Kim | Page 7

four months'
march away. The Curator brought out a huge book of photos and showed him that very
place, perched on its crag, overlooking the gigantic valley of many-hued strata.
'Ay, ay!' The lama mounted a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles of Chinese work. 'Here is
the little door through which we bring wood before winter. And thou - the English know
of these things? He who is now Abbot of Lung-Cho told me, but I did not believe. The
Lord - the Excellent One - He has honour here too? And His life is known?'
'It is all carven upon the stones. Come and see, if thou art rested.'
Out shuffled the lama to the main hall, and, the Curator beside him, went through the
collection with the reverence of a devotee and the appreciative instinct of a craftsman.
Incident by incident in the beautiful story he identified on the blurred stone, puzzled here
and there by the unfamiliar Greek convention, but delighted as a child at each new trove.
Where the sequence failed, as in the Annunciation, the Curator supplied it from his
mound of books - French and German, with photographs and reproductions.
Here was the devout Asita, the pendant of Simeon in the Christian story, holding the
Holy Child on his knee while mother and father listened; and here were incidents in the
legend of the cousin Devadatta. Here was the wicked woman who accused the Master of
impurity, all confounded; here was the teaching in the Deer-park; the miracle that stunned
the fire-worshippers; here was the Bodhisat in royal state as a prince; the miraculous birth;
the death at Kusinagara, where the weak disciple fainted; while there were almost
countless repetitions of the meditation under the Bodhi tree; and the adoration of the
alms-bowl was everywhere. In a few minutes the Curator saw that his guest was no mere
bead- telling mendicant, but a scholar of parts. And they went at it all over again, the

lama taking snuff, wiping his spectacles, and talking at railway speed in a bewildering
mixture of Urdu and Tibetan. He had heard of the travels of the Chinese pilgrims, Fu-
Hiouen and Hwen-Tsiang, and was anxious to know if there was any translation of their
record. He drew in his breath as he turned helplessly over the pages of Beal and Stanislas
Julien. "Tis all here. A treasure locked.' Then he composed himself reverently to listen to
fragments hastily rendered into Urdu. For the first time he heard of the labours of
European scholars, who by the help of these and a hundred other documents have
identified the Holy Places of Buddhism. Then he was shown a mighty map, spotted and
traced with yellow. The brown finger followed the Curator's pencil from point to point.
Here was Kapilavastu, here the Middle Kingdom, and here Mahabodhi, the Mecca of
Buddhism; and here was Kusinagara, sad place of the Holy One's death. The old man
bowed his head over the sheets in silence for a while, and the Curator lit another pipe.
Kim had fallen asleep. When he waked, the talk, still in spate, was more within his
comprehension.
'And thus it was, O Fountain of Wisdom, that I decided to go to the Holy Places which
His foot had trod - to the Birthplace, even to Kapila; then to Mahabodhi, which is Buddh
Gaya - to the Monastery - to the Deer-park -to the place of His death.'
The lama lowered his voice. 'And I come here alone. For five - seven - eighteen - forty
years it was in my mind that the Old Law was not well followed; being overlaid, as thou
knowest, with devildom, charms, and idolatry. Even as the child outside said but now. Ay,
even as the child said, with but-parasti.'
'So it comes with all faiths.'
'Thinkest thou? The books of my lamassery I read, and they were dried pith; and the later
ritual with which we of the Reformed Law have cumbered ourselves - that, too, had no
worth to these old eyes. Even the followers of the Excellent One are at feud on feud with
one another. It is all illusion. Ay, maya, illusion. But I have another desire' - the seamed
yellow face drew within three inches of the Curator, and the long forefinger-nail tapped
on the table. 'Your scholars, by these books, have followed the Blessed Feet in all their
wanderings; but there are things which they have not sought out. I know nothing -
nothing do I know - but I go to free myself from the Wheel of Things by a broad and
open road.' He smiled with most simple triumph. 'As a pilgrim to the Holy Places I
acquire merit. But there is more. Listen to a true thing.