Grains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler is a large collection of essays composed by Gendun Chopel during his time in India and Sri Lanka. He considered it to be his most important work, although it would not be published in its entirety until long after his death. The opening pages are provided here, which include his fateful meeting with Rahul Sankrityayan.146
THIS IS ENTITLED Grains of Gold: Tales of a Cosmopolitan Traveler. I pay homage with body, speech, and mind and go for refuge with great reverence at the lotus feet of the Blessed One, the perfectly awakened Buddha.
You destroy the world of darkness with wisdom’s wheel of light, profound and clear.
You step down upon the peak of existence with the feet of the samādhi of liberation and peace.
You are endowed with the mind of stainless space unsullied by clouds of elaboration.
May the sun, the glory of all beings, rain down goodness upon you.
Whatever expressions of civility are seen
To come from the fine past traditions in the Snowy Land,
Remain like a picture casting a reflection
Of the three doors of conduct of the people of the Noble Land.
Thus, for those who enjoy the flavors of meaning
From the learned treatises of ancient times,
To speak in detail about the conditions of this land [India]
Might help them complete the branches of learning.
However many things there might be, both subtle and coarse,
That cannot be known through investigation at home in bed
Without becoming objects of the senses of sight and hearing
I shall explain here using the clearest examples.
Here in our country, due to the example set by the bodhisattva kings and ministers, everyone—the eminent, the lowly, and those in between—has immeasurable faith, affection, and respect for India, this Land of the Noble Ones, the special land from which the teachings of the Conqueror came to Tibet. Because of this, everything we do with our body, our speech, and our mind—the manner in which our scholars express their analysis, our style of composition, our clothing, our religious rituals—all of these are permeated by Indian influence as a sesame seed is permeated by its oil, so much so that when it is necessary to provide a metaphor in a poem, only the names of Indian rivers, mountains, and flowers are deemed suitable. For example, if one composes the following: “Your body is majestic like the Vindhya Range, / Your speech pure and stainless like the flowing Ganges,” the stanza would be worthy of being counted as a well-composed verse. If one composes the following: “Your body is majestic like Mount Machen Pomra, / Your speech flows ceaselessly like the Machu River,” although this composition is not inelegant—the first two syllables of the two lines are identical—it would cause laughter.
Because this type of discourse has always been abundant [in Tibet], there have been occasions when numerous amusing yet meaningless things were written due to failing to recognize what are essentially everyday objects in India. In general, most of these things can only be determined by seeing them with one’s own eyes and hearing them with one’s own ears. It is not the case that knowing about them makes you a scholar and not knowing about them makes you a fool. Still, there is no need to say that if one speaks about them pretentiously one does become a liar. Furthermore, in some cases, some very important points have been [mistakenly] inferred and errors have often been made due to confusion. Thus, if something can be understood exactly as it is, it is absolutely certain that this can serve a great purpose. Therefore, I have gathered here in one place whatever insights I have gained about various fields of knowledge that I have seen and heard about during my wanderings in many places and regions of India and Tibet. As for drawing conclusions on the basis of guesses, writing the most astonishing tales that have no authoritative sources in order to please many people, making clear distinctions between what is and is not in order to protect one’s own sack of tsampa [roasted barley] but lacking the courage even to tell true stories out of excessive concern for the opinions of others, all these things, I have set aside with abandon. Giving up such things as hope for a good reputation, I wish to write a volume, from time to time inserting—in the style of ordinary conversation—whatever I have found, only for the sake of those few intelligent people who remain open-minded.
If one remains very timid, afraid of contradicting the accounts of others, then the understanding that is capable of enhancing wisdom cannot grow. But if one were to take an honest approach, saying, “This is an error,” “That too is an error,” and so on, this can trample on the hearts of many, great and small, and can do much damage to such things as one’s means of livelihood. As a Tibetan, I am very familiar with my own country, so I know all this very well. Still, I shall write without giving this any thought. Thus I beseech the feeble-minded a hundred times not to bear malice against me.
Empty talk that makes fools amazed,
Fawning words piled up to flatter great men,
Stories that make the faithful sigh,
Leaving these far behind, I set out upon the straight path.
This is the intention with which I begin.
So it was in the Male Wood Dog Year of the sixteenth sixty-year cycle [1934], when I had reached age thirty-two, that I set off for India. That year was the two thousand four hundred and seventy-sixth year following the Buddha’s passage into nirvāṇa according to the Sthavira sect of Sri Lanka. This system of calculation also seems to be respected as authoritative these days in other countries where the Buddha’s teaching has recently spread, and there is a need for such things as looking up dates easily. Therefore, in what follows, in whatever context, such as the royal lineages [of Tibet], I will use this [system] for years counted after the Teacher’s passing. The great Sakya Paṇḍita’s statement that the śrāvaka schools are unreliable because they calculated their year of the Teacher’s birth by confusing the construction of the Buddha’s image at Bodh Gayā with the birth of the Buddha is highly offensive talk.
From the time I was a child I have wondered again and again whether I would be able to go to India just once. Having been at Drepung monastery for about seven years after arriving in central Tibet, I met a paṇḍita by the name of Rāhula [Sankrityayan] who had come to Tibet. He encouraged me to go [with him]. This was a wish come true, and we set out. First, the paṇḍita and I went on a pilgrimage to places such as the Phenpo region and Radreng. In our spare time I began to study a little Sanskrit with the paṇḍita. He had a lot of money and knew about as much Tibetan as a seven-year-old child. He was under the protection of some Lhasa aristocrats, so we were able to examine closely the sacred objects of the various monasteries, such as Radreng.