I have finally got around to reading “The Sacred Mountain” by John Snelling. Seen as the definitive guide to Mount Kailash, it has travelled with me across three continents and has received plenty of damage on it´s travels.
Snelling quotes reports by Swami Pranavananda about the Sikh adventurer Zorawar Singh who marauded through Ladakh and forged into Western Tibet in 1841. With forces numbering 1500 men, they defeated the local Tibetan forces of 8 – 10,000. A secondary Tibetan army was raised assisted by Chinese forces to try and defeat the marauding Sikh. Pranavananda claims that Singh became quickly revered by Tibetans for his bravery and labelled “The Lion King”. It was believed he could only be killed with a golden bullet. This was duly dispatched with a fatal shot to the knee.
Zorawar´s body was swiftly dismembered for many locals wanted these as trophies for good luck. A chorten was built with several other body parts. Pranavanda claims that one of his testicles was kept under lock and key at Simbiling gompa which was proudly paraded around every 4 years during the Tantric festival of Iron Fort held in the 2nd Tibetan month of the year. Unfortunately, the monastery was destroyed by Chinese artillery in 1967. A hand with three remaining fingers is allegedly still preserved at Sakya monastery.
Fascinating story. The man had balls, but only one survives. Not many people's gonads become immortalized.
ReplyDeleteThe invasion of Tibet using the fearsome Sikh warriors has it parallel later with Francis Younghusband's 1904 foray into Tibet, backed by Sikh soldiers. machine guns were no match for ancient guns and amulets blessed by the DL, which were supposed to protect the wearer from harm.
Younghusband earlier explored Hunza later became an advocate of world peace and and no-violence.
Younghusband has Dharamsala connections:
"The name Sir Francis Younghusband - leader of British India's fateful incursion to Lhasa in 1904 - also has Dharamsala connections. In 1856 his parents, Clara Shaw and John Younghusband, lived in a bungalow in the pine forest above St. John's Church and later bought land in the Kangra Valley to pioneer a tea plantation. Clara's brother, Robert Shaw, was a renowned explorer of Central Asia and an early Kangra tea planter."
http://123himachal.com/sir.htm
Younghusband was somewhat a victim of circumstances as Britain feared movements of Russian troops in the region. However the bloodshed that ensued was outrageous!
ReplyDeleteThe area behind St John´s Church is beautiful and is now used as an Osho retreat centre.