Pathway to Japanese Literature

Yamaguchi Chikai, a twenty-six-year-old scholar-monk of Uji Hōzan-ji Temple, conceived the idea to travel to Tibet and acquire the Tibetan-translated Buddhist Canon (the Tripiṭaka or Kangyur—a classified compilation of all Buddhist scriptures). Carrying 530 yen in parting gifts, he departed Kobe on June 25th of Meiji 30 (1897), bound for Calcutta in India. Since Japanese Mahayana Buddhism derived from China, its Buddhist Canon inevitably consisted of Chinese translations from Sanskrit (the ancient Indian language) originals. Yet when collating editions like the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Longzang versions, discrepancies and omissions in passages throughout hindered coherent interpretation—and with the introduction of new translations such as the Tenkai, Ōbaku, and Manji editions, the confusion only worsened.

The ambiguities in the Chinese-translated Buddhist Canon had long been problematic—so much so that eight years later, during the Russo-Japanese War, Emperor Meiji went as far as purchasing the undated Manchu Canon and Mongolian Canon from Huang Temple in Shenyang, donating them to Tokyo Imperial University as reference materials for textual collation. However, Buddhism had already suffered a devastating blow from Hinduism’s resurgence, and by the late eighth century, Islamic invaders began burning every temple tower and Buddhist statue while slaughtering monks and devotees en masse in a campaign of destruction that spanned over two centuries. With Buddhism reduced to a hollow shell in India—only fragments of Sanskrit sutra manuscripts remaining in Ceylon and Burma—correcting errors in the Chinese Canon proved impossible, no matter how fervently desired.

Mahayana Buddhism entered Tibet around the seventh century when a monk named Tonmi brought the original texts of the Buddhist Canon from India and translated them into Tibetan. Subsequently, the Lotus Master integrated Buddhism’s esoteric teachings with Tibet’s indigenous religion, laying the foundation for Tibetan Buddhism, which centered in Tibet and amassed ten million followers spanning from Manchuria and Mongolia through Siberia to the Caspian coast. The Tibetans are a branch of the Pamir highland ethnic group among India’s indigenous peoples, and since the Tibetan language was created by Tonmi using the Lantsa script of Sanskrit, the two sections of the Tibetan Buddhist Canon—the Kangyur (Main Canon) of 1,044 volumes and the Tengyur (Supplementary Canon) of 4,058 volumes—faithfully convey the subtleties of sutras and vinaya while containing numerous doctrinal texts absent from Chinese-translated Buddhism. The Manchu Canon at Huang Temple and the Mongolian Canon were all translations of it, and even collating Sanskrit Buddhist manuscripts required relying on the Tibetan translations. Therefore, if they could retrieve it, they would finally be able to access the true teachings of Shakyamuni—1,300 years after Buddhism’s arrival.

The seventeen or eighteen years from Meiji 21–22 (1888–1889) until the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War saw national sentiment surge to unprecedented heights, awakening in the Japanese people a novel sense of nationhood.

From Okamoto Kansuke’s founding of the Chishima Gikai to Lieutenant Colonel Fukushima’s Siberian horseback crossing, Captain Gunshi’s Kuril Islands expedition, and Mr. and Mrs. Nonaka Itaru’s meteorological observations atop Mount Fuji—amid this burgeoning wave of patriotism that extended even to such extremities—there emerged several martyr-like figures who volunteered to devote themselves to national endeavors. Among them, Tamai Kisaku and Yamaguchi Chikai stood out through exceptional actions.

Apart from being a native of Miura Village in Yamaguchi Prefecture, nothing else was known about Tamai Kisaku's background. Ten months after Captain Gunshi's Kuril Islands expedition departed, in December of Meiji 26 [1893] as Lieutenant Colonel Fukushima was concluding his solo equestrian journey, he joined a Russian tea caravan in Irkutsk and embarked on a trek across Siberia on foot—taking the reverse route of Lieutenant Colonel Fukushima. At that time, tea caravans traveling via Siberia were fraught with every conceivable calamity—bitter cold, blizzards (purga), wolf packs, battles with bandits, plague, and great famines—and by the time such a caravan reached the Polish border, its original contingent of four hundred and fifty would be reduced to a mere third. Tamai Kisaku remained with the caravan until the very end, persevered through an indescribable fifteen-thousand-kilometer journey, and in February of Meiji 28 [1895], entered Germany where he published a book titled Karawanen-Reise in Sibirien ("Siberian Caravan Travels") in Berlin. The splendid 1,800-kilometer sketches from Irkutsk to Tomsk were deemed the sole literature documenting the lives of tea caravans bridging Europe and Asia and were included in the German Geographical Society's travelogue library, but Tamai Kisaku himself vanished somewhere in Europe thereafter, with no one having encountered him since. In the preface to his book, Tamai Kisaku states, "I deliberately chose this path because shutting oneself away in a steamship cabin to reach Europe would be banal," but if dismissing conventional travel as trite were all it took, could one truly endure such tempests and tribulations? If this were true, it could only be called incomprehensible.

The ascetic trials of Yamaguchi Chikai’s clandestine entry into Tibet and journey to Lhasa (the Holy City) were fiercer and more desolate than those of Tamai Kisaku, evoking something like the shadow of tragic karma that crushes both fortune and misfortune alike. Whether it be crossing the Himalayas at twenty-one thousand feet, a hundred-day solitary journey across frozen plains without aid, fanatical Lamaists who would slice non-believers into eight pieces and feed them to wild dogs, bandits, or snow leopards—setting aside such perils as mere stage props—the very act of attempting to enter Tibet was itself a reckless endeavor and a futile expenditure. Rarely does one find an instance where the human spirit so torments the flesh, driving it relentlessly toward such a meaningless purpose.

Lhasa in Tibet can now be reached by automobile from Darjeeling in India—near Bhutan’s border (a small independent state between Tibet and India)—in about five days; yet until the very dawn of the twentieth century, it remained an obstinately closed nation that utilized mountainous ramparts ranging from sixteen thousand to thirty thousand shaku encircling its borders and enforced a spirit of seclusion and exclusionism—a land where not a single Westerner succeeded in infiltrating even Tibet proper (the southern valley regions), let alone Lhasa itself—for one hundred sixty-five years from Qianlong 15 (1749), when Emperor Gaozong of Qing prohibited contact with outer regions, until Year 3 of the Republic (1914) at the Simla Conference. As evidenced by all British, Russian, French, and German expedition teams that attempted to infiltrate Tibet following its 1749 isolation.

Tibet was the fierce Tubo kingdom that invaded the Western Regions during the Tang Dynasty and launched a long-distance assault on Chang’an. To its north lies the Kunlun Mountains, to the east the Tanggula Range, to the south the Himalayas encompassing 29,000-shaku Everest and 28,000-shaku Kangchenjunga, and to the west the grand Transhimalayan mountain ranges. Half of its territory consists of a vast plateau exceeding 15,000 shaku in elevation.

Tibet was divided into Inner and Outer regions. Outer Tibet—a high, arid wasteland called the northwestern plateau, roughly three times the size of Japan’s mainland—had an average elevation of 18,000 shaku. Winters plunged to -48 degrees, transforming it into a desolate, uninhabited frozen plain where only during June, July, and August could nomadic tents occasionally be glimpsed. Inner Tibet spread south of the northwestern plateau as a lowland roughly equivalent in area to Japan—though “low” here denoted a valley region at 9,000 shaku above sea level, with an average elevation of 14,000–15,000 shaku. Upon this terrain—2,000 shaku higher than Mount Fuji’s summit and bearing a landmass equal to Japan’s total expanse—dwelt two million fearsome Lamaists who prided Tibet as a Buddha-dharma corresponding sacred land.

Lamaism was a polytheistic esoteric religion that integrated the mystical empowerment doctrines of esoteric Buddhism—a sect of Buddhism—with Tibet’s indigenous animistic faith, a form of Shamanism. It professed belief in samsara and reincarnation while revering supernatural occult forces. According to Lamaist doctrine, the human body was composed of four elements: earth, fire, wind, and water. Therefore, even in death, there were four paths to return to one’s original form through these elements; but since a corpse represented the ultimate impurity, they disfavored burial, which would leave its defilement lingering beneath the earth. Cremation would have been ideal, but given the country’s scarcity of forests and struggles with fuel, they inevitably resorted to water burial or sky burial. Water burial involved casting the body into a river—but not merely throwing it in whole. The hands and feet were severed; the body was torn apart until shapeless before being cast into the waters. This method was said to make it easier for fish to consume. Sky burial meant feeding corpses to dogs or eagles. They carried the body to a flat area on a rocky mountain, separated flesh from bone, pounded them with stones and kneaded by hand into gruesome flesh masses, then drank tea with unwashed hands while maintaining serene composure.

