Glimmers from a Hidden Land

A QUARTER OF A MILE UPSTREAM, the graceful white arch of Teesta Bridge floated like a dream between the steep tree-clad slopes. Within a few minutes we were across, and the jeep that had been sent to fetch us from Siligiri Station was shooting up the mountainside along a succession of hairpin bends that lifted us several hundred feet above the river every few minutes. Already the figures on the bridge looked no bigger than ants, while the river itself lay like a ribbon of grey-green jade between the mountains. Every time we swung round a bend new perspectives opened up before us, each one vaster and more awe-inspiring than the last. Behind us, to the west, loomed the mauve and indigo masses of the Darjeeling hills, while across the River Rungeet, to the north, the mountains of Sikkim flowed in ridge upon smoke-blue ridge to the far horizon. Soon the air grew quite cold, though the sky was a vivid blue and the sunshine more brilliant than ever. We were above the clouds. Looking down, we could see them drifting in fleecy white masses down the valley, following the course of the river. With the change of altitude came a change of vegetation. Sal forest gave way to fir and pine, while the bamboo became smaller and less frequent. Every few hundred yards an explosion of pure scarlet proclaimed the presence of the giant poinsettias. Thatched cottages flashed past. Shops, shrines.... When we were seven or eight miles from Teesta Bridge, and nearly 3,000 feet above sea level, thatched cottages began to change into English bungalows with tiled roofs and trim gardens and soon, strung out along the saddleback before us, I saw the town of Kalimpong….


….Kalimpong was a new world. The whole atmosphere of the place was different. Coming as we did from the plains, where only too often life stagnates in its accustomed channels, we experienced everything as being not only fresher and cleaner but more sparkling and alive. It was like drinking ice-cold champagne after warmed-up soup. People went about their perfectly ordinary affairs in a perfectly ordinary manner, but whether on account of the altitude, or for some other reason, there was a sense of exhilaration in the air, as though it was the festive season, or as though they were all on holiday. Missionaries alone excepted, there was a smile on every face, and while it would be an exaggeration to say that there was a song on everybody's lips we could hardly put our head out of the window without hearing, loud and clear in the distance, the cheerful melody of the latest popular film song. And the colours! On account of these alone Kalimpong would have been a new world. From the blues and purples of the mountains to the reds and yellows of the flowers in the Nepali women's hair, they were all preternaturally vivid, as in a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Sometimes, indeed, they glowed with such intensity that everything seemed to be made of jewels. And all the time, above the mirth and the music, above the life and the colour, above the steadfastness of nature and the security of civilization - above everything - there were the snows.

On the morning of our arrival they had been veiled, and we had seen nothing of them, but since then they had shone forth every day, and often for the whole day. With the blue of the valleys at their feet and the blue of the sky above their heads, the shimmering white masses stretched from end to end of the horizon majestic beyond belief. Since the building where Kashyap-ji and I were staying faced north, we had an uninterrupted view of Mount Kanchenjunga, the second highest peak in the entire Himalayan range and the third highest in the world. In the early morning it was particularly beautiful. Looking out of the window just before dawn, I would see it glimmering ghostly in the blue twilight, more like ice than snow. Then, as the sun started rising, the bluish tip of the summit would be flushed by a fiery pink that, in a matter of minutes, had travelled all the way down the peak. Soon the whole range would be a mass of pink embers glowing against the pale blue sky. Pink would change to crimson, crimson to apricot, apricot to the purest, brightest gold. Finally, as the sun cleared the horizon, gold would change to silver and silver to dazzling white. On particularly fine days the mountain wore a white plume, almost like a plume of smoke. According to the experts, this was caused by a strong wind blowing the loose snow from its summit. But whether it wore its plume or not, and regardless of the time of day, I was never tired of looking up at Mount Kanchenjunga as it sat enthroned in the sky. Totally absorbed in itself though it was, and utterly oblivious of my existence, the great white peak nonetheless seemed to speak to me. What it said, I did not know, but perhaps, if I stayed in Kalimpong long enough, and looked hard enough, I would come to understand.


… from practically all quarters of Kalimpong, we had a wonderful view of the snow ranges of the Himalayas. I can see them in my mind's eye even as I speak. And among these snow ranges, among these snow peaks, is the third highest peak in the world - Kanchenjunga - which means 'The Five Treasures of the Snow'. And one could see Kanchenjunga, except during the rainy season, almost every day, just standing there against the blue sky; way up, as it were, in the blue sky. The whole area, in fact, was a very, very inspiring area indeed. One could say that Kanchenjunga was a very inspiring sight; it certainly was; and especially when one saw it practically every day ‑ one never got tired of looking at it ‑ this great snowy peak right up there in the blue sky, with the clouds far below, wearing its white plume, very often, where the snow was blown off it by the winds. But the whole area was very, very inspiring. I remember the atmosphere was very, very clear. You could see, very often, for many, many miles. The atmosphere, in fact, was so clear - and I believe that of Tibet, which of course was very near, just a few miles away, was even clearer ‑ so that in this very clear atmosphere everything stood out with greater vividness, with a very strange, almost hypnotic, vividness of colour. One seemed to see the colours much more clearly than one saw them down in the plains; much more clearly, certainly, than one sees them in this country ‑ even in Brighton! And sometimes it seemed, especially just after the rains, as though everything was made of jewels, that one was living in a world made of jewels, the colours of everything were so bright and so vivid. The white, of course, the snowy white of the mountains, the intense blue of the blue sky, the vivid green of the vegetation, and the scarlet and the yellow and the blue of all the wonderful mountain flowers. And also the gay costumes of the people, whether they were Nepalese or whether they were Tibetans or Bhutanese or Sikkimese, or even Indians. The only people who weren't very colourful in appearance, I'm sorry to say, were the Europeans, especially the missionaries who usually wore black.

So in this world, made, as it were, of jewels, in Kalimpong, I lived for fourteen years, and I founded a small monastery there after seven years, a small vihara; and I had people staying with me from time to time. And all during this period, during these fourteen years, I was getting deeper and deeper into the study and the practice of Buddhism. And I had, fortunately, contact with quite a number of teachers, especially teachers from Tibet, who were at that time beginning to come out, including some very great teachers indeed, and from them I was so fortunate as to receive various ordinations and initiations.

Sangharakshita