Tsybikov was the first scholar with a European education to visit Tibet and describe its monasteries and temples as an eyewitness traveler and an objective researcher. Tsybikov had two distinct advantages: an ethnic Buryat he could travel as a Buddhist pilgrim and thus have a chance of reaching its mysterious capital Lhasa, the religious and political center of Tibet, which was barred to outsiders, especially Europeans; as a scholar educated at a European university he had the historical and linguistic background to understand and describe what he saw. Tsybikov understood the secretive nature of the lama state and was careful to hide his work as a researcher. It was his journal that became the basis of A Buddhist Pilgrim at the Shrines of Tibet, which has both the vividness of a traveller's eyewitness account and the informed detachment of a scholar. As a record of both religious practices and the everyday life in Tibet before Chinese inroads during the twentieth century effaced that way of life, Tsybikov's book is a unique and invaluable snapshot of a lost culture.

Buddhist Pilgrim at the Shrines of Tibet, Gombozhab T. Tsybikov, Brill, Hardcover, 290 pp, $138.00

Gombozhab Tsybikov (1873-1930) graduated from the Department of Oriental Languages of St. Petersburg University in 1899, and after his three-year expedition to Tibet, was appointed lecturer in the Mongolian language at the Oriental Institute in Vladivostok. Among his published writings are diaries of journeys to Mongolia (1895), China (1909), and Ugra (1927), commentary and translations on Mongolian literature, and such articles as 'Shamanism of Buryats and Mongols,'National Holidays of Buryats,' 'Mongolian Literature as an Instrument of National Culture,' all in Russian.

CONTENTS: A Buddhist Pilgrim at the Shrines of Tibet
	Foreword		ix
	Preface to the English Edition		xi
	List of Illustrations		xvii
	Author's Autobiographical Note to the 1919 Edition		xix
	Preface to the 1919 Edition		xxii
1	Pilgrims on the Way from Urga to Kumbum		1
2	The Holy Places of Amdo: Kumbum and Labrang		12
3	Kumbum to Lhasa		28
4	Lhasa--the City and Its Main Shrines		54
		The City	54
		The Temple of the Great Ju	57
		The Temple of the Small Ju, or Rampoche	65
		Worship at the Shrines	67
		The Potala Palace of the Dalai Lama and its Surroundings	69
5	The Population of Lhasa		83
		Composition	83
		Social Divisions	86
		Living Conditions	86
		Clothing and Jewelry	90
		The Market and Trade	93
		The Occupation of the Inhabitants	97
		General Observations	99
		Sects	102
6	Life in Lhasa		103
7	The Administration of Tibet		139
8	The Dalai Lamas		147
9	An Episode from the Life of the Present Dalai Lama		158
10	The Organization and Administration of the Chief Monasteries in the Environs of Lhasa		160
		The Gyu Datsans	170
11	Ganden Monastery		175
		The Journey to Ganden	175
		Ganden	177
12	Drepun Monastery		184
		The Journey to Drepun	184
		Drepun	186
		On Monastery Life at Drepun	192
13	Sera Monastery		201
		The Journey from Drepun to Sera	201
		Sera	203
		From Sera to Lhasa	209
14	Tashi-lhunpo Monastery		211
		The Journey to Tashi-lhunpo	211
		Tashi-lhunpo Monastery	215
		The Town of Shigatse	218
		The Suburban Palaces of the Panchens	219
		The Panchen Rinpoche	220
		Presentation to the Panchen	223
15	From Tashi-lhunpo to Lhasa		225
16	A Journey to Tseten and Samye		231
17	Going Home: Journey from Lhasa to Kyakhta		237
	Glossary		265