Lamaists were all vehement fanatics, and concerning their peculiar brand of cruauté (sadism), the Italian Jesuit missionary Ippolito Desideri—who had entered Tibet in 1706 prior to its isolation—wrote in his travelogue: “Merely recalling it makes one’s hair stand on end.” The sophistication of cruel techniques mastered by Lamaists was evidenced by their torture methods and penal codes: their legal code specified seventy-two major crimes, to which corresponded a staggering 1,886 types of punishments.

“The tortures and punishments conceived by Lamaists’ ardent love of cruelty and fanaticism—through their technical delicacy, ingenuity, and brilliance—surpassed all methods recorded in human history, demonstrating a perfection unattained even by Torquemada (the Spanish Inquisitor who devised genius torture methods) or Alva (who conducted unprecedented cruel executions during the Dutch Revolt).”

To give an example, it was carried out in this manner. Under Tibetan law, which operated entirely on collective responsibility (where a child’s crime implicated their parent, and a parent’s crime implicated their child), fathers and sons or husbands and wives arrived at the execution ground together. However, the executioner monk first presented them with large pliers and declared that the tooth extraction punishment would now commence. Having done so, he began shaving the two’s hair with a razor. For the prisoners, having their heads shaved as part of the tooth extraction punishment was something they couldn’t comprehend—but before long, they would come to understand that Tibet’s penal techniques were astonishingly refined. Once the head shaving concluded, the executioner monk passed pliers to one of the prisoners and had them take turns extracting—the father extracting the child’s teeth, the child extracting the father’s teeth—in such a manner. The executioner monk did not act directly. He merely urged them on from the sidelines to ensure the punishment proceeded smoothly. At first, the prisoners gently cared for each other, but eventually they began to curse one another, finally devolving into an unbearable scene where they hurled every ounce of hatred at each other. All their teeth had been extracted, but the punishment was not over. There it began. This time, they had to drive the extracted teeth into each other’s skulls with a hammer. They now understood for the first time that the earlier head-shaving had been a considerate measure to facilitate embedding the teeth into their skulls. Moreover, when the prisoners were enemies of Buddha, those overseeing would meticulously instruct them to arrange the hammered teeth into a Sanskrit figure forming Buddha’s initial.

Even in punishments involving burning prisoners’ bodies—where Spain and Germany would merely run an iron filled with coal fire over the skin or patiently singe armpits with candle flames—Lama monks would ignite a lump of sulfur, wait for it to melt into a viscous state, then scoop the flaming liquid with a stick’s tip and capriciously daub it wherever they pleased. The more the prisoners struggled to smother the flames, the wider the fire spread, hastening the phosphorus’s corrosion of their bones. In other words, the arrangement of punishment’s key elements was structured around leaving them to the prisoners’ free will.

Even taking just these two examples into account, it becomes abundantly clear that Lama monks comprehended the true essence of cruelty. Their insight and imagination into the very pain they inflicted were profound beyond the reach of any intellect. They were neither dazzled by superficial cruelty nor intoxicated by objective brutality. Utterly practical and meticulously calculated around prisoners’ sensitivities, they not only avoided naive errors of either compensating for or downplaying the victims’ pain through imagination but also—by applying inventive combinations to simple methods—produced immeasurably cruel effects beyond anyone’s capacity to conceive.

When Lamaists' cruel spirit remained vigorously active, survival was still possible; but when it grew indolent and stagnant, their punishments became unspeakably ghastly. One such manifestation was Tibet’s adaptation of the Carolina Criminal Code.

In the center of a ten-foot-square clearing enclosed by a double palisade of unbarked logs sat a cage measuring four feet in length and one-and-a-half feet in height. That was a prison cell into which prisoners were placed while still alive. The prisoners had their necks and both wrists bound together with a single chain—unable to sit or lie stretched out—forced to remain hunched over for years on end until their limbs wasted away to bone and skin. Food would be casually tossed through the cage bars whenever guard monks remembered. Even on days as cold as -20 degrees Celsius—commonplace in Tibet—they received nothing but a single sheepskin as covering. While Europe’s Carolina Criminal Code designed confinement to induce starvation, the Tibetan method excised starvation entirely and supplemented it with Hamburg’s chain torture and Spain’s compression torture.

This was the result when Lamaists’ sadism lay dormant—in such a state, they would be forgotten for at least five to twenty years. As for the prisoners, the physical agony of being so compressed must have defied description. Starved, frozen, and tormented by cursed guilt—how could they persist in living? Though incomprehensible to human wisdom, one had to acknowledge here too the triumph of Lamaists’ meticulously perfected cruel techniques. This was because something resembling a longevity drug had been devised to sustain these wretched prisoners’ lives, allowing them to continue existing languidly until their natural lifespan concluded—administered stealthily mixed into water when their thirst peaked. Even those attempting suicide by refusing food could not resist drinking water—a necessity of human nature they exploited. The prisoners themselves would wonder why they couldn’t perish despite such torment, while outsiders would marvel at how anyone endured survival in such conditions.

Around the same time, Francisco della Penna—a Capuchin missionary who entered Tibet in Kyōhō 4 (1719), before its isolation—became the first European to introduce Lamaism’s true nature and provided detailed reports on the Lama Pope’s tragic circumstances and the ministers’ open regicide practices.

Lamaism split into the Old Sect (Red Sect) and New Sect during the medieval period, but its origins trace to when Mongol King Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty converted to the Lamaist New Sect and entrusted Tibet’s governance to a monk named Phagpa, after which successive abbots oversaw central affairs. Thereafter, the Fifth Abbot unified religious and political authority to become the de facto first Dalai Lama—concurrently holding the titles of Grand Preceptor and King—and established the Tibetan state by installing a Viceroy (Panchen Lama) at Tashilhunpo’s auxiliary fortress. However, in the Kangxi Emperor’s 59th year (1720), an internal rebellion arose. The Qing’s Kangxi Emperor dispatched troops under the pretext of pacification, sent a Superintendent of Political Affairs to interfere in governance and justice, and soon reduced Tibet to a Qing dependency.

“Tibetan Buddhism drifts within a profound pantheism beyond verbal explanation, alongside its doctrines of samsara and reincarnation; however, according to Lamaist doctrine, the Dalai Lama is an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara who, upon death, immediately reincarnates—emerging with newborn cries from someone’s womb to ascensionally inherit the Dalai Lama’s position.” Among the Dalai Lamas, there were those well-prepared to die after leaving testamentary instructions on their deathbeds—declaring, “I shall be reborn as a child in such-and-such village; consider that child to be me”—but when this was not done, teams were dispatched to search for children born at the precise moment the Dalai Lama drew his last breath. Having only one candidate would be ideal, but when there were three or four, all existing children were designated as candidates. They waited until the children turned five, sealed papers bearing each name into cocoon-shaped pellets placed in a gilded urn, and had the Supervisory Commissioner of Political Affairs pluck out one pellet with ivory chopsticks. That child became the next Dalai Lama.

The selection of the Dalai Lama was Tibet’s most solemn ritual, yet one could not definitively assert that no underhanded dealings occurred. For when one’s own child became the Dalai Lama, it brought immense prosperity to the entire clan; thus, families exerted themselves to lavish massive bribes upon Supervisory Commissioners of Political Affairs and Grand Councilors, striving to have their child’s name inserted into the selection.

The Viceroy acted as regent until the young king came of age, but those ten-odd years became the most lucrative period for ministers and high-ranking officials. Since no actual authority had been granted to the Viceroy, they could govern arbitrarily and line their own pockets to their hearts’ content. Their fervent wish was for the Dalai Lama to remain perpetually five years old or become an imbecile—they detested above all else those of exceptional wisdom and brilliance. Among the five Dalai Lamas from the Third to Seventh generations, not a single one had survived beyond twenty-five years of age—yet there were compelling reasons to believe they had all been assassinated through ingenious methods.

When Dalai Lama VIII fell gravely ill and took to his bed, an official witness was selected who gained the opportunity to observe physicians’ strenuous efforts at the Dalai Lama Palace; yet the circumstances surrounding his demise—from onset to final breath—are sufficiently worth describing if only to demonstrate that such methods of assassination exist in our world. Dalai Lama VIII was a man of resourceful wit and keen intellect, a possessor of rare health who until reaching twenty-three years of age had never experienced anything resembling true illness. His fever raged high; sweat poured from him, and each time he was seized by a spasmodic cough, mild convulsions wracked his frame. What had begun as a common cold worsening toward bronchial asthma was a condition that would have fully healed within four or five days with prompt treatment.

