside. The blind storyteller could not recall if the deity had sewn his belly back together, and when he awoke, at the sound of a turning waterwheel, there was no scar. He knew he could not read a single word on the written scripts, but his head buzzed, as if a herd of horses galloped inside him.
Jigmed wanted to return to the dream world, thinking that perhaps the god who had given him this story would appear. But the donkey was now nuzzling at his blanket, pulling it away from his face. It brayed, and Jigmed muttered, ‘Let me sleep a little longer.’
The donkey brayed again.
‘I don’t want to get up yet. Do you understand, my friend?’
The donkey would not stop braying.
‘What an awful noise! The deities will not like it.’
The donkey tugged at the blanket until it slid off entirely.
‘All right, all right.’
Jigmed and his donkey walked back along the road to the village. He could not see out of his left eye, the one that always watered in the wind. The donkey, the road and the mountains disappeared when he covered his right eye, and he could see nothing but streams of light coming towards him from the direction of the sun. When he uncovered his right eye, everything was clear as day.
After his journey, he took his sheep to the mountain every day. The snow line on the mountain rose as the ice on the lower reaches melted to feed the expanding lake below. Yet the door to the dream world refused to open. He would close his right eye and recite the syllable his uncle had taught him, the sound of all sounds, and greet the light that burst forth from the east with his blind left eye. Staring into the dazzling colours, he would recite, Om. He directed his consciousness to trace the outline of the syllable in his heart: Om. But no divine images emerged from the swirling rays of light.
He had to content himself with tending his sheep. At night, when he came down from the mountain into his village, he walked along a little-used road that passed a shop where beer and spirits were sold. On early summer evenings men from the village would gather on the grass in front of the shop to drink until they broke into song, mostly popular tunes they’d learned from the radio. But some sang fragments of the hero’s story.
‘Lu-ah-la-la mu-ah-la,
Lu-ta-la-la mu-ta-la!
In the early summer of the Ding-you year,
In the early morning of the eighth day of a crescent moon,
An auspicious sign will appear in Gling;
Those of the phoenix, the eldest, the noble class,
Those of the dragon, the second, the famous class,
Those of the hawk, eagle and lion, the younger class,
From the noblest of the noble,
To the commonest of the common,
All will come together to await the good news,
That an auspicious sign will appear in Gling!’
The Story The Deities’ Son Descending
Regret had begun to eat at Master Lotus. It was not that the demons of Gling had frightened him, but that the barbaric people had exhausted him. Returning to his home from the gate of the celestial court, he heard of Thosba Gawa’s descent to the human world. It was clear to him that he had lost his chance to return to Gling and do something remarkable. On the other hand, people were still talking about his great deeds, which, he knew, was their way of showing remorse for not adequately following his instructions and for not trying hard enough to keep him there when he had told them he was leaving.
‘I’ve formed an indissoluble bond with Gling,’ he said aloud.
A voice asked, ‘What do you mean, indissoluble?’
He smiled. He could see a hundred years into the future, see the towering temples erected on the shores of the indigo lakes at the base of Gling’s snowcapped mountains. Gilded clay images of himself stood in the central halls, laden with sumptuous offerings. But he did not respond immediately. The person who had asked the question was Master Thangtong Gyalpo, who was engaged in his own spiritual quest beside him. At last Master Lotus replied, ‘It seems that I must ask you to tell the people of Gling that the son of the deities will soon be born into their world.’
‘Why will you not tell them yourself?’
‘Because I regret having returned here.’
With a smile, Thangtong Gyalpo agreed to his friend’s request.
Thangtong Gyalpo’s body remained motionless but his thoughts travelled to Gling, and the people sensed his arrival.
The leader of one of the many tribes of Gling was an old steward, Rongtsa Khragan, who enjoyed high prestige and the confidence of his people. Though he was not considered the most outstanding leader, his tribe knew that he was tirelessly concerned about them. That day, he had gone to bed just after sunset and was unable to sleep although he was weary. Battles among the tribes and power struggles among his family spurred in him a new will to fight. His regret at the departure of the powerful Master Lotus prevented him losing
