A set of 50 photographs and associated handwritten descriptive notes, acquired from the Imperial Russian Geographical Society in St. Petersburg. The complete notes, "1904 View of Great Tibet", are available at: http://collections.lib.uwm.edu/u?/tibet,94
Potala from the WNW. [N.]
View taken from the road to Depung [Drepung, De-p'ung or Debang] monastery. The birds seen on the ground are but cocks, brought thither from all Lhasa. The cocks are [illegible] in great numbers in the household, but, as in the precincts of the ritualistic outer circumambulation road no creature can be put to death, the cocks are carried to that place where they are left to the mercy of passers-by and those making the circumambulations, they feed the birds by throwing them corn.
Obs. May be also that by bringing hither cocks is acted the life saving charity or the "srog slu" rite which on the authority of Sarat Chandra Das (l.c. p. 134) is calculated to insure life of the donor.
"To deceive life (srog-slu), by saving from death animals about to be killed. This is also known as 'life-saving charity'. The saving of the lives of men, beasts, and particularly fishes, is calculated to insure life. When Tsing-ta proposed this to me, I at once agreed to save five hundred fish. The old doctor said he would go to the fishermen's village, some three miles away, buy the fish, and set them free for me, if I would lend him a pony. He came back in the evening, and reported that he had successfully accomplished this most important mission, by which much merit would come to me." (p. 134).
Das, S. C. (1902). Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet. London: John Murray. Available through Google Books at:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2E4ap0j5gZwC&pg=PA1&dq