The treatment commenced first with clamorous prayers. In Lamaist doctrine, all illnesses are deemed deeds of demons, malignant spirits, or wraiths; unless these demons are first expelled, even the most renowned medicines administered would prove ineffective—thus it was unthinkable for doctors to enter a sickroom before exorcists. Even for the Dalai Lama, violations of doctrine were not permitted. When sixteen exorcists led by the Grand Ascetic Master entered, they threw open every window in the room. Even if they began earnest prayers, it would all be in vain unless they first prepared an escape route for the malignant spirits. The exorcists sat down on the floor to form a large circle, surrendering to the biting cold wind that blew in while the chanting of incantations accompanied by bells and drums continued endlessly. The Dalai Lama inhaled the thick incense smoke carried on the ice-cold night wind and coughed without cease. The Rakushasa and Kubanda demons possessing the Dalai Lama were resisting the prayers’ power in their final throes. The exorcists beat their drums as if seizing the crucial moment. They continued these merciless rituals until dawn. The Dalai Lama suffered respiratory convulsions and lost consciousness from oxygen deprivation. The Grand Ascetic Master declared that he had exorcised the malignant spirits and handed the Dalai Lama over to the doctors. Then they finally began treatment.

The Chief Physician entered with about ten medical officers in tow. First, they drained one vāse (approximately 1 gō 5 shaku [about 270 ml]) of blood via phlebotomy from his arm; then, creating a wound on his shoulder, they extracted nearly the same amount using suction glasses. They shaved the Dalai Lama’s head and applied a blistering plaster made from eucalyptus oil mixed with mustard and gum arabic, then used hot water infused with Strychnos nux-vomica seeds and Datura stramonium leaves to apply a fomentation to his feet. After performing such murderous procedures, they leisurely began administering medicine.

The Chief Physician meticulously tested each medicine for poison before returning it to the medical officers. First, they made him drink three cadix (approximately three gō/540 ml) of a laxative—betel nut and tamarind pulp decoction mixed with powdered tortoiseshell—followed by one drachm (approximately ten momme/37.5 g) of an emetic pill kneaded from yak dung, rue, and coin lichen. For antitussives, they administered two cadix each (approximately two gō/360 ml) of decoctions made from Indian hemp leaves, epilobium herb, and honeysuckle flowers. They made him drink over one posram (approximately five gō) of a fever reducer—powdered bark from lacquer (urushi) and silk trees (nemu) dissolved in papaya latex—administered without delay in rapid succession.

Here they took a brief pause to observe the effects. As his condition showed no improvement whatsoever, they repeated the entire process from bloodletting to administering fever reducers. Over roughly three hours, they drained two lagena (approximately 1.6 liters) of blood from the Dalai Lama, replacing it with seven lagena (approximately 5.6 liters) of decoction made from precious medicinal herbs. As the second course of treatment neared its end, the Dalai Lama’s breathing grew faint, thrashing like someone on the brink of drowning. After deliberation, the medical officers reached a consensus to implement emergency measures. The Supervisory Commissioner of Political Affairs, Grand Councilor, Grand Secretary, ministers and below—cardinal officials fastened with gold-embroidered official sashes and wearing ceremonial hats adorned with large plumes—entered to inspect the concluding phase of administrative procedures to slightly expedite the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation.

The Chief Physician, holding a large bowl of cardiac stimulant blended from antelope’s fresh blood, monkey brain extract, decoction of Indian hemp, and camphor essence, approached the Dalai Lama’s vividly colored bed adorned with gold-inlaid Tibetan-style arabesques. The Dalai Lama screamed in terror and struggled futilely, but pinned down by burly medical officers on both sides, he had the cardiac stimulant forcibly poured down his throat, which could no longer accept anything. Five minutes later, the Dalai Lama breathed his last in unspeakable agony.

Among the Jesuit missionaries’ distinctive “Reports on Foreign Missions,” Louis Dorville’s geographical records—as the first European to set foot in Lamaists’ holy capital in Kan’ei 6 (1628)—stand out as an exceptional travelogue included in Athanasius Kircher’s *China Illustrata*. Yet his dangerously beautiful descriptions of Lhasa—the City of Light—perched atop the world at 16,000 shaku elevation in a dimly obscure region preserving the resplendent cultural legacy of Nineveh’s ancient empire since its fall in the 3rd century BCE, complete with a grand palace encircled by corridors spanning approximately one mile in circumference and thirty-eight miles in length, and three universities housing twenty thousand scholars—are said to have intoxicated readers with dreamlike fascination, creating the very impetus that led many explorers to ruin across Tibet’s periphery.

Ahead lay nothing but gentle, rolling hills. A brown plain undulated gently as it spread out boundlessly. The atmosphere maintained perfect equilibrium, and there was not a trace of human presence. Amidst an oppressive silence, nature brought the cycle of seasons to a halt as if enchanted. It was an uncanny vista abandoned by both humans and the seasons.

Beyond the mountains likely lay another desolate wilderness. It had already been fully anticipated. As he followed the faint remnants of a wild horse trail to climb to the summit, the magnificent landscape that abruptly materialized below without warning stole his breath, leaving him rooted in place.

The wilderness Fantasia—he could find no words to express the astonishment of glimpsing that mirage. Never before had he experienced anything that so profoundly shook his very soul.

In the midst of a vast plain stretching far and wide, a grand complex of snow-white plaster palaces, Buddhist temples, and monasteries—backed by a towering rocky mountain—rose with unparalleled clarity through the dry air’s effect. Atop the rocky mountain stood a Buddhist hall whose audacious scale evoked ancient Khitan architecture, its canopy of pure gold and yellow porcelain cast a rainbow-like radiance into the sky as it harmonized with the bronze’s verdigris green and the massive brackets’ vermilion. Below it, the palace stacked countless layers of cubic-style monumental stone bricks; its front wall—pierced with geometrically arranged windows—sloped slightly forward, resembling the pylon style of ancient Egyptian temple architecture. A structure whose frontage alone spanned half a league (approximately half a ri) completely blanketed the midpoint of the rocky mountain’s southern face. Centered around this colossus, worship halls, shrine chambers, mausoleums, monasteries, and stūpas—hundreds of sacred edifices—interconnected through countless stone steps, colonnaded corridors, and arched gateways in a sprawling network. Together they formed a fantastical tableau, as if witnessing a reconstruction of Thebes’ glorious palaces that had vanished four millennia prior.

One knew that in the high-altitude zone of the Himalayas scraping the heavens, within a valley blessed with water, there existed Lhasa—Tibet’s capital and mecca for ten million Yellow Lamaism devotees dwelling across Xikang, Qinghai, Mongolia, Xinjiang, Russian Turkestan, and the Caspian coast. But who could have imagined encountering such a reality: beyond Jungring Lila’s mountain pass at twice Mont Blanc’s height, at the edge of a thousand-ri-square wilderness combed by Tibet Plateau’s storms, a metropolis of awe-inspiring splendor dazzling the eyes?

The thickness of the walls of the great palace named Pongtamar Ho (meaning "Jade Palace") was no ordinary matter. When one observed the three main gates with drum towers, the lightning-shaped stone steps, and the labyrinthine network of secret passages branching in all directions, it became clear that this grand palace served as both royal residence and fortress. Even without enumerating the astonishing collection of Buddhist halls carved with divine beasts and mandalas, or the sixteen-amphan-tall pure gold Buddha statue—inlaid with gemstones and standing upon a golden lotus—there remained immutable proof that Lhasa stood as Lamaism's holy capital. From countless monasteries and hermitages came ceaseless sutra chants accompanied by cymbals and drums, their voices drifting through the air, while pilgrims who had endured hundred-mile journeys toward Mecca could be seen crawling along the half-league-long approach to the Great Buddha Hall, pressing their foreheads to the ground with each pious step.

