“What about the book that Nicholas Notovitch saw in the Himis monastery in eighteen ninety-four?” Grant asked.
Kinley shrugged. “In the days before the printing press or computers, it was the practice of the monks to copy by hand the ancient texts.”
“As was the case with Christianity.”
Kinley nodded. “My guess is that the monks at some point translated these books”—he pointed to the narrow books on the table—“into Tibetan, as they did with thousands of others, and then sent the manuscript out to Himis, where Notovitch saw it.”
“But that manuscript is no longer there.”
“Yes, a mystery indeed.”
Grant considered the treasure laid out on the table before him. While the disappearance of Notovitch’s discovery had always been the mystery Grant sought to solve, it was now irrelevant. Grant had evidence of much greater importance. He had the original texts documenting the existence of Issa.
“Does Lama Dorji know about this?” Kristin asked.
Kinley shook his head. “We have other interesting writings in here as well, but if they do not relate directly to the Buddhist canon, then he sees them as a distraction from our mission.” He gestured to the shelves around him. “So they sit here for hundreds of years collecting dust.”
Grant was beside himself thinking about the ramifications of these texts. That such a treasure could remain sitting in the monastery forgotten was beyond something his curious mind could relate to. “Kinley, you know that these texts need to be in a university or museum, where scholars can study and analyze them.”
“I do, but Lama Dorji will never give his permission, and the Je Khenpo will need to be persuaded.” Kinley rested his fingertips under his chin. “Something I will consider.”
“Would international pressure from academic institutions persuade the Je Khenpo?”
“Possible. It would have to be handled delicately.” The monk turned to Kristin, who was craned over the table studying the writing. “The camera?”
“Oh, yeah.” Kristin glanced to Grant as if she were going to ask, What was so important about Issa that these books deserved to be in a museum? The anticipated question never came. Instead, she unzipped the case from around her Nikon and removed the lens cap.
Kinley closed the wooden cover of the narrow book and lay the silk next to it. Kristin took pictures from several angles using both a flash and the sunlight that splashed across the table from the single window. Using the scarf, Kinley gently turned the pages as she photographed them.
The whole time she photographed what must have been more than a hundred pages of text, Grant shot numerous glances to the closed library door. How much time do we have? His ears were alert for any sound of a person climbing the steps, but he only heard the clicking of the camera.
When Kristin finished, he turned to Kinley. “Will you translate for us?” His fully charged, thin white laptop was open in front of him. His fingers quivered above the keyboard. The three years he’d spent studying Tibetan would be of no use to him with these texts. Until he returned to Emory with Kristin’s photographs, he would have to rely on Kinley yet again.
“I am ready,” Kinley said, turning to the first page of the first book, “but are you prepared?”
“Prepared? For heaven’s sake, Kinley. This has been all I’ve thought about for the past five years. It’s hard to even contemplate.”
“That’s what I want you to consider. When we walked up to this room, how many steps did we climb?”
Grant felt the familiar frustration with his new teacher rising. “Six floors, must have been well over a hundred steps, but I don’t see what climbing steps has to do with anything.” Grant folded his hands in his lap. He knew the more anxious he appeared, the longer Kinley would draw out his lesson.
“To reach this room, to read these manuscripts of Issa, you had to climb many steps,” Kinley said patiently. “Each step brought you closer to this table, but once you used a step, you left it behind. You left it not in a disparaging way that the lower step was now beneath you, but instead you left it knowing that it had served you well, a necessary step to get where you are today.”
A stillness settled over the room as Kinley stared at Grant, obviously waiting for his reaction. Even Kristin, who seemed to always be toying with the objects around her, sat quietly.
“Okay.” Grant thought back to one of Kinley’s earlier lessons and the cup of cool water that the monk had dumped on his head. “If I hadn’t been raised in a fundamentalist household, if I hadn’t gone to grad school, if I hadn’t broken my leg on the river, then I wouldn’t be here today.” He squinted at Kinley. “So I need to be more respectful, or maybe forgiving, of my own past, even the painful things, because those events have brought me to these manuscripts?”
Kinley nodded. “Our lives are interconnected with the actions that came before as well as our environments, but there is still more.”
“There always is.”
Kinley pressed on. “A Chinese Zen teacher once said, ‘When you are full of doubt and uncertainty, even a thousand books of scripture are not sufficient; but when you truly understand, even one word is too much.’”
Grant pondered the saying for a moment. “These texts are nothing more than yet another step in my journey?” But how can that be? he wondered. If Kinley’s translation contained the same revelation that the Notovitch’s manuscript did, then this was the type of find an academic experiences once in a lifetime if he or she is lucky. He imagined the effects it would have on the history of religion.
“And as with your previous steps, someday you will move beyond this one too.” As if reading Grant’s mind, he added, “As a historian, Grant, you might be adept at discovering the what: what happened in Issa’s short life.”
“Of course.” Isn’t that the point? he thought. In this case the what answered a crucial question that had remained unanswered for two thousand years.
“The what can be useful, yes, just as the how that scientists teach us can be.” The monk caressed the silk covering the first book. “The importance of these texts goes beyond history. You are missing a bigger mystery here.”
Grant scrunched up his brow. How can that be?
“The why,” Kristin said.
Kinley nodded. “Just as Issa uncovered an ancient wisdom on his journey, Grant, you must do the same with these texts. Ask not just what, but why. Religion is not about what has happened in the past, but about what is happening to us in the present.”
Grant sat without moving, his gaze on the table in front of him. He was suddenly struck by a memory from his early adolescence. A memory that seemed entirely out of place at this moment: he was lying in bed late at night, praying that the divine light would shine on him and remove his doubts so that he could believe just like the others around him did. He looked at the faded black lines of the ancient text in front of him. Then he raised his eyes, looked between Kinley and Kristin, opened his mouth to speak, but then closed it without saying anything.
“Let us see how good my ancient Pali is, shall we?” Kinley opened the first book.
Grant’s fingers flew across the keyboard as Kinley began to translate the story of Issa.
CHAPTER 12
RAJASTHAN, INDIA