The Curse Of The Goddess

by Ratan Lal Basu

  Chapter 6: The Caves

  In the Buddhist cave Nil remained almost unconscious for two more days. He had an attack of a virus fever which could be fatal. Hill people were generally immune of this virus, but outsiders might be easily afflicted and killed. Both the Lama and Doma got worried about Nil and prayed to god for his cure. The Lama immediately informed an herbal doctor at an adjacent village. The nonagenarian doctor could not come himself but on the basis of the symptom of Nil’s illness he sent some herbs instructing to administer them by inhalation. The three herbs were to be administered in succession with an interval of half an hour and the circle repeated. On the third day Nil regained consciousness and his temperature was normal. The headache had also subsided completely. But he was too weak to move. He had to take rest for at least a week.

  Doma detailed to him every incident since he had fallen unconscious. Nil got a start to learn about the meddling of the Bhutia. He did not suppress the Bhutia issue any longer and gave her the detail of how he had been followed ever since he had arrived at the New Jalpaiguri railway station.

  Doma laughed aloud and expressed the same view as Sangey had done earlier, ‘all Bhutias look alike to one who encounters them for the first time. Namsell had never gone out of this place. Moreover he is very simple and helpful too. In fact only because of his assistance we could come out of the impasse without much trouble. Rest assured the Bhutias you came across at different place are all different persons.’ Nil did not argue with her. He was quite sure that Namsell had lied to Doma that he had never gone out of this place. Each Bhutia might look alike to his unaccustomed eyes but each was not likely to have the scar on his face. But it still remained a mystery why Namsell (the spy of the tantric for sure) had taken so much trouble to save them and help them reach the caves safely. After some thinking it was clear to Nil that Namsell must have done this by the instruction of the tantric who wanted to learn about their mission and did not desire their death at this stage. If they were allowed to proceed further with the mission the tantric would be able to spoil it at the last stage and prevent any future efforts on the part of the Lepchas to resolve their problem bypassing the tantric.

  At night the sky was clear and everything around were clearly visible in bright moon light. The Sherpa assistants of the Lama had gone back to their village. The Lama took Nil and Doma along to visit the caves. Two large caves were arranged for the stay of Doma and Nil respectively. They were not far from the largest cave where the Lama himself resided. There were six other caves as storehouses, kitchen and for temporary shelter of the villagers. All these caves had been recently carved out by the villagers. The sacred caves were higher up in the hill. They were made for sacred meditation and ordinary people were not permitted to visit them except at the time of Buddhist festivals.

  They had to climb a steep causeway to reach the sacred caves amidst pines, rhododendrons and flowery bushes. Doma helped Nil to climb up the rise. Nil was enchanted to watch the semi circular caves curved dexterously into the hard stony wall of the hill. They first entered the main cave. It was about fifteen feet wide and twenty feet in length. The roof was semi-circular and at the middle it was about fifteen feet from the floor laden with granite sheets. At the far end of the cave there was a large Buddha statue of snow white marble about ten feet tall. There were bas relieves of various Hindu gods and goddesses immaculately set on the walls. There were five smaller caves on either side of the main cave and each of them was painted with Jataka stories of Bodhisatva (Buddha in earlier births). After visiting the caves they climbed down for dinner. Thereafter in the moonlit night in front of the residential caves the Lama told them the history of the sacred caves. No body in fact could know the exact time of creation of these caves. In a sacred Pali text in birch barks, a brief account of the caves was written. The text was preserved in an ancient monastery at Sikkim. The Lamas of these caves were appointed by the monastery and he had to read the sacred scripture before taking charge of these caves. This Lama called Samten had learnt the history from the sacred text at Sikkim. This cannot be disclosed to any ordinary persons but these two being divine persons Samten did not hesitate to tell them the history.

  King Bimbisar of the ancient Indian kingdom of Magadha was an ardent devotee of Lord Buddha and he had made many monasteries in his state and always sponsored the Buddhist religion. Unfortunately his son Ajatasatru (495-462 B.C.) was a dogmatic Hindu and hated the Buddhists. To escape from his wrath a few Buddhist monks escaped into these hills and started residing in the caves. Around 254 B.C. during the reign of the Mauryan Emperor Asoka who used to patronize the Buddhists, relation of the monks at the caves with Magadha was reestablished and Granites and Marble stones and sculptors were sent from Magadha to curve statues and images of Lord Buddha and Jataka stories. The history of the caves in the holy book was written till the early Gupta era as the last page of the text mentioned the visit of the king Samudra Gupta. Thereafter nothing could be known about the caves. Some natural disaster could have isolated the caves from the outside world and because of lack of food, the monks might have died. The caves were rediscovered during the 8th century A.D. while Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) introduced Buddhism among the hill people of Bhutan and Sikkim (Darjeeling hills and these caves belonged to Sikkim at that time).

  Rinpoche had decided to meditate at a secret place away from the Sherpa and Bhutia villages. So he preferred the jungles in the slopes of the adjacent hills. Two of his trusted disciples suddenly came upon the gumphas (Buddhist caves) hidden under deep jungles. Rinpoche thought them to be the gift from heaven and slowly cleared the caves and started meditating there. He declared that none except himself and his two best disciples would have the right to visit the caves. Any trespasser would be punished by divine power. He chose the place for his secret meditation. However, replicas of the gumphas were created at the bottom of the hill for commoners. Inside the cave he discovered skeletons of the Lamas who had died long ago and some sacred texts written on birch barks one of which depicted the history of the caves. He left the place after some time entrusting one of his trusted disciples to look after the sacred caves. He took along most of the sacred texts found in the caves except one that depicted the history of the caves. The tradition of appointing a new young Lama directly from Tibet, after the death of each Lama, continued until Tibet was taken over by China during the middle of the twentieth century. Most of the sacred Lamas then fled and took shelter in monasteries at Sikkim. Thereafter the Lamas of the sacred caves were being appointed by the Sikkim monasteries.