In Africa’s dark continent, at the heart of the Sahara Desert, there existed an academic city called Timbuktu—cultural center of a Black Islamic kingdom—where Sankore University was said to house Greek and Latin poetic manuscripts alongside Arabic classics; apocryphal accounts even described Islamic scholars using Timbuktu’s golden wealth of goose-quill pens to write to the Turkish sultan. Yet Lhasa did not dwell in legend—it stood as a great academic metropolis where the primordial forms of Syrian and Persian culture, having traversed India via silk routes through Bhutan and Pamir, had pooled and accumulated. In Lhasa’s outskirts stood three universities—Depung, Sera, and Ganden—each divided into three Tarsan (departments), with every Tarsan containing eighteen Kamtsan (faculties), where twenty-five thousand students studied Buddhist scriptures and doctrinal treatises in dead languages of Central Asia: Brahmi, Sogdian, Uighur, and others. The sutra repository of the Great Buddha Hall preserved in their original form the canonical texts of world religions that had vanished over a millennium ago—beginning with the Tibetan-translated Kangyur (Complete Buddhist Canon), first published in the early 7th century, and including stone-rubbed sutra copies from the Six Dynasties and Tang periods (Tang rubbings), Zoroastrian scriptures (texts of the fire-worshipping religion), Manichaean teachings, Nestorian Christian scriptures (a sect called Nestorianism), and Zarathustran doctrines.

With the completion of explorations into Australia’s interior and Central Asia, the "white spaces" on world maps—excluding the poles—came to consist of the Islamic kingdoms of Africa and Tibet among inhabited regions. As for the Islamic kingdoms, in 1827 (Bunsei 10), a Frenchman named René Caillié saw Timbuktu and triumphantly returned to France as the first European to emerge alive from there, so they ceased to be lands of mystery and obscurity, leaving Tibet alone remaining as the sole unknown territory. Although brought to light in Reports on Foreign Missions, these accounts offered only fleeting glimpses of local customs and sentiments; thus, if one sought true geographical knowledge, there was no choice but to enter Tibet and tear away the veil with one’s own hands. Thus, beginning with Mayer in 1811 (Bunka 8), explorers and geographers from Britain, France, Russia, Hungary, America, and Sweden began challenging Tibet’s formidable barriers.

To enter Lhasa from India, besides the main road via Darjeeling and Yatung, there existed a detour bypassing Momogawa and a mountain trail entering from the west over Kangchenjunga’s western saddle and Jungring Lila Pass at 23,000 shaku (approximately 22,860 feet). If one sought to avoid entering Tibet from India, alternative routes existed—through Xikang, Qinghai, Turkestan, or via Xining along the upper reaches of the Nu River—yet Tibet’s internal thoroughfares were designed with such cunning that no matter what backroads one threaded through, they must eventually traverse public roads, much like a master shogi player blocking all enemy advances with a single piece. Inevitably intercepted at some checkpoint in Outer Tibet, violators faced brutal punishment: forced into full-body prostration with foreheads pressed to the ground—a penalty for defiling this Buddha-sanctioned land with Western barbarians’ boots while breaching national law. Escort officers mounted on Tibetan horses and four guard soldiers accompanied them, forcing the prisoners to prostrate themselves on the ground and recite mani mantras (Lamaist incantations), then crawl—regardless of whether it spanned tens of miles—back to whichever border they had infiltrated from, be it Xikang or Qinghai.

After weeks spent crawling back to the border, they would be loaded onto bare-backed horses and sent all the way to Gansu and Xinjiang, released at the edge of the Tsadam Desert beyond the Karakoram Pass after having lacquer applied to their soles. They provided neither food nor water but gave detailed instructions about water a day’s journey away and the required direction. Believing they could reach water within a day’s walk, they would set out frantically—only for blisters to form on their soles from the blistering agent soon after, leaving them no choice but to crawl onward. In those arid lands, survival without water lasted no more than nineteen hours; only those who endured crawling to water through extraordinary perseverance managed to return alive.

Even if one managed to slip through the Outer Checkpoint (a road checkpoint near the border), the Inner Checkpoint (prefectural checkpoint) lay in wait beyond. No matter which direction one came from, entering Lhasa required inspection at five checkpoints; however, due to a complex procedure called the law of retributive punishment, even if one hurried, it took no fewer than twenty days. First, at the First Checkpoint, one received a provisional pass (kari no tsūkōken), but this required having the district chief and five villagers stand as guarantors. Under this system, if a foreigner were mistakenly allowed through, both the district chief and five villagers would be held equally culpable. When one proceeded to the Second Checkpoint with a provisional pass, after undergoing written and oral examinations in Tibetan, they were sent to the Third Checkpoint under the direct jurisdiction of the Qing-appointed Amban stationed in Tibet. All those who entered disguised as Qing nationals met their end here. At the Fourth Checkpoint, they submitted another petition for entry into the prefecture, returned the provisional pass to receive an official passport, paid customs duty and entry tax at the Fifth Checkpoint staffed with prefectural inspectors, and requested visa endorsement on the passport for prefectural entry. From there, they returned to the Third Checkpoint, sequentially obtained the checkpoint chiefs’ deputy seals at the Third, Fourth, and Fifth Checkpoints, and only then finally gained entry into the prefectural interior.

Among explorers from Mayer of Bunka 8 (1811) to Sven Hedin of Meiji 29 (1896), only two succeeded in infiltrating Lhasa: the French missionary pair Huc and Gabet, and a Bhutanese-Indian Tibetologist named Sarath Chandra. The rest all met unfortunate ends in Tibet’s outer border regions. General Przhevalsky and others had attempted infiltration four times over fifteen years from the north and east but ultimately failed to achieve their objectives; Bonvalot was discovered by Lama’s soldier-monks near Lake Tengri, a hundred miles from Lhasa, while the Littledale couple—having pressed to within a mere fifty miles of Lhasa, close enough to see it within hailing distance—were likewise intercepted.

Clad in hemp robes, a woven sedge hat, a cloth-wrapped bundle at his waist, gaiters, and straw sandals—in the guise of a mendicant monk embarking on ascetic practices—Yamaguchi Chikai departed Japan. This concludes the general history of Tibetan exploration up to Meiji 30 (1897), though Chikai remained entirely ignorant of all such circumstances. You claim you’re going to Tibet, but if asked what kind of place Tibet is, you’d surely answer that you don’t know. In recent years, Uheddo had published in the *China Yearbook* that Tibet’s area spanned 1,199,998 square kilometers with a population of approximately 6,500,000—yet even these figures faced numerous conflicting theories. In an era when even explorers wandered fruitlessly around Tibet’s periphery, Japan—fresh from the Sino-Japanese War—could not possibly have obtained an accurate conception of Tibet. As for his possessions, there was only a hand-copied Tibetan map transcribed from the Kangxi 53rd-year edition *Official Edition Map of the Four Great Regions of the Western Frontier*, and Guangxu 2nd-year edition *Miscellaneous Writings on a Tartary Journey* by Father Yuxiang of the Catholic Church published in Beijing (Abbé Huc’s *Haute voie de Tartare*), along with knowledge that a Tibetologist named Sarath Chandra had reportedly smuggled out vast quantities of historical materials from Lhasa and was compiling a Tibetan-English dictionary in Darjeeling, India. With the Chinese translation of Abbé Huc’s *Haute voie de Tartare*, his knowledge extended only to this: that about a decade prior, Sarath Chandra had smuggled out historical materials from Lhasa and was compiling a dictionary in Darjeeling. Thus he planned to first meet that person to inquire about entry methods and obtain something akin to a letter of introduction.

On the map, one could simply walk northeast from Darjeeling through Bhutan for fifteen or sixteen days—but this route had been strictly closed for a century and a half. Thus he went instead to Nepal, Bhutan’s western neighbor; breached Dhaulagiri—the world’s fifth-highest peak after Everest—at 27,000 shaku (nearly twice Mount Fuji’s height); and entered southwestern Tibet. Where he should have turned eastward, he instead pressed west for two hundred ri along the shores of Lake Manasarovar until halfway around its circumference before finally turning eastward. He swam across several raging torrents born of melting glaciers and endured hardships beyond description on a plateau of erratic boulders (glacier-pushed moraines) at an elevation of sixteen thousand shaku. Alone, he walked this twelve-hundred-ri detour—a staggering circuit—and in the sixth year after departing Kobe, entered Lhasa.

A photograph remains from his Ōbaku-san period, showing him standing with prayer beads in hand, his robe’s hem gathered up in a shabby appearance. A man of unremarkable presence—emaciated with disproportionately large eyes, lacking any spark of wit, his ordinary features tinged with timidity—seemed an unlikely candidate for such a tumultuous arrival. Yet Chikai himself appeared not to have believed he would certainly succeed either. Despite constant failures—like a politician who somehow sprouts success when least expected—he placed no trust in himself and made no frantic efforts. On the eve of his departure from Kobe, he told a friend: “I’m physically weak and rather timid by nature, so I won’t push myself as others might. What others accomplish in seventeen years, I will take thirty, even forty years to achieve. I just hope I can complete it before I die,” he said.

