Life-Style in an Old Manor House

The most elaborate houses of old Lhasa were the homes of the aristocracy. Each was built as the residence of a single noble family, who would live there with their relatives, servants, animals and stored goods. We find a good description of a noble house in the writings of Sir Charles Bell, British special envoy to Tibet and a personal friend of the 13th Dalai Lama. In 1915, Bell stayed with the wealthy Palha family at their country estate near Gyantse. The following description of the estate gives a good impression of the life-style of the Tibetan aristocracy prior to 1959, though it must be noted that a noble house in Lhasa is only a down-sized version of the country manor.

The house at Drong-tse is built around a quadrangular courtyard. The side opposite the entrance rises to four storeys above the ground [note: in Lhasa city, three storeys was much more common]. On the topmost floor the members of the family live during the summer months, moving one floor down in the winter for the sake of warmth. Their sitting-rooms, bedrooms, and kitchen are here. There is a schoolroom also, to which come both the sons of the house and those of the retainers and the tenantry, but the Pa-lha boys have their own special seats. A small praying-room, where the family priests read prayers, though poorly furnished, is heated with braziers of yak-dung, the common fuel of high Tibet, where wood is scarce and coal basically unknown. Thus warmed, the family gather in it often during the cold mornings and evenings of the long Tibetan winter. All the sitting-rooms have altars and images in them, for, from prince to peasant, their religion is part and parcel of the life of the Tibetan people.

On the floor below are found the room for the two stewards, in which they do their work and pass the day. On the walls hang bows and arrows kept ready for the archery which delights the heart of Tibetan man and maid, held as it is under the blue Tibetan sky and accompanied by wine and song. On the floor are three or four of the low Tibetan tables with teacups on them drawing attention to the national beverage. Beyond are two Gönkhangs. Here, too, is the largest chapel in the house. It is known as the Kan-gyur chapel, for it enshrines a complete copy of the Buddhist canonical books, one hundred and eight volumes in all. In the floor is a large trap-door through which grain is poured into the store-room below. A kitchen for the servants, a store-room, and a large reception room, used for important entertainments, complete the tale of rooms on this storey. It was on this floor that my wife and I were lodged when on a three-day visit to Drong-tse in 1915. For our room we were given a large chapel, part of it being partitioned for our use. Behind the partition a monk could be heard off and on from five o'clock in the morning intoning the services for the Pa-lha household.

At the New Year, the more influential retainers and tenants come to offer ceremonial scarves to the head of the house. If a member of the house is present, he receives the scarves; if not, these are laid on the table in front of his empty seat.

On the floor below we are among the rooms for servants and for storage. An apartment used for housing wool runs along one side. From end to end of the other side runs a long room for housing grain. Part of the latter, however, is taken up by two open verandahs, separated by a partition wall and facing the courtyard. These spaces are used by persons of rank somewhat lower than that of the master of the house for watching the entertainments that from time to time take place in the courtyard. Convention requires that those of highest rank shall sit in the highest seats, though thereby they lose the better view of the spectacle. The nobility are accommodated with seats in the gallery, the common folk are relegated to the stalls.

Rugs, tables, &c., filled a lumber-room; in another bread was kept; in yet another was stored barley to be used for making beer (chang). I had often heard that Tibetans laid in a large part of their meat supply once yearly, in October, and here I witnessed the proof of this. For in a large room joints of yak-beef and mutton were hanging from the ceiling. The meat had been killed for nine months - October to July - but was free from offensive smell. A bedroom for the priests and various servants' apartments found place on this floor.

On the first storey are two rooms for brewing beer, a large room in which meat, barley-flour, oil, and such-like are stored together. Along the other sides we find rooms used for peas, barley, and other grain.

After the Tibetan custom a strong wooden ladder with steep, narrow steps leads to the courtyard below. At the top of the ladder, in a recess on each side of it, stands a praying-wheel, as high as a man and of ample girth. Thousands upon thousands of incantations and prayers are printed and pressed together within these great cylinders. At the foot of each sits an old dame, who makes it to revolve, and in so doing sends upwards this mass of prayer and offering for the benefit of the world at large and the Pa-lha household in particular.[...]

Round the courtyard, under the projecting verandahs of the floor above, are stables. At the back of these are rooms for storing hay. [...]

The room in which we were offered the usual tea, cakes, and fruit was, as so often happens, a chapel and a sitting room combined. But it was unusual in that it faced towards the north. Tibetans usually arrange that their best rooms shall catch as much sunlight as possible.