Gift for the Panchen Lama

THE HIGH ROAD TO CHINA: GEORGE BOGLE, THE PANCHEN LAMA AND THE FIRST BRITISH EXPEDITION TO TIBET By Kate Teltscher, Bloomsbury, £15

When Warren Hastings returned to England in 1785, there followed in tow two yaks. One of these survived the voyage, and together with two ‘shawl’ goats increased manifold the attraction of Hastings’s estate. They were the ‘living souvenirs’ of Hastings’s career-long interest in Tibet. There were other residues. Two little girls returned from India to their father’s childhood property in Daldowie around the same time. Daughters of a Tibetan mother, they would grow up as Scottish gentlewomen, with maids and carriages at hand. They were the ‘natural children’ of George Bogle, Hastings’s one-time personal secretary, who undertook the Company’s first expedition to Tibet and formed bonds with that land that went beyond the call of duty.

But the more significant remains of the adventure lay in Bogle’s journal, which he himself had painstakingly compiled from his notes. It would powerfully shape the West’s conception of an idyllic Tibet, and would be put to varied uses by its colonizers. There were also letters Bogle had written to his family, apart from reports and instructions. A century later, all this was put together in a book by Clements Markham. His purpose in this intellectual exercise, in his capacity as a geographer in the India Office and as a traveller, was not very different from Bogle’s — prying open Tibet for British commercial ventures. Tibet had shut its borders by then, to both inquisitive merchants and travelling mendicants. Initially forced by the mighty Qing regime to discontinue its contact with foreigners, the religio-temporal heads of the world’s highest plateau had found isolation the best way to avoid useless trouble. But neither the height nor the turning away from the world would save it from marauding colonizers, whether British or Chinese.

Kate Teltscher talks of a cultural encounter very different in nature. Not only was it minus violence, but also infused with the warmth of genuine feelings exchanged between people who, despite their unequal social, political or religious standing, shared an ‘equal’ relationship. From Bogle’s journal and papers, the writings of the Third Panchen Lama, whose court Bogle reached after a difficult journey, and those of Purangir, the young Hindu trading ascetic who was their faithful conduit, Teltscher pieces together a fascinating story of human bonding. By according each of these characters his due place in history, she wants to free the discourse concerning them from the unfortunate associations it has picked up in the course of over two centuries. The accounts of the time, for example, were not only interpreted later to exemplify the guru-disciple relationship between the lama and Bogle, but also used as evidence to justify the Chinese occupation of Tibet.

At the heart of Teltscher’s story are two monumental journeys — that of Bogle’s, from Bengal to Tibet via Bhutan, the other of the Panchen Lama, from Tashilhunpo in Tibet, to the Forbidden City of the Qianglong emperor on the latter’s 70th birthday. The thread that connects the two journeys is the unceasing effort of the East India Company to gain access to the Chinese court to seek permission to trade at its ports.

By 1774, the Company, which was paying through its nose to finance the tea imports from China to meet the demand at home, was on the brink of bankruptcy. It desperately needed a way to minimize its expenses by establishing an open trade with China. But an adamant Qing regime, in keeping with its isolationalist principles, had blocked the Europeans’ access to the court. The way to China lay through the high roads of Tibet, where the Company could explore its commercial possibilities and persuade the lama to serve as its advocate in Peking. Bogle was selected for this perilous journey. With his family finances in the doldrums, Bogle looked at the expedition as his chance to make it big. His wanderlust, thirst for knowledge, his perseverance and social skills also made him uniquely suited to the job.

Bogle formed lasting associations in Tibet, particularly with the Panchen Lama, who reciprocated his openmindedness and humour. They exchanged information about their countries, and discussed science, society and religion. The Panchen Lama welcomed Bogle not only into the inner circle of his courtiers, but also within his family. As the most powerful spiritual head of Tibet at the time, the Panchen Lama initiated diplomatic and commercial ties with Bengal, where, in exchange, he sought the construction of a Tibetan monastery and rest house for pilgrims. The dilapidated Bhot Bagan or Tibet Garden in Ghusuri stands testimony to this tie. To do his friend a good turn, the Panchen Lama promised to put in a word about the Company with the Qing emperor when he met him in China. This is how the second journey comes into Teltscher’s story.

According to Purangir, who accompanied the lama to China, the Panchen Lama kept his promise. But the lama’s untimely death from smallpox, followed by that of his friend four months later, put paid to British hopes of a breakthrough with China. Till his rather unfortunate death at the hands of robbers in Bhot Bagan, Purangir continued to make his journeys to and from Tibet to further British interests. His efforts bear witness to the complex social manoeuvrings through which British power expanded in India.

The camaraderie between a lowly British civil servant and the highest spiritual authority of a hill kingdom may be unique. But much as Teltscher may try to rescue Bogle’s ‘voice’ and take delight in it, it is doubtful if she can claim it to be unique. Bogle went a long way in cultural assimilation by picking up Tibetan attire, language and way of life. His account too may be free of many of the cultural assumptions that are ordinarily reflected in the travel writings of the time. But in many other ways, Bogle’s account is also typical of his time. As Teltscher herself has claimed in her previous book, India Inscribed, the narrative devices used by the early European travellers were meant to distance and subordinate India, but at times, they would also “diminish Indian strangeness and challenge European assumptions of superiority”. Through his criticism of European fashion, habits and his comparison of religious practices, Bogle often borrows the same tropes as his contemporaries and shows the same “vacillating confidence” in his cultural superiority. One may even presume that his behaviour may have been “responsive to the demands” of his own situation. Another question may bother us. Is Bogle’s voice the same in his letters to his family and the journal he wrote for a larger European audience? Teltscher does not say. She seems too engrossed in Bogle’s sense of humour.