Having Xuanzang Sanzang’s retrieval of sutras from India in mind—and since even Xuanzang had required seventeen years—Chikai likely meant that a mediocrity like himself would do well to complete his task before death. Yet this very statement unwittingly foretold his own fate. When Julien Sorel from Stendhal’s *The Red and the Black* fled his hometown, he saw blood in the holy water font and happened to read a newspaper article about a man’s execution. All these were omens of fate, and perhaps Chikai’s very soul had subconsciously foreseen his destiny.

Upon arriving in Calcutta on June 1, Yamaguchi Chikai immediately boarded a train to Darjeeling. Darjeeling was a summer retreat on a fourteen-thousand-shaku-high plateau near Bhutan’s border where beyond it rose Kangchenjunga—its summit thrust into the clouds like a colossal pillar of ice. Since he had no other purpose, when he frankly stated his intention to visit, Chandra gazed at Chikai’s face for a while with an expression that defied description.

For over a century, not a single world-class explorer had succeeded—yet this blue-robed monk spoke casually of "entering Lhasa in Tibet." While gazing at the shabby-faced novice monk who appeared no older than a large child, it was not difficult to imagine what Chandra—who unexpectedly harbored worldly sensibilities—might have been contemplating. Putting aside the arrogant self-importance of fanatical Lamaists, since the Sino-Japanese War, Japanese people had become an unpleasant race in Chinese eyes, and among Qing officials in Tibet, the ideology of "Revive Qing, Destroy the Foreign" was intensifying. Did he understand what trials awaited him if he ventured into such a place? He spoke of entering Lhasa to obtain the Kangyur, but the Kangyur (the imperially commissioned translation of the Complete Buddhist Canon) was not mere "scriptures"—it was Buddha himself. The Beijing edition of the Kangyur lay enshrined in the sutra caves of Leiyin Temple (Thousand Buddha Caves) in Dunhuang, Gansu Province; each year during the Buddha Bathing Festival Grand Ceremony in early May, even the Tsaidam King of Qinghai and Duan Prince of Gansu Xinjiang would make the arduous pilgrimage to Dunhuang to venerate the Complete Buddhist Canon.

From Chandra’s perspective, he must have doubted whether this man was in his right mind. The proposal was simply too outlandish; he lost all inclination to engage. However, as he gradually listened, he realized this was no madness but deadly seriousness—left unchecked, the man seemed determined to charge straight to Lhasa. Thus, Chandra launched into earnest persuasion. He explained with every example he could muster just how difficult it was to enter Lhasa, but “Yet you managed to enter, did you not?” came the unyielding response. He wore an expression that seemed to declare, “There’s no reason what you can accomplish should be beyond my reach.”

When intelligence arrived that Chandra—this Western barbarian—had infiltrated Lhasa and remained hidden for nearly a year before returning to India having achieved his objective, the Ecclesiastical Office in Lhasa erupted in violent convulsions. The checkpoint chief who issued Chandra’s entry-exit passport was confined to perpetual imprisonment, as were all who had provided tangible or intangible assistance for his stay and passage—regardless of their awareness of his true purpose. Under the pretext that he had guided Chandra’s Tibetan language studies, they subjected the corpse of Tibet’s foremost high monk, Senchen Dorjé Chang (Great Lion Vajra Treasure), to daily submergence in the Kompo River a hundred times over a year. They scraped the rotting flesh from his bones with spoons, bleached them in a decoction of atractylodes rhizomes, then interred his skeleton twenty shaku beneath a checkpoint gate in a posture of perpetual prostration. By Lamaist doctrine, this condemned the Vajra Treasure to eternal exclusion from reincarnation’s cycle, ensuring he would endure kalpas of retribution for as long as earth endured.

Conscious that his own convenience had brought unexpected calamities upon others while he himself was leisurely compiling his dictionary in a serene and elevated land, Chandra remained ceaselessly tormented by pangs of conscience. He had likely wanted to convey that should a foreigner infiltrate Lhasa, calamity would befall not only the infiltrator but all who had direct or indirect contact with them—yet he ultimately lacked resolve for such full confession. Instead, citing unimaginable dangers beyond reckoning, he earnestly advised abandoning reckless plans and studying Tibetan there before returning home.

Religion is ultimately nothing other than expanding others' happiness through self-sacrifice. Needless to say, his purpose for entering Tibet was wholly concentrated on that singular principle—but Chikai belonged to that type of ascetic who ceaselessly lashed himself forward to confront hardships, forging his actions within such extremes. Thus mere danger alone could never have swayed him. Sarath Chandra’s perfunctory warnings rang hollow in Chikai’s ears, but since mastering Tibetan before entering Tibet had long been part of his plans, he followed Chandra’s suggestion and resolved to enter Gumpaar Monastery—situated approximately one ri uphill from Darjeeling.

Gumpaar was a monastery of the Yellow Sect Lamas, where square-shaped monks’ quarters coated in whitewash stood scattered across the hills at will. In the grassland before the stone gate, about five lama monks in yellow robes crouched in postures that were neither squatting nor sitting. What might have been mistaken for some ritual turned out to be their posture of defecation. It seemed that arrangements had been made through Chandra, and Abbot Shabzun consented to open a monastic cell, agreeing to provide lectures on Tibetan Buddhist scriptures for a monthly tuition of five tangka (approximately ten sen). The monk’s cell was a dimly lit room of about three tsubo (approximately ten square meters), partitioned by thick walls and a heavy door secured with a crossbar. Its only furnishings were a bed spread with woolen felt and a stove for the heated platform.

The monastery housed about fifty monk-students, all men of vigor with robust frames and rugged physiques. They hardly read sutras at all, instead devoting themselves to martial drills like stone-throwing, high-jumping, and staff techniques—whenever provoked, they would rush out to the grasslands to duel. They did nothing but sustain injuries until mediation intervened and have them drink reconciliation liquor—that’s all they ever did. All academic studies consisted of dialectic debates: one monk would be sitting formally when another approached holding prayer beads, spread his hands facing outward, and with a loud voice screamed “Chī-chi-kwa-choe-chang!” before clapping his hands together. It was the mantra known as the Heart of Manjushri Bodhisattva. The questioned one responded with “Chī-tāwa-chimie-chang.” In the sense that they were debating throughout the universe in accordance with the true Dharma of suchness, the dialectic debate then commenced. Simultaneously as they posed their questions, they would raise their left leg high, spread both hands wide, and at the moment of clapping, stomp their feet with full force—a fierce ritual.

In the mornings, he engaged in doctrinal studies; in the afternoons, he descended to Darjeeling to beg for alms; and his nights were devoted to sutra chanting. His monastic peers had concluded Chikai was a Chinese Buddhist monk—presuming him to be a dull fellow lacking refinement who did nothing but read sutras—and kept him at arm’s length. Yet when he occasionally overheard their conversations, he learned that monasteries like this one, situated near Tibet’s outer border regions, served as surveillance outposts against foreign infiltrators: while out on alms rounds or preaching missions, they gathered intelligence wherever they went and relayed daily reports to Lhasa through a courier relay system. When necessary, they would conduct surveillance and even assume the role of assassins, rousing villagers to carry out eliminations. Now the reason for these monks’ unrestrained violence became clear—given such thoroughness in their operations, it seemed only natural that expedition teams requiring extensive Tibetan entry preparations had met with failure in border towns.

Yukō Arima’s *Miscellaneous Notes on a Tartary Journey* by the Jesuit missionary provided him with various beneficial insights. Upon receiving orders in Beijing to proselytize in Tibet, Yukō went to Dronnōr in Mongolia, spent four years at a Lama temple and three years in Tibetan nomads’ tents—fully embodying a Lama monk—and conducted a detailed study of the checkpoint organization by speaking with over two hundred pilgrims. According to Chandra’s account, over the past century, the efforts of hundreds who aimed for Lhasa had all ended in failure; yet Yukō alone had succeeded in such circumstances, which was solely due to his unwavering conviction and sincere character. Though he had been reading scriptures as a means to master Tibetan, realizing such superficial efforts would never fulfill his true vow, he resolutely summoned a valiant heart and composed his written oath that very day.

Until he achieved his great vow, he would maintain the hundred precepts as prescribed in Manjushri’s Sutra of Inquiry, abstain from the four impure foods, and consume nothing but what was obtained through pure alms; he would renounce all geographical and blood ties as a Japanese, vowing never to meet parents, siblings, teachers, or friends in this lifetime; and upon fulfilling his vow, to atone for defiling lands revered by Lamaist followers with a foreigner’s shoes, he would sever both legs below the knees and offer them as alms to dogs and wolves—these were among the twenty-six articles.

