In discussing the virtue of pacifism, Thurman argues that during the reign of the fifth Dalai Lama (1617-82), a unique form of government was created that was almost completely demilitarized and gave priority to nonviolence (1998, 9). Representing Tibet as a spiritual civilization, Thurman writes, "In Western culture, the last frontier of our material conquest is the universe of outer space. Our astronauts are our ultimate heroes and heroines. Tibetans, however, are more concerned about the spiritual conquest of the inner universe… So, the Tibetan lamas… [who are spiritually adept, the] 'psychonauts' are the Tibetans' ultimate heroes and heroines" (10).
Drawing upon the themes of Western materialism and Eastern spirituality, Thurman contrasts Tibetan "inner modernity" with Western "outer modernity." This difference of personality underlies the difference between the Western (American for Thurman) and Tibetan civilizations: "While the American national purpose is ever greater material productivity, the Tibetan national purpose is ever greater spiritual productivity" (11).
Thus, the idealization of Tibetan spirituality often goes beyond everyday religious practice, concerning itself with realms above religion. As the Tibetophile Hollywood actor Steven Seagal says, "My agenda has no politics. It has no economy. You see. It goes even beyond religion which is also big business and goes into simple human kindness and the way we're supposed to treat each other as human beings" (Frontline 1998c). A figure that has been integral to the Western imagination of Tibet as an abode of spirituality is the lama.
THE LAMA
At the end of his time in Lhasa, Younghusband wrote about the Ti Rimpoche, the abbot of the powerful Ganden monastery (who was acting as the chief Tibetan negotiator since the Dalai Lama had fled Lhasa before the arrival of the British in 1904): he was a "benevolent, kindly old gentleman, who would not hurt a fly if he could have avoided it" and he "more nearly approached Kipling's Lama in 'Kim' than any other Tibetan" Younghusband had met (Younghusband 1910, 310, 325; emphasis added). Here we see how preexisting images shaped the West's encounter with Tibet. Kipling's fictional lama provided an image of the Tibetan lama against which the British during the early twentieth century measured the actual lamas. With Younghusband begins the tradition of looking for the "Teshoo Lama" figure-elderly yet childlike, respected yet loved, spiritually wise yet with little knowledge of, or interest in, the secular world.
Kipling's Kim, first published in 1901, presents the Orient for the visual consumption of the West. The novel is about the adventures of Kim in India-a white orphan boy who has grown up among Indians, easily passing himself off as one of them. He takes to the road as a chela (disciple, companion) of a Tibetan lama and discovers the diversity of north Indian life while "becoming a man." Initially accompanying the lama on his search for the "fountain of wisdom," Kim is picked up by the British and groomed for working in the British secret service.
Though the depiction of individual Oriental characters such as the Teshoo Lama is positive, it in no way disrupts the cumulative picture and the certainties of Orientalism for "no matter how much a single Oriental can escape the fences around him, he is first an Oriental, second a human being, and last again an Oriental" (Said 1993, 112; emphases in original). In Kim, it is the Europeans who provide the Orientals with the first accurate descriptions and proper explanations of their history, religion, and culture. This is evident in the confrontation of the lama with the British curator of Lahore museum. The curator, a "white-bearded Englishman," speaks to the lama, who is trembling with excitement at the sight of Buddhist images: "Welcome, then, O lama from Tibet. Here be the images, and I am here… to gather knowledge" (1976, 13). The lama tells the curator that he was an abbot at a monastery in Tibet. In reply, the curator brings out a huge book of photos and shows him that very place, suitably impressing the lama, who exclaims, "And thou-the English know of these things?" (14). [37] Throughout the novel, Tibet figures as a place far removed from the lives of those in India. When the lama enters the story he says to the boys playing in front of the Lahore museum that he is "a hillman from hills thou'lt never see" (12). On his journey in north India with Kim, the lama tells stories of "enduring snows, landslips, blocked passes, the remote cliffs where men find sapphires and turquoise, and the wonderful upland road that leads at last into Great China itself" (48). Later, on the second leg of their journey,
