Free Gods and Godmen of India by Khushwant Singh

“preferably modern Tibetan poetry translated into English.”
    “I have only one,” she replied in impeccable English (Tibetans seem to have the gift of tongues; Urdu, Hindi, Hindustani or English, they speak it without a trace of an accent). “It is the compilation of one by our Dalai Lama,” she said as she handed me a slim volume: Songs of the Sixth Dalai Lama, complied by K. Dhondup. I took it as there was nothing else available. I expected it would be about the Lord Buddha, his various manifestations, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path to Nirvana – and that kind of thing. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was about love, fornication, and pleasures of the tavern flowing with chhung, rice wine. The institution of the wandering sanyasi adept in the art of seduction and performing great sexual feats also existed among those recognized as reincarnations of the great Sakyamuni who renounced sex and family life in early youth.
    “Tsanyang Gyatso, the sixth Dalai Lama, remains a timeless enigma in the annals of the Dalai Lamas of Tibet", writes Gyatso Tsering, director of the Tibetan Archives at Dharamsala. The institutions of the Dalai Lamas began in the 15th century with the recognition of Gedun Drupa as the first earthly manifestation of the Bodhisatva – Avalokiteshwara. In the 17th century, Tibet produced a remarkable leader, the Desi (regent or peshwa) named Sanam Chaphel who succeeded in unifying Tibet under the fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Losang Gyatso. The Dalai Lama died in 1682. The Desi kept the news of his death secret for 15 long years till he discovered the reincarnation and successor in the person of the sixth Dalai Lama who was enthroned in 1697. He was a gifted child, scholarly and of a poetic bent of mind. But he also loved the great out of doors activities. He liked archery and designing buildings. He refused to be disciplined and be bound down by vows of celibacy. For him it was the monastery and prayer by day time; taverns, drink, songs of love and pretty Tibetan maidens at night:
Even if meditated upon,
The face of my lama comes not to me
But again and again comes to me
The smiling face of my beloved.
He admitted defeat in pursuit of the spiritual:
If I could meditate upon the dhamma,
As intensely as I must on my beloved
I would certainly attain enlightenment
Surely, in this one life-time.
    And again:
If the maiden will live forever
The wine will flow, evermore
The tavern is my haven
With wine, I am content.
    Inevitably he fell out with the regent. The regent was captured and beheaded in 1706. The sixth Dalai Lama’s reign also came to an end the same year. He was forcibly taken away to China – and disappeared or was murdered. His last message was to a lama friend:
White Crane!
Lend me your wings
I will not fly far
From Lithang, I shall return.
    In the last line Tibetans read the message that the seventh Dalai Lama would soon be discovered …
    Tsanyang Gyatso was not moved about his sexual prowess:
    Never have I slept without sweetheart
    Nor have I spent a single drop of sperm.
    The sex act, as in the case of Krishna, was a Tantric exercise in whom the bindus’ latent powers were not to be wasted by being spent. If the body hoarded semen, the mind dwelt more intensely on the pleasure of sex.
I went to my teacher, with devout filled
To learn of the Lord Buddha
My teacher taught, but what he escaped;
For my mind was full of compassion,
Full of that Compassionate One who loves me,
She has stolen my mind.
He was adept in the art of arousing
Sweetheart awaiting me in my room
Yielding tenderly her sweet body
Has she come to cheat me
And disrobe me of my virtues
With fair damsels came wine:
If the maiden will live forever
The wine will flow, evermore
The tavern is my haven
With wine, I am content.
    It is incredible that in a highly conservative and religion-oriented society like the Tibetan, it is the iconoclast-loving, sixth Dalai Lama who remains the great favourite.
    7/8/88

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