The next day before dawn, he performed ritual ablutions in the mountain stream and sat upon a plateau facing Kangchenjunga's icy peaks. After completing 108 prostrations and reciting his Vow Document, he chanted toward the mountains, "May every trial endured forge a path to others' salvation," then reentered the seminary to pursue the acharya degree. The pedagogical system of Lamaism progressed through three stages: nominal tenets, doctrinal rituals, and exegetical compendiums. In May of the 31st year [of Meiji], Chikai advanced to the intermediate level; through that year he devoted himself to mind-contemplation and doctrinal studies, attaining the rank of Junior Acharya by the end of the 32nd year.

In the midst of this, he heard that each year, for six months from early September to mid-February of the following year according to the lunar calendar, Tibetan pilgrims would come to visit the Great Stupa in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Nepal was a semi-independent nation west of Bhutan, situated between Tibet and India across whose central expanse stretched the Himalayas' main range from east to west—an icy barrier amidst which five of Earth's loftiest peaks—Everest, Annapurna, Dhaulagiri among them—clustered in jagged formation. Tibet and Nepal had once maintained communication through the Nora Pass in the Kuhingangri Mountains north of the Himalayas. Since Bunkyū 3 (1863), when a British expedition led by Major Montgomery infiltrated the region, this route too had been sealed—yet given how multitudes of pilgrims still entered, there must surely exist some clandestine path. When inquiries suggested possible arrangements might be made, he promptly abandoned his monastic quarters in January of Meiji 33 [1900], traveling by rail from Calcutta to Kathmandu. After participating in ten days of memorial rites and questioning pilgrims he had befriended, he learned of a pass called Mendan used exclusively by devotees—yet this route too proved impassable without travel permits from Lhasa's Ecclesiastical Office.

He had been passing his days in idleness at the hermitage of the Great Stupa until mid-February when he heard a tale from about a hundred years prior—how during the Qianlong era, Nepal’s Gurkha tribe had crossed the 30,000-shaku Dhaulagiri to invade Tibet and press near Lhasa—and found himself inexplicably drawn.

At such a time, a lama monk named Gyat-sen who shared the same cell came to bid farewell. He was returning to the village called Khamputan at the foot of Dhaulagiri, but having been invited—since there was a manuscript copy of the Vinaya section of the Buddhist Canon at the village hermitage—he gladly accompanied him.

Khamputan was a bleak hamlet of some fifty households clinging like limpets to a mountainside slope at eighteen thousand shaku. The glacier descended to the very edge of the village, and the wind-scoured ridges of Dhaulagiri loomed so close they seemed to graze one’s brow. The residents were all pure Tibetans who had come from the northern plateau of Tibet and settled here; on every roof, white flags printed with mantra phrases fluttered, exactly matching the Tibetan landscapes he had heard described. The men wore white woolen shirts and knee-length woolen robes resembling Japanese kimonos, loosely draped, with leather belts fastened over them. The sleeves were astonishingly long, formed into tubes that hung down even below the hem of their upper garments. These sleeves are for protection against the cold but also serve as dishcloths for wiping utensils. When at home or needing to use their right hand, they would slip one arm out of their sleeve and wind the long sleeve around their belt like a belly band. All men shave their heads, and when going outside, they wear felt hats shaped like inverted temple bells. They wear supple half-boots made of yak leather, with the upper parts generously sized to hold everything—pipes, tobacco pouches, tea caddies, wooden bowls—all tucked inside.

Tibet was a land of polyandry where brothers—whether five or seven—made do with a single wife. The barren soil meant none could sustain separate households even if each took a wife. The eldest son would first take a bride, then when younger brothers came of age, they would wed their elder brother’s wife through their mother’s mediation. The next younger brother would likewise enter into marital relations with her—thus the brothers shared one wife between them. There were cases of fathers and sons sharing a wife, and instances where two or three daughters took in one adopted son. Living in cramped single-room dwellings, both husbands and wives conducted adulterous relations openly and without restraint. Within such customs, adultery bore no significance. They lived as naturally as untaught children—notions of modesty or propriety had never woven themselves into life’s fabric.

In Khamputan, there were not enough sheep to slaughter for meat, so they subsisted on tsampa (roasted barley flour) and the curdled milk from butter tea as their daily fare. When brick tea boiled in an iron bowl over the fire, they would ladle the dark liquid into bowls, add thick slices of pungent goat butter, and stir in roasted barley flour. They would sustain themselves with this for days until meat became available. This was all well enough, but both men and women changed clothes only once a year and never washed their hands, accumulating a lifetime’s worth of bodily grime. Since they neither wiped after defecating nor cleaned their noses, their bodies turned soot-black with grease and filth, while their clothes—stained with butter—shone with a greasy sheen. After meals, they would lick their bowls clean with their tongues. When guests visited, they would wipe the bowl rims with their grime-coated sleeves before pouring tea to serve. I could scarcely imagine a people more unkempt than these Tibetans, yet through deliberate immersion in impurity—all to fulfill my sacred vow—within four months my face and body had taken on the appearance of a dry-lacquer Buddha statue, transforming me into what resembled a true highlander.

The peaks at the village edge remained shut off by blizzards and snow clouds, their appearance perpetually bleak no matter when observed, but once mid-May passed, the haze that had hung thickly about them suddenly cleared, revealing Dhaulagiri in its entirety. Beyond overlapping jagged ridges in the mountain folds, an icy peak—so tall one must lean back to glimpse its summit—towered at an unfathomable height. What I had until now believed to be the summit of Dhaulagiri was actually the ridge of small mountains encircling the foothills at its base.

Around late May, Gyatsen came and advised that if he intended to go to Tolbo-Sê, preparations should begin. Tolbo-Sê was a mountain sanctuary hidden in a valley about ten days’ journey beyond Dhaulagiri where transcriptions of the Buddhist Canon resided in its hermitage—but Dhaulagiri could not be crossed until May due to blizzards; from late June onward when snow softened again became impassable. By July’s end snow would begin falling anew continuing until May of following year. The Dhaulagiri crossing was possible only from mid-May through late June—a mere four weeks annually—meaning departure now would prevent return until April next year. Such were terms under which they would secure him a mountain guide. Near flat summit area faintly visible lay snowless rocky shoulder. Gyatsen indicated this was where passage must occur. Given village already stood at sixteen thousand feet elevation Dhaulagiri’s summit surely rose twenty-seven thousand at minimum. That humans could traverse such altitudes seemed scarcely credible.

After about a week, he began to notice those who had crossed Dhaulagiri and descended to Khamputan. Whether they were hidden Buddhists or ex-convicts, their precarious circumstances meant that in any case, they could not pass through the checkpoints. There was someone who claimed to have come from Lhasa, so when he discreetly inquired about their route, they explained: from Lhasa, take the path northward; traverse west across the Changtang Plateau for about a hundred days; circle the shores of Lake Manasarovar and head south from there; cross the mountain range on the Tibet-Nepal border; then walk south for about twenty days to reach this Dhaulagiri. When piecing together the account, it roughly came to that. When he asked whether there were any border guards, they replied that not only were there none—one would be fortunate to encounter nomads’ tents once every forty days—human figures were simply nowhere to be seen.

He eventually had to cross Dhaulagiri. He had been troubled by how arduous it would be to contrive a reason, but this perfect pretext for travel allowing him to openly prepare provisions proved a godsend. He immediately set about preparing provisions—wheat flour, roasted millet, dried grapes, salt, chili powder, torreya nut oil, wooden bowls with wooden spoons, a sleeping bag sewn with sheep’s long hair on the interior, flint tools, and medicines—loading them into a thirty-kilogram pack for the mountain guide named Temba to carry. Concealing a map and compass inside his boots, he departed Khamputan on June 12, 1900.

They crossed the glacier at the village edge, traced the dried-snow mountain folds, and made camp early that day.

