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Life in the Sacred City

    Date:06-02-2009   Source:tibet328.cn

Since ancient times, the population of Lhasa has included more transient than permanent residents. To support these many migrating people, as well as the many religious and secular elite of the city, a substantial service sector became indispensable. In this sector could be found people at the bottom of the society.

The law codes of ancient Tibet divided people into three classes, and each class comprised three ranks. The first class included aristocrats and upper-class monks. They were the ruling group. The second class included merchants, office workers, lower-class monks, and others. Merchants occasionally rose to upper-class status, usually when an impoverished upper-class family married a daughter to a wealthy merchant. The third class comprised manual laborers. Below those three classes, there were people known as jianmin (outcast groups), who can be classified into five categories, namely, blacksmiths, butchers, funeral caretakers pottery makers and entertainers. Similar to these people in social status were fishermen, boatmen, hunters, masons, etc. This system of social classification seems to have been borrowed from India, as was Buddhism. People of low social statues were not allowed to become monks or nuns. They were not even allowed to kowtow to a monastery. They were not allowed to eat at the same table with upper-class people or to use eating utensils used by members of the upper class. If such a person had to speak to an upper-class person, he had to stand outside the gate of the latter's residence and address him from there. Marriage between members of the different classes was almost unheard of. The child of such a marriage would inherit the status of the lower-ranking parent. In the 1950s an aristocrat fell in love with the daughter of a blacksmith. Ostracized by his family and friends, he fled with his bride deep into the mountains. It was only after the Democratic Reform was enacted in Tibet six years later, in 1959, that they dared to return to Lhasa and have a new life.

Craftsmen and artists who had no land or any other means of production lived by selling their skills. They were organized into guilds by the local government. The guild rules were strictly conservative, dictating that the shape and making of a product must follow a fixed pattern. Innovation was strictly forbidden. So articles either for religious or secular purposes remained the same for many centuries. Blacksmiths, goldsmiths and silversmiths mostly lived in Tepengang Lane, which crossed Barkor East. The status of goldsmith and silversmith was slightly higher than that of blacksmith, and they called themselves "whitesmiths." The pottery makers' guild was located in Barkor Street, while their workshops were mostly in Maizhokunggar. Their wares were produced specially for the government, including the green glazed pottery made specially for the Daia Lama.

Though meat was a staple food for everybody, including monks, in Tibet, butchers were especially discriminated against, probably because of the Buddhist distaste for the taking of life. In the old days, meat stalls were concentrated on Barkor North and East. The stalls on Barkor North were run by herdsmen from northern Tibet, while the stalls on Barkor East were managed by Muslims. Over the years, the Barkor East butchers piled up the horns of yaks they had slaughtered to make a wall. This strange wall still remains today.

Entertainers were regarded as little more than beggars in old Tibet, although a few outstanding singers were summoned to perform for the aristocrats. A noted street dancer called Sogda Yagu emerged in the 1940s. Particularly good at tap dance, he was able to dance to any song, be it English or Indian, with typical Tibetan-styled dancing movements. Despite his popularity with ordinary people, he lived in poverty. At night, he found shelter under bridges or huddled up together with the homeless and stray dogs at the foot of the West Pagoda on Barkor North. Following the Democratic Reform, he was given an apartment and some property. However, he continued to dance in the streets. In the 1990s, he was still often seen dancing in the streets to the accompaniment of pop songs played on a tape-recorder slung around his neck. He once appeared on a local TV program. He said proudly that he was "one of Lhasa's little decorations."

At the Shoton Festival in summer, eight Tibetan opera troupes were designated by the local government to come to Lhasa to give performances. As usual in this stagnant society, the programs were all fixed and supervised by a censorship body. A troupe could be banned for half a year or fined if it changed any of the words of the traditional songs. The best-known singer of the time of the 13th Dalai Lama, also his favorite, was Migmar Gyeltsen. It was said that when he sang in the Norbu Lingka, his voice could be heard at the foot of the Potala Place, one kilometer away. When he sang in the mansion of a noble, his resonant voice made the window paper quiver, or even crack. Yet this brilliant performer was kept on the lowest rung of the social ladder. One day in the 1940s, he dropped dead by the roadside on his way back from giving a performance at the Reting Monastery on the occasion of the Cuckoo Festival. His remains were chopped up and fed to the vultures on the Beggars' Celestial Burial Terrace. Many years have passed, but his name and stories about him are still familiar to the Tibetan people.