'Where did you say?' the old man peered about confusedly. Holmes stepped across the room and indicated the place. 'I think we had a… now what was it? Oh yes, there was a thangka hanging there.'
'About two feet high and a foot and a half wide?' asked Holmes.
'How did you know…?' the Lama Yonten began to ask, amazed, then he laughed. 'Ah, Mr Holmes, you noticed the discoloration on the wall where the scroll was hanging.'
'Yes, clear observation is the basis of any investigation.'
'Which thangka was it?' the Lama Yonten asked the old chapel attendant.
'Let me think. Yes, it was the one of the mandala of the Great Tantra of the Wheel of Time. The very old one.'
'Was it of any significant value?' asked Holmes.
'In terms of material wealth, not really so,' replied the Lama. 'There are others just like it. In fact one could commission an artist to paint one exactly like it for a small sum of money. But this one originally belonged to the first Grand Lama, or so I have been told, and therefore has greater spiritual value. Even then, I really do not see why anyone should risk his life to steal it.'
As we all began to leave the chapel, the Lama Yonten turned to the old attendant and offered him a few words of consolation and encouragement. 'Don't worry. You can take the vases and ritual implements from behind the Assembly Hall to replace the broken ones. Everything will be all right.'
As we once again settled down in the reception room, Sherlock Holmes lit his pipe and spoke to the Lama Yonten. 'Could you enlighten me as to the subject of the painted scroll? My knowledge of the symbolisms of your theology is very limited.'
'Well, Mr Holmes, let me first explain to you what mandalas are in general, before discussing that particular one.'
'Pray, if you would be so kind.'
The Lama took a pinch of snuff from a jade snuff bottle and delicately wiped his nose on a yellow silk handkerchief. After blinking once or twice he proceeded to give a detailed explanation on this unique cosmological and psychological aspect of Lamaist Buddhism. The Lama Yonten's explanation was very recondite, and certainly liable to be misunderstood by someone not familiar with the tenets of Lamaism. I have therefore taken the liberty of providing a simpler (and more scientific) version of his talk.
The mandala is a circular design of many colours and great geometrical complexity. Essentially it is a symbolic map of a world; the world of the human mind and consciousness. The various circles and squares composing it represent the various stages of psychic development on the long journey from ignorance to ultimate enlightenment. The final stage is arrived at in the centre of the circle, in which resides a Buddha or Bodhisattva who represents the final goal of the spiritual quest.
The particular mandala in question was of the Great Tantra of the Wheel of Time (Skt. Sri Kala-chakra). The most complex of such occult systems, this tantra was said to have been brought to Thibet from the mythical realm of 'Shambala of the North' in the eleventh century.
Shambala, in the Lamaist world system, is regarded as a wonderland similar to Thomas Moore's Utopia, the New Atiantis of Francis Bacon, or the City of the Sun of Campanella, where virtue and wisdom had created an ideal community. This fabled land is considered to be the source of all high occult sciences, far in advance of our world in scientific and technological knowledge. The sacred scriptures of Thibet prophesy that when mankind is finally enslaved by the forces of evil, the Lords of Shambala will, in the Water-Sheep Year of the Twenty-fourth cycle (2425), send forth their great army and destroy the evil forces. After that Buddhism will flourish anew and a Perfect Age will begin. The Lama Yonten of course believed implicitly in this charming myth, as did all other Thibetans and Mongols.
At the end of the Lama's story Sherlock Holmes stretched back on his couch and looked pensively at the ceiling. Then leaning forward again he asked, 'Did you not mention yesterday that the Grand Lama would be undertaking a retreat at a certain far-away temple?'
'Why, yes. At the Ice Temple of Shambala. He will be going there in a week's time.'
'Does this temple have any connection to 'the Shambala of the North', that you were describing to us just now?'
'Most certainly, Mr Holmes. The temple, which is normally buried underneath the great ice, was the very spot where the messenger from Shambala originally expounded the secret science of the Wheel of Time to the first Grand Lama. Ever since then all Grand Lamas have been required by tradition to undertake a period of retreat there, prior to their enthronement. There, through prayer and meditation, they would establish cosmic communion with the occult forces of Shambala, which would then awaken their latent powers and wisdom, thus enabling them to rule this land wisely and protect it from the dark forces.'
’And the last three Grand Lamas – who died before their majority? They presumably did not get to go to this temple.'
'Alas, no. The schemings of evil councillors and Chinese pressure prevented them from doing so. It is now vital that nothing happens to prevent His Holiness from going to the Ice Temple and meditating there.'
'And after…?'
'Our task will have been accomplished, Mr Holmes – yours and mine. It will then be out of our hands.'
The Lama Yonten peered rather short-sightedly towards the door, which was just behind my low couch.
'Is that you, Tsering?'
'Yes, Honourable Uncle.'
'Come in. Come in and sit down.'
I turned around to see Tsering standing by the door. So, he was the Lama Yonten's nephew. That explained the deference with which the governor of Tholing had treated him. It was prudent of the Lama to assign the care of his two potentially compromising foreign guests to someone close to him, in blood as well as trust. Tsering sat on a low divan next to the Lama and gratefully gulped down a bowl of hot butter tea served to him by a monk servitor.
'Well?' said Holmes, as Tsering put down his tea cup.
'It was no problem following them, Sir.' said Tsering, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. 'And we were careful not to let ourselves be seen, as you instructed. We followed them out to the city, where they took the Lingkor road, [34] south of the Iron Hill. They carried on in an easterly direction, sticking all the while to the back streets till they came near the Kashgar caravanserai, which they skirted, and finally they entered the compound of the yamen, the Chinese legation.'
'Are you sure?' asked the Lama Yonten anxiously.
'I am certain. The main gate of the legation walls was open and the Amban himself with servants and guards was waiting. All of them bowed low as the palanquin went through the gates.'
'Then it is him!' the Lama Yonten went white as a sheet. His hands trembled.
'Who?' asked Holmes.
'The mysterious guest that arrived at the Chinese legation, the person within the palanquin who caused swords to fly, the power to whom even the Amban must bow. It is him. The Dark One!'
'The Dark One?' repeated Holmes rather incredulously, arching an eyebrow,
'Yes. He has returned from the outer darkness to destroy our master again as he swore to do eighteen years ago.'
'Reverend Sir,' said Holmes bemusedly, 'so far I have confined the limits of my investigation to affairs of this world. As I had occasion to remark before, the supernatural is definitely outside my sphere of competence.'
'Oh no, Mr Holmes. The Dark One is a living person, I assure you. He acquired the name because he turned away from the light of the Noble Doctrine and perverted sacred knowledge for the fulfilment of his greed and ambition. It is a black and sinister tale, but it is important that you hear it all – from the beginning.
'The College of Occult Sciences in Lhassa is the highest institution of occult knowledge and practice that exists in Thibet. Few but the best of scholars from the great monastic universities are admitted; and that too only after a rigorous and thorough investigation of each candidate. Every twelve years, when the calendar of the twelve beasts makes a full round, the college holds a great examination. In the year of the Water Monkey (1873), the College produced two of the greatest adepts of the occult sciences that the country had beheld for more than a century – ever since the Laughing Yogi of the Grey Vulture Peak covered the barley fields of Tsetang with his hand and saved them from a hailstorm.