The second day was clear, and a soft wind blew. After crossing about three glaciers, they reached Dhaulagiri, and did not rest once until sunset. On the third day, they climbed northeastward while winding around the mountain, ascending to the utmost limit. The eastern snow saddle they were meant to cross still towered nearly half a ri above them, demanding upturned gazes. They quickly ate lunch and set to work on the creviced rock face. At such an extreme altitude, even slightly moving their bodies caused their lungs to swell and their hearts to feel as though they might leap from their mouths. A gale laden with snow blasted directly downward, snowflakes clinging to their eyelashes and sealing their eyes shut. Inside the ear flaps of their hats, their breath froze into icy shells that stabbed their cheeks like needles. Inching their way up to the eastern shoulder, they found last year’s avalanche had left snowdrifts as massive as mountains, rendering the intended mountain pass impassable. They sought a spot with less wind exposure, pulled the tsukutsuku sleeping bag over themselves and huddled against a rock, but the cold and the wind’s wailing cries left them unable to sleep a wink. Sitting in zazen, hovering between sleep and wakefulness, they drifted through the hours until near midnight, when a heavy snow began to fall and even thunder rumbled. Amidst thunder and blizzard, he thought he heard the sound of the world being born.

Waiting for dawn to break, they set out to search for a saddle on the opposite side. Dragging their leaden legs for about an hour’s climb, the frozen thin air overcame them—even Temba, mountain-hardened though he was, began coughing violently. When he looked, Temba’s lips had vanished. Both face and lips had taken on the same earthen pallor, his lips shrinking inward like morning glory buds curling into themselves. It was an unspeakably grotesque visage, but he lacked even the mental vigor to register its meaning. Starved for air and teetering on suffocation’s brink, they took four to ten breaths per step—five steps managed would force them to halt and rest lest their hearts rupture. All capacity for thought or judgment extinguished, they ascended like clockwork automata through this waking dream—until Temba, muttering something indistinct, pointed upward. Fifteen hundred feet above the glacial floor before them stood two blizzard-scoured rocks with weathered surfaces, flanking what appeared to be a mountain pass smothered in granular snow.

When they crawled up to the glacier bed, a raging gale funneling through narrow passes swept across with such ferocity that it seemed determined to scour away every last thing from the earth's surface, howling relentlessly without respite. From where the glacier ended, they followed a crevice in the rocks, inching upward in a rhythm of five-minute intervals—five minutes of slow, grueling ascent followed by rest, then another five minutes of climbing—until their limbs grew numb and ceased to move, frozen against the stone. Their mouths gaped open of their own accord, lower lips dangling slackly, everything entering their vision appearing double and out of focus. Just above them, the granulated snow pass glowed invitingly, but their strength had been utterly depleted, leaving them incapable of ascending or descending.

Until yesterday, the glacier at Khamputan’s village edge had glowed like a white ribbon far below, but now there remained only a bluish-black infinite void—if they released their grip, they would plummet ten thousand shaku downward. Amidst this, drowsiness crept over them, and they began to drift off. Clutching weakly to a rocky protrusion, Chikai resolved that all was lost and composed his final vow. “O Buddhas of the Ten Directions and Three Ages—particularly our Original Teacher Śākyamuni Buddha—though my fundamental aspiration remains unfulfilled, may I be reborn once more to repay Buddhism’s grace for my parents, friends, and devotees.” As he murmured this gāthā dazedly—aware that releasing his grip from the rock would end his present life—Temba pressed coca leaves, said to be an elixir of vitality, against Chikai’s lips. He thought it futile to chew such a thing now, but when he did as told, his palpitations subsided unbidden, and the weave of things became somewhat visible. This was the critical juncture between success and failure—as he frantically clawed his way upward, the wind’s direction abruptly shifted. There, on the western rocky shoulder where fierce winds had scoured the rock layers flat, the descent path came into view just beyond. With hands still pressed together in prayer, he unintentionally collapsed into a seated position there.

They slept like the dead at a rocky bend after descending for two hours, then spent the entire next day descending further before lodging in Sanda, a desolate village on the mountainside. After resting for about three days there, he generously rewarded Temba and sent him back. Shouldering the load—now reduced to about six kan—he set out toward Torbo-se. Around noon on the tenth day, he glimpsed what appeared to be a village in a deep valley below, but realizing that stopping here would render his onward journey arduous, he pressed ever northward until he reached the summit of Kuhigangri—the border between Nepal and Tibet.

The mountain sloped gently down to the north, and amidst the peaks of the Tibetan Plateau pressed together like layered waves, a single river flowed, shining white. When he looked back, Dhaulagiri—crossed twenty days prior—loomed above the Himalayan ice walls with a sudden, almost unreal form, jutting upward as if to pierce the clouds. I had departed Kobe on June 26 of Meiji 30 (1897), and today marked July 8 of Meiji 33 (1900). Though I had reached this point without encountering any notable calamity, with the unfathomably difficult journey ahead—who knew what might come—I could not rest assured over such trifling progress. When he consulted the map and saw that his destination, Lake Manasarovar, lay to the northwest from this point, he began descending the mountain while checking his compass.

On the Nepal side, there was little snow as it faced the sun, but on the Tibet side, being in shadow, everything lay blanketed in snow. This was treacherous soft snow that sank him up to his knees with each step. When he descended halfway down the mountainside, three nomad tents came into view at the mountain's base. If he encountered someone in such an inescapable place, his clandestine entry would be exposed at once. He desperately wanted to avoid the tents but found no semblance of a path east or west. Yet he couldn't simply wait for them to move. Unable to resolve his mind, he sat and performed danshikan—the meditation on decisive judgment. Through contemplation of non-self, he determined his course based on thought inclinations. After sitting zazen for hours and awakening with sudden clarity, he descended further until—reading from the Chinese Lotus Sutra at a tent entrance—a fortyish Changtang man who seemed its master emerged and invited him inside.

The next morning, when he emerged from the tent, thirty-odd bizarre bovine-like creatures—each seemingly weighing between 170 and 180 kan—were grazing on the grass. Their bodies were covered in dense fur; long hair cascading like waves from their foreheads enveloped their faces, rendering their eyes and noses indistinguishable. Their tails were exact replicas of the Chinese lions depicted in paintings, and the sound of their grass-chewing resembled the creaking of oars. Their eyes had a ferocious glint, seeming poised to charge at any moment. This was an animal called the yak that roams wild in the barren cold regions of the Tibetan Plateau—in northern areas primarily employed as pack and riding animals; their meat and milk served as food, their hides crafted into boots, their hair woven into textiles, their dung dried for fuel. Though fearsome in appearance, they were said to be gentler than cows. Hearing this, he thought loading their baggage onto these creatures would halve the journey’s hardships—but when he offered Qianlong silver coins, they refused payment, saying there was a tent belonging to his brother by the river before Lake Manasarovar where he could leave them. With a word of thanks, he borrowed a yak, entrusted his baggage to its back, and set off northward. While Xuanzang Sanzang had traveled with a monkey and boar companions, I found it absurd that my entourage consisted of a yak.

He kneaded wheat flour into dough, coated it with salt and chili powder to eat, slept on rocky ground dusted with patchy snow at night, and after about ten days came upon the first river. He crossed the upper reaches of Tibet’s greatest river, the Brahmaputra—wading chest-deep through a 16,000-foot-high glacial stream in minus-ten-degree winds—then pressed north for twenty days. Having overeaten highland snow led to frostbitten lungs and bloody vomit until, reduced to a human shadow, he reached a riverbank where a tent stood, said to belong to his brother.

When they returned the yak, the tent master—perhaps out of pity—provided a goat to accompany them. He said there was a man named Muyatso at the entrance to the town called Gyato where we should leave it. The next morning, loading baggage of negligible weight onto the goat’s back, they continued north for four days. Though they had heard Lake Manasarovar was near, no matter how far they pressed onward, there stretched only a barren, uninhabited wilderness. The boulders and permafrost thrust out by glaciers had been scoured by relentless cold over tens of thousands of years, pulverized into dust as light as ash that floated as sandy mist when wind blew. The only movements were shadows of clouds flowing across the ground and ripples in sand. All things parched to extremity bore death’s pallor; not a sound remained as desolate stillness reigned. Drifting like a dust mote across Changtang’s plateau—devoid of water or shade—one day saw a ferocious sandstorm rage in. The boundless wilderness surged like stormy seas—swelling, churning, raging with unimaginable aberrant undulations. Chikai thrashed in impenetrable sandy haze as great sand waves surged ceaselessly, burying him chest-deep in moments. Pulling the goat close to save it at least, the animal drew near with mournful cries. Clutching the goat like his child while reciting Buddhist prayers, Chikai felt wind shift imperceptibly—the sandstorm began clearing away.

Three days later, they finally reached the shores of Lake Manasarovar. Spending the night in a monk's quarters with Kang Rinpoche's sacred mountain visible across the shore, they took their first step toward southeastern Lhasa the following day.

