I wonder whether Yul Lha did not hear Tseten's prayers. Or was he not pleased with the villagers' offerings? For the next week, whenever the weather looks like brightening up, we go back to the village, hoping to film. But the rain still does not let up enough for them to start harvesting, and if it goes on, the crop will be ruined. Now frustration is turning to fear — the rain might become hail. The villagers say that is Yul Lha's revenge for transgressions against him. Powerful as he is, Yul Lha is also easily offended. Forgetting to say a prayer to him, talking too loudly on the mountain top, making a fire in the forest — these are just a few of the things that displease him. Gale-force winds, thunder and lightning, downpours, blizzards, drought, and hailstones are his other weapons. It is said that Yul Lha has a consort to help him; according to one legend she has lightning in her right hand and hailstones in her left, ready to launch these wherever she is directed.
The Tibetans have a famous story about hail, which dates back to the eleventh century. It is the story of Milarepa, one of their most beloved sages. Born into a wealthy family, Milarepa and his mother and sister were turned out of their own home by an uncle and aunt after Milarepa's father died. Milarepa's mother was incensed, and told him to go away and learn the black arts so he might come back and take vengeance for the loss of their property. Milarepa did as his mother asked, and returned to his village an accomplished sorcerer. First, he made the roof collapse on a wedding party, killing thirty-five members of his clan. But this did not satisfy his mother, who demanded he launch a hailstorm and destroy all their relatives' crops. Milarepa created not one storm but three — and devastated the barley fields of the entire area. He was so appalled by the destruction he had unleashed that he soon turned to Buddhism to find repentance.
Hailstorms do not come around often in Gyantse, but when they do, they can destroy everything in the space of half an hour. Tseten tells me that five years ago villages further up the valley had a disaster. Right before their eyes, the ripened barley was flattened; nothing was left but useless heaps on the ground. They had worked the whole year for nothing. I have read of another hailstorm in 1969 in the County records, more widespread, and even more devastating. All these years later, just mentioning it still sends chills down the villagers' spines.
A hailstorm would be the worst thing for the Rikzin family, especially now. Even in a normal year, they have to be careful. This year, they will need a lot of extra money if Jigme and Gyatso get into university. In other parts of rural China, farmers have extra income from their migrant sons and daughters and from the highly successful ‘town and village enterprises’, the small local businesses which began with the economic reforms of 1979. I have seen none of them around Gyantse, except for families weaving carpets. The young men in Tangmad village have begun to seek work further away. But they speak only Tibetan and have no skills; they can do manual jobs — building houses for nomads, road construction, menial labour in the city for roughly 15 yuan a day (about £1). The Rikzin family do not have even that income, because they want all their four children to be educated.
‘Cheer up,’ Penpa says to the family one day at lunch time. They — and we — have spent yet another morning waiting for the rain to stop. ‘If you are so worried, how do other families cope? After all, you have a hailstone lama under your roof. Surely that is some guarantee?’ We all smile.
Indeed, ‘hailstone lama’ is what the villagers call Tseten, now I think about it. But strangely, since I started following Tseten in August, he has never mentioned his anti-hailstone work. On a particularly threatening day like today, does he not have to say a special prayer? Is there something he is not telling me? Why, when everyone is so worried about hail, is the ‘hailstone lama’ just sitting here, not doing anything?
‘I'm unemployed now. The government brought an antiaircraft gun a few years ago to disperse the clouds and prevent hailstorms. So I have been made redundant,’ he says, laughing perhaps a little too loudly.
‘Which is more effective?’ I ask him. ‘You or the gun?’
‘Our family has done anti-hailstone work for six generations. You can ask anyone in this village. Tangmad has not been hit by hailstorms in recent times.’
‘What about the one I read about in the County record?’
‘That was not us. Our village has never been hit by hail,’ Tseten says gently, but confidently. ‘One year the hail was particularly powerful. All the trees were killed; even the ground was pitted. But it did not land in the fields. It stopped just outside them because of the power of my mantras. The three villages up the valley suffered for two years in a row after they bought the gun!’
‘What do the villagers prefer, relying on the gun or placating Yul Lha?’ I ask cheekily.
‘Some other villages still invite me to do my mantras, but I say no.’
‘Why?’
‘They say the guns can do it. So let them do it.’ He sounds a little peevish.
I ask Tseten if I can film him demonstrating his anti-hail ritual; he agrees. While our cameraman gets ready, Penpa asks if we are going to film the demonstration inside or outside.
‘Oh, wherever Tseten usually does it,’ I tell him.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Why not? Is there a problem?’
‘I think it is better indoors.’
Is he worried that Tseten might be embarrassed if the neighbours see him doing it?
Penpa shakes his head. ‘Suppose his mantra works? If we're outside, it will make it rain and we'll all get wet.’
I burst out laughing — something Penpa has often managed to make me do. He is a tremendous asset to our team. Four years in Beijing and another four years abroad for postgraduate study have given him a broad perspective, and he is wonderful with people, at least when he has not been drinking. I feel so lucky to have borrowed him from the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences. ‘A laugh a day makes you ten years younger,’ he likes to tell me. ‘Why take yourself, and me, so seriously? You need cheering up.’ But sometimes, like now, it is hard to tell whether he is joking.
Inside his prayer room, Tseten puts on a maroon conical hat with stiff wings around its base. The hat is something he wears only for this ritual. In front of him on a tray is a bundle of pointed wooden batons, some short rods, half a dozen clay tshatshas which look like miniature stupas, two white conches decorated with stars, and a rosary, all pressed into a heap of barley on the tray. Tseten explains that these items have been much prayed over. The batons stand for male gods, the rods for female gods, the tshatshas for the Buddhist message, and the conches for the instrument through which the message is delivered. These, and a robe like the one a monk wears, are his complete equipment for taking on the mighty gods up in the sky.
Tseten says he used to begin his anti-hailstone ritual a full three months before the harvest, shutting himself away to meditate. In June, when the crop was just five inches tall, he would place sticks and rods around the fields — these represented his control over the fields. Then he would conduct a ritual for the whole village, during which he would enter into a trance, invoking Yul Lha and other gods, and asking them not to harm the village. For the rest of the summer, whenever the clouds looked threatening, he would be up twenty-four hours a day, praying and preparing for action. His vigil would last until all of the crops were brought in.
When I listen to Tseten explain the rituals, I am struck by how naïve he sounds. I cannot help wondering if he simply thinks the gods, the mantras, and his communication with the divine are all beyond me. I try to press him for more details.
‘What is the first thing you do in the morning?’
‘I watch the sun rise and observe how the clouds are moving.’
‘Do you pray too?’
‘Yes, I pray in the morning and