Lhasa and Its Mysteries

L.A. Waddell was a man of his times. His interest in the subject of "Lamaism"--Tibetan Buddhism--was groundbreaking, original and a precise description of the religion that avoids the spiritual tourism of the likes of Richard Gere and Steven Segal that is so often annoying today. In "Lhasa and its Mysteries" we explore the spiritual and equally-important political landscape of the "hidden kingdom" of the Himalayas and find not a shangri-la but a complex feudal outpost. Still Wadell utilizes his considerable sociological and historical knowledge to good effect, giving the reader an exact and in-depth account that is both a sociological treatise on the lifestyle of the peasants, the philosophy of the different lamaist lineages, and the flora and fauna then so foreign to outsiders. Anyone wishing to plumb the profound spiritual depths of the richness of Tibetan Buddhism decades prior to the Red Chinese holocaust of this important place is remiss to avoid reading "Lhasa and its Mysteries" and giving it an important place in his or her personal library.