Following the beaten path for one hundred and fifty days and passing through Shigatse—a large town second only to Lhasa—he arrived in Gyato on December 27. Stone-built houses were numerous, and the customs had a metropolitan air; his journey across the northwestern plains, filled with solitary melancholy, felt like it was nearing its end. When he located a man named Muyatso and returned the goat, Muyatso lent him a mule in exchange. At Fukan checkpoint beneath Mount Genba-ra where he had descended, his younger brother operated a liquor shop. To obtain a provisional passport one needed the district chief’s guarantee—but since his younger brother was the district chief they said relying on him would suffice. The next day he departed Gyato leading the mule and on the fifth day lodged at a small temple called the Great Maitreya Temple at the base of a rocky mountain. There Meiji 33 also came to an end.

After spending about three months at that temple, on March 18 of Meiji 34 (1901), he embarked on his final journey. Two days later, he climbed the steep slope called Genba-ra and emerged at the pass summit. Beneath his gaze stretched plains encircled by mountains, two isolated hills floating like islands. One was a beautiful mound resembling Mount Fuji; the other teemed with whitewashed halls bearing golden canopies that stretched from summit to midslope. When he realized this was the sacred capital countless explorers had desperately yearned to glimpse yet never reached, rather than feeling joy at his own entry, he found himself shedding tears for their unrealized aspirations.

The slope descended to the first gate of Fukan. Before the checkpoint stood a liquor shop. The proprietor was a good-natured, corpulent man with a flushed face who not only took on the guarantee but even rounded up five co-signers. Thanks to these arrangements, he passed through the first checkpoint effortlessly, crossed the river there, and cleared the second, third, fourth, and fifth checkpoints on the opposite bank all within that day. Neither finding this strange nor realizing he had been manipulated, he entered Lhasa’s city center with an expression of serene composure.

The city’s houses stood as two- or three-story stone structures, their facades whitewashed with lime—beautiful from a distance, but once within the city walls, the streets ran with excrement through knee-deep mud. He stood aghast, wondering, "Can this be the holy capital?" The major shops clustered along a thoroughfare called Barkor, each employing clamorous touts who accosted passersby. Through this chaotic bustle, yellow-robed lama monks galloped ostentatiously astride spirited horses. He took lodgings at monastic quarters on the city’s outskirts and immediately began searching for the Buddhist Canon, yet found only street stalls lining the main avenues with displayed sutra texts. When he inquired about the Tibetan Buddhist Canon, he learned patrons must supply their own paper and pay fees for both woodblock preparation and printing. Temples that had produced grammarians kept their specialized woodblocks; those associated with rhetoricians stored theirs separately—the Vinaya and Abhidharma sections dispersed such that one must visit each temple sequentially to gather blocks. For portions housed in distant monasteries, separate travel expenses would be required.

After persistently visiting the square for three days and checking every sutra shop available, a man in his mid-twenties—appearing to be a defrocked lama monk—approached and stated, "I hear you're seeking the Tibetan Buddhist Canon. If you wish, I can introduce you to an excellent sutra collector." He stated that he required ten Qianlong coins as an introduction fee. Thinking that amount would suffice, he handed over the coins as instructed. "Let's go immediately—the collector has ample time," the man said, taking the lead and beginning to walk.

They crossed a roofed stone bridge in Chinese style, traversed the wide garden of Hōrin Dōjō where elm and willow trees sprouted green buds, and arrived before the large mansion at its rear. When he asked whose residence this was, the monk replied: "This is the residence of the Minister of Religious Affairs. When you meet the Minister, immediately present fifty silver coins—it's an unavoidable meeting fee. The rest depends on your skill."

When he struck the gong hanging from the eaves of the arched gate, an attendant emerged. When the man who had guided him whispered something, the attendant led Chikai through a long corridor that twisted multiple times before ushering him into a room carpeted with crimson-patterned rugs. On a large daybed draped with a dazzling array of colorful rugs lay a fifty-five- or fifty-six-year-old man with a gentle countenance, wearing an official belt of gold brocade. He reclined leisurely, having pulled an opium table close to smoke.

Chikai performed three bows at the entrance, bared one shoulder of his robe, advanced three steps to place a pouch containing silver coins on the table, and candidly stated his earnest intention. The Minister declared, “That’s a trifling matter—I’ll promptly have my staff make the arrangements.” Nothing marred the Minister’s good humor; after exchanging various pleasantries, he shifted the conversation to the North Qing Incident. The North Qing Incident arose when Boxers brutally murdered a Japanese Foreign Ministry clerk and a German envoy at Beijing’s Yong’an Gate, leading to military intervention by eight nations—Britain, America, France, Germany, Russia, Japan, Austria, and Italy—and forcing the Qing government to flee in exile to Xi’an in Shaanxi Province. Then in December of last year, after an Allied envoys’ conference presented them with a protocol containing sixteen demands, Grand Councilor Na Tong and Prince Chun were dispatched to Japan and Germany as envoys of apology. He had been unaware of such turmoil occurring over these three years and was puzzling over why this topic had been raised when a well-mannered man in his mid-twenties entered and announced that preparations were ready. The Minister nodded and said, “This is Wadō—should you require anything, do not hesitate to ask him,” then politely escorted them out of the room.

Led by Wadō, he ascended the stone steps beside the grand Hōō Palace and emerged before the drum tower of the Great Buddha Hall. They walked about fifty ken along the stone-paved temple grounds and entered a solid stone building. Wadō passed through a corridor lined with several small rooms each about six tatami mats in size, then opened a large stone door at the end. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, sutra texts and scrolls—their yellowed wrappers and vermilion-lacquered spindles bearing the faint glow of antiquity—came into view, stacked all the way to the ceiling on bookshelves lining three walls of a dim stone chamber that seemed roughly fifty tatami mats in size. As for the Buddhist Canon, the Kangyur—the primary collection of 1,044 volumes containing translated teachings and monastic codes—and the Tengyur—the supplementary collection of 4,058 volumes containing translated commentaries—each bore their respective sutra titles and colophons. Bundled in blue cloth stamped every ten volumes with imperially translated black seals, they filled the shelves to the left and right.

While Chikai was immersed in blissful rapture, Wadō said, “This way,” and led him to the adjacent room. A dimly lit room—slightly smaller than ten tatami mats, with a single window—had hemp paper stacked in immense quantities along its walls in thousands of bundles. Beneath the window on a sutra desk lay an oil lamp with a bronze fuel jar, along with a writing brush and ink. When he inquired about the paper, Wadō said, “This is the paper you will use for the rest of your life,” placed the first volume of the Kangyur on the sutra desk, and withdrew.

The sutras took a format resembling calligraphy models—unbound sheets of oblong ancient shell paper bearing sixty thousand characters of scripture written sideways in mystical cursive lay loosely between wooden covers, securely bound with leather cords. Combined, the primary and supplementary collections totaled 5,102 volumes; with each volume averaging 60,000 characters, this amounted to 306,120,000 characters in total. At a rate of 1,000 characters per hour—sleeping four hours and writing twenty hours daily—one could produce 60,000 characters per month or 720,000 per year. To transcribe both collections would thus take over forty years. Now thirty years old, he calculated that even allowing margin, he would complete it by age seventy-two.

As Chikai had calculated, the primary collection of 1,044 volumes was transcribed on April 8th of Meiji 41 (1908), when he was thirty-seven years old—eight years later. He had developed inflammation in his knee joints since the previous autumn, but when gangrene abruptly set in during the New Year of Meiji 41 (1908), he underwent amputation of his legs simultaneous with completing the transcription of the primary collection. He was struck anew by the profound workings of Buddhist existence that had unfolded precisely as vowed in every particular, and he steeled his conviction that he would surely live to complete the supplementary collection at this rate. Chikai completed his transcription of the entire 5,102 volumes of the primary and supplementary collections in the spring of Showa 15 (1940) at seventy-two years old, having finished the supplementary collection, and in July, he withered away in death at Hōshaku-in in Lhasa. When he departed Japan, his declaration of "I’ll devote myself until death" proved no empty boast—the essence of his lifelong vow to never again meet parents, siblings, teachers, or friends in this earthly existence had indeed been fulfilled through this.

When Chikai crossed Nepal’s border into Tibet, notification had already reached Lhasa’s Ministry of Justice. In prior years, the penal code for clandestine entrants had been revised—those who entered were no longer expelled beyond the borders but instead kept under lifelong domestic confinement. Did Chikai ever comprehend the Tibetans’ underhanded method—using live “invoices” passed successively from yaks to goats and goats to mules? In Chikai’s *Tibet Record*, he describes with unembellished prose the vast benevolence of our original teacher Shakyamuni Buddha—yet makes no mention whatsoever of this matter.