he told stories, tracing with a finger in the dust, of the immense and sumptuous ritual of avalanche-guarded cathedrals; of processions and devil-dances; of the changing of monks and nuns into swine; of holy cities fifteen thousand feet in the air; of intrigue between monastery and monastery; of voices among the hills, and of that mysterious mirage that dances on dry snow. He spoke even of Lhassa and of the Dalai Lama, whom he had seen and adored. (232)
One dominant representational strategy operating within the text is infantilization. On the one hand, young Kim is contrasted to the old lama. But a closer reading shows Kim to be the real guardian and caretaker as he is practically wise and the lama is childlike in worldly matters. The lama writes in "clumsy, childish print" (13) and follows Kim's instructions obediently and "simply as a child"
(20). Kim asserts his own importance for the lama when he says to him: "Was there ever such a disciple as I?… All earth would have picked thy bones within ten miles of Lahore city if I had not guarded thee" (71). Yet in times of crisis, such as when Kim is caught by two British regimental priests and is forcibly enrolled for formal schooling, the lama shows awareness of worldly matters and volunteers to act as Kim's guardian and insists on paying for the cost of his education.
The lama's wisdom in spiritual matters is of course unparalleled and compared favorably with Indian priests of all sorts. He speaks like a "scholar removed from vanity, as a Seeker walking in humility, as an old man, wise and temperate, illuminating knowledge with brilliant insight" (232). Ultimately, the lama finds his "fountain of wisdom" (the "river of the arrow") in his affection for Kim and 'saves' Kim from his illness through his meditation even though Kim has now been trained to be a British spy. He says, "Son of my Soul, I have wrenched my Soul back from the Threshold of Freedom to free thee from all sin-as I am free, and sinless!" (313). Tibet comes to the aid of the West to rejuvenate it spiritually, even as the West retains its secular dominance.
The benign figure of the lama, the one with a "loving old soul" (207), does not preclude Kipling from expressing the general disagreement with Tibetan religion that was prevalent among Europeans at the turn of the twentieth century. For instance, Kipling's lama figure anguishes that the "Old law"-primitive Buddhism- "was not well followed; being overlaid… with devildom, charms, and idolatry" (15).
Even though some might find in the figure of Teshoo Lama a charitable depiction of an "Oriental" (see Hopkirk 1997), he is seen as childish, unthinking, and incapable-to the point of self-destruction-of existence in the real world. This portrayal of the lama results from simplistic idealization and ambivalence. From his early function as a father figure for Kim, he gradually reveals his practical inadequacies, as his childlike dependence on Kim grows more explicit. Later in the novel, as compared to the Western patriarchal figures of Colonel Creighton and Father Victor-the European men combining power and "worldly" knowledge-the lama's virtue and behavior increasingly appear gendered as feminine and thus ineffectual (see Sullivan 1993). Kim's search for identity and his love for the lama are both mediated by the ruling structures of power. [38]
[37] Yet the lama is not totally convinced about British control over knowledge, for he says that there are still things that Western scholars do not know, have not sought-things relating to spiritual wisdom. Later, the lama introduces Kim to new art forms and says, chuckling, "The Sahibs have not all this world's wisdom" (Kipling 1976, 209; emphasis in original).
[38] Wilson surmises why Kipling used the character of a Tibetan lama and not any other Indian religious figure: it was essential to the spiritual relation that was to develop between the lama and Kim that, for Kim, his master be an exotic novelty, for the boy's curiosity about everything new is what marks him out as someone who is likely to learn from life (Wilson 1987, 53). The lama provides exactly this. His simplicity and novelty allowed Kim to claim that "the lama was his trove, and he proposed to take possession" (Kipling 1976, 19). And it was also necessary that the master should be entirely dependent upon Kim for guidance in the real world. The Tibetan lama symbolized radical "otherworldliness."