Seven Years in Tibet

“Some books, like some mountains, are lonely and unrivalled peaks, and this is one of these.”- Economist I’d like to recommend a book that truly changed my life. I found “Seven Years in Tibet,” by Heinrich Harrer, a dozen years ago. I knew little about Tibet at the time, and the title piqued my interest. I read it- and I was hooked. This book so intrigued me that I began reading everything I could find on Tibet, which wasn’t an easy task a dozen years ago.
Originally published in 1953, this adventure classic recounts Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer’s 1943 escape from a British internment camp in India, his daring trek across the Himalayas, and his happy sojourn in Tibet, then, as now, a remote land little visited by foreigners. Warmly welcomed, he eventually became tutor to the Dalai Lama, teenaged god-king of the theocratic nation. The author’s vivid descriptions of Tibetan rites and customs capture its unique traditions before the Chinese invasion in 1950, which prompted Harrer’s departure.
Heinrich Harrer is one of the greatest mountain climbers of all time, a member of the first group to scale the north face of the Eiger in Switzerland in the 30’s. This is why the Nazis recruited him for this Himalaya expedition which they wished to use for propaganda purposes. To take part, he had to join the party.
Harrer was a young Austrian in the mid-1930’s when he and a group of friends went to India to climb the Himalayas. World War II broke out while they were there, and they were imprisoned by the British as enemy aliens. The group made several attempts to escape the internment camp at Dehra-Dun, and finally, at the third attempt, Harrer and his friend Peter Aufschnaiter succeeded. They spent three years travelling walking through the Asian wilds, chased at the