Barkor in the Tibetan language means a circular route. So Barkor Street, as indicated by its name, is a circular road. Buddhist devotees also call it Bodhi Road. The flagstone-paved street is about one kilometer long, and is flanked by neatly arranged houses in typical Tibetan architectural style. Today, it is only a part of the old town of the city. But in the past, as shown on old maps of Lhasa, Barkor Street and its surrounding area comprised almost all of the city. The eastern, northern and western suburbs, where rows of buildings stand today, used to be stretches of grassland, marshes, woods and fields. So in the minds of Tibetan people, Lhasa became identified with Barkor Street.
Old Lhasa was the epitome of old Tibet. Every aspect of Tibet could be found there. Barkor Street was a community with the highest density of population and buildings in the whole of Tibet. The oldest and most magnificent building in Barkor Street is Jokhang Monastery, where a life-sized statue of Sakyamuni at the age of 12 is enshrined. It was brought by Princess Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty, 1,300 years age, and first installed in the Ramoche Monastery.
In front of the Jokhang Monastery are located a stone stele and a willow tree, which are known as the Tang Stele and the Tang Willow Tree. The stele was erected about a thousand years ago to mark the end of a war and the formation of an alliance between the Tibetans and Han Chinese. The thousand-year-old willow tree died during the "cultural revolution." The dead branches are hung with Buddhist streamers and prayer scarves, as in the minds of the local residents its soul still exists.
The Jokhang Monastery was first built in the seventh century. It remains virtually intact, despite over a thousand years of storm and stress in the history o Buddhism. We know through carbon-dating that most of the beams and rafters are the original ones; the others were replaced in the 1970s, when the monastery was renovated.
In the past, Barkor Street used to have seven large alleyways fanning out in all directions. With small lanes joining the alleyways, it resembled to a spider's web.
This street is always crowded with people who follow the main flow, always going in the same direction. The tall Tibetan-style buildings flanking the street are like the banks of a river, solid and majestic. There are also clusters of tents which serve as semi-permanent residences for those who have come here from afar. The tents in front of the Jokhang Monastery are home to people from Qinghai Province; the tents near the Ramoche Monastery on the northern part of the street are known as the Beggars' Tents, which also house many herdsmen from northern Tibet. Having passed the Upper and Lower Tantric Houses, and the Melu Monastery, one comes across the Black Yak Tents, for people from Khams-pa. In the eyes of the Lhasa residents, the people of northern Tibet are honest and well behaved, whereas the people of Khamas-pa are aggressive. The northern side of Barkor East is where shops run by Nepalese are concentrated, and the southern side is full of shops and pharmacies run by Han Chinese. The latter shops are un mostly by people from Yunnan and Beijing. To the southeast of Barkor Street is the Muslim area. Barkor East is located right behind the Jokhang Monastery. There stands a yellow-colored building, which is locally known as the Yellow House. It was said to be the place of rendezvous for Tsangyang Gyatso, the sixth Dalai Lama, and his lover. Today, this building is used as a café, with the name The Maiden written in Tibetan, Mandarin and English on its signboard. The name originates in a poem written by Tsangyang gyatso. It goes like this:
Over that mountaintop in the east,
Rises a serene moon,
The face of the maiden,
Appears in my heart.
Different religions and ethnic cultures co-exist in peace in Lhasa. Not far from Barkor East, there stand two mosques, one small and one large. Around them is the settlement of Muslims from Gansu, Qinghai and Western Asia. It has been several hundred years since they settled in Tibet. Muslims have traditionally engaged in business here, including running teahouses, restaurants and groceries, and engaging in animal slaughtering.
A little further on, on Barkor South, there stands a building known as the Ngantsesha. This is the seat of the municipal government. The head of the Ngantsesha is known as the Miboin, which is translated as "mayor." The principal duties and responsibilities of this organization in the old days were to maintain law and order and public sanitation, and inspect weights and measures in the market. The repair work on the embankments of the Lhasa River also came under its jurisdiction. However, important decisions were always submitted to the Gaxag government. The Miboin was more like the chief of police than the mayor of the city. When evidence was not sufficient in a case and it was difficult to make a ruling, the Miboin would toss a black and a white wooden dice-one for the plaintiff and one for the defendant. Whoever got the highest number would win the case. The loser would have to present a ceremonial scarf to the winner and apologize to him.
Barkor Street actually refers to a fairly large area. Apart from the trunk road, it also includes numerous alleyways. In the old days, various businesses were carried on in the alleyways such as sales of horses, weapons, local produce, etc. there were also 48 wine shops and seven kerosene stores. In addition, there were opium dens and places offering the services of prostitutes. It was generally the rich who could afford to smoke opium in those days, but finally the vice, along with gambling, was outlawed by both the high commissioners from the hinterland and the Dalai Lama. The relevant decrees are now housed in the local archives.
If you follow Barkor South, you will return to the starting point-the Jokhang Monastery. A bout a hundred meters to the west of the monastery is Tengyeling. Next to Tengyeling is Tibet's first post office, Drakhang. Lhasa started its postal service in modern times. Communication with the hinterland was speeded up by a land-sea route which went via India and Hong Kong, and vice versa. However, the mail had to be transported by pack horses and mules for about 500km to reach the railhead in India. Still, it was faster than before.
There has been a postal system in Tibet, in fact, since the Yuan Dynasy, which was improved during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The Central Government divided the daily speed for delivery of mails into four classes, according to the importance of the mail. The delivery speed for first-class mail was 300km per day. Wind or snow, day or night, such items had to be delivered within the time limit. They were usually the most urgent documents of the Central Government. The speed for second-class mail was set at 250 km per day; for third-class mail, 200 km; and 150 km for fourth-class mail. Everybody knew that a dispatch rider was coming by the jangling of the bells attached to his waist. At night, as he approached a relay station, he would hold high a flaming torch to warn the next rider to get ready to take over.
A little further to the west of Drakhang stood a building, which used to be the office of the high commissioners. It was in the reign of Emperor Kangxi (1662-1722) of the Qing Dynasty that the system of dispatching high commissions by the Qing court was established. For a period of 200 years, more than 100 high commissioners were appointed. Their performance had much to do with the power of the Qing court. During the two anti-British invasions, high commissioners Sheng Tai and You Tai, who were brothers, played a capitulationist role, which was in compliance with the capitulationist line of the Qing Court: In 1888, during the first British armed attack on Tibet, Sheng Tai refused to back the resistance of the Tibetans, and lost Sikkim, which became a dependency of the British Empire. Sheng Tai died soon afterwards-of shame, it is said-and was succeeded by You Tai. In 1904, when British troops led by Col. Younghusband invaded Tibet, he stubbornly opposed the resistance war of the Tibetan people, led by the 13th Dalai Lama. When the invaders entered Lhasa, he became a lackey of the aggressors.
This man's diary is an important source of information about everyday life in Tibet at that time. In it, he recorded the weather and road conditions, and what he saw on his way to Tibet. During his stay in Lhasa, he kept a daily record of the weather, his changes of clothes, what precious stones he bought in the street and their prices, invitations to singsong girls and their names, and so forth.
The Jokhang Monastery is the destination of all pilgrims who come from far away. Around this monastery there are three circumambulation routes for devotees to pace while chanting Buddhist scriptures. Barkor Street serves as the intermediate circumambulation circle. The inner circumambulation circle refers to the corridors of the Jokhang Monastery, with the golden statue of Sakyamuni as its center. The outer circle, called Lingkor, leads clockwise around the city's pre-1950 limits, encompassing the mosques in the east, Linguo Road in the south, the Chakpori in the west and the Ramoche Monastery in the north. Worshippers com here from all parts of Tibet, Gansu, Yunnan, Sichuan and Qinghai. Every day, there are flows of worshippers going clockwise, some prostrating themselves from time to time on the ground. Occasionally, you may see a man holding up a finger that is on fire. This is another ancient practice, expressing devotion to Buddha.
Business in this street in ancient times must have been similar to what it is today. The street is now chock-a-block with shops and stalls with all sorts of things hanging or spread out in front. It is full of pedestrians, vendors, bargainers and window-shoppers.
The night curfew, announced by the firing of a cannon shot, left Barkor Street deserted. People would stay at home, playing card or mahjong. The latter game had been introduced into Tibet by merchants from Yunnan, and was first taken up by aristocratic families. The traditional oil lamps were replaced for the most part, especially among the wealthy, by gas lamps in the late 19th century, but it was not until a hydro-electric power station was built on the northern outskirts of Lhasa in the 1930s that electricity entered the homes of the elite. On the occasions of the Butter Lamp Festival on 25th day of the 10th month by the Tibetan calendar and on the anniversary of death of Great Master Tsongkhapa, each and every house in Barkor Street lit a row of butter lamps placed on the roof. It was quite a sight to see the street brightly illuminated like this.
Except for outdoor activities on the occasions of major festivals, local residents of Lhasa were not allowed to go out at night, for security reasons. There were thieves too in the holy city. There was an islet in the Lhasa River, which was known as the Robber Woods. It was said to be a den of thieves. Anyone found loitering in the street after the curfew shot had been fired would be arrested by the watch and interrogated. The following day, he would be tried by municipal government officers.
In Barkor Street, there are a number of shrines to supposedly protective deities. Among the many such deities, the most popular are the gods of birth, who are thought to respectively protect those who are born in a particular year; the others are the gods of the land, who perform the same office for the place in which one is domiciled.
Another interesting thing about Barkor Street was how news was spread. News and comments were usually couched in negative rather than positive terms, that is, by means of satirical or political ballads. The targets were mostly political affairs, rulers, celebrities and so on. The way such news was passed from mouth to mouth was rather peculiar. For instance, on the morning of the first day of the first month by the Tibetan calendar, village women from the suburbs would come to fetch a bucket of "sacred water" from a well in Lhasa. There, they learned a new song, said to have been taught to them by Pelden Lhamo, a deity protecting the city. In this way, satirical ballads began to circulate, and would soon be on everybody's lips. The actual ballad composer did not make himself known. Every notable event resulted in a satirical song. Some even seemed to be of a prophetic nature, because they appeared before an event took place. Collections of such ballads are being compiled, in the hope of shedding new light on the modern history of Tibet using unofficial sources.
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