LAMAIC LIBRARY, 293 



The books of ordinary worship and ritual, and the school-text 

 books for the boy-probationers and novices, are also an essential part 

 of the monastic library. And they must be daily repeated till their 

 contents are fully learned by heart. 



Each monastery also possesses one or more of the legendary 



accounts of the great wizard-saint of the Nyingmapa lamas, viz., 



L6-pon Rimbochhe, or Pddmajungn^, who is believed to have visited 



Sikhim. These are entitled Pedma kah-thang (The 



Perfwia kah-ihang, displayed Orders of the Lotus-born One) or 



Tang-yik Sertheng (The golden Rosary of plain 



Epistles) ; also more or less fragmentary bits of the works of the 



pioneer lama of Sikhim — Lha-tsiin Chhembo, especially his Ne-yik or 



" Story of the Sacred Sites of Sikhim," and his manual of worship of 



the great mountain god Kangchhendsouga (Ang. Eanckinjingna). 



Monasteries of the Karmaj^a and Dukpa sects contain the "Kargyupa 



, „ Golden Rosary" and the namthars or biographies 



am ars. ^£ ^j^^ special lama-saints of the Karmapa or of the 



Bhutan hlma-saints. And each monastery possesses a manuscript 



account of its own history (deb-ther), although this is kept out of sight. 



A few Lepcha sacred books are to be found in the Lepcha monas- 

 teries and in the possession of a few Lepcha 



epc a scnp ures. laymen. They are mostly translations from the 

 Tibetan. The titles of the chief ones are (1) Tashi Sung, a fabulous 

 history of Guru Rimbochhe ; (2) Guru Chh'6 Wang, a terton work of 

 Tibet; (3) Sdkun de-lok, the narrative of a visit to Hades by a 

 resuscitated man named Sakun ; (4) Ek-doshi manlom — forms of 

 worship. 



Individual lamas possess special books according to their private 

 means and incHnations, such as the Manikahbum, 

 isce aneous oo 8. ^ legendary history of Ch^-r^-si, the patron god of 

 Tibet, and of the origin of the mystic sentence "Om Mani," &c. j 

 the songs of the great mendicant sage Milarepa, books on the worship 

 of Dblma and other favourite and tutelary deities. The specialist in 

 medicine has one or more fantastic medical works, and the Tsi-pa ^ 

 or astrologer has the Baidgur karpo and other books on astrological 

 calculations. 



The books are deposited in an open pigeon-holed rack-work. Each 

 book consists of several hundred leaves, and each leaf is of tough 

 unglazed country paper, about two feet long by half a foot broad. 

 The leaves forming the volume are wrapped in a napkin ; and the 

 package then placed between two heavy wooden blocks, as covers, 

 which bear on their front border the name of the book in letters 

 graved in relief and gilt. The whole parcel is firmly bound by 



' Tliis is the " Chebu Lama " of Hooker's Mimalayun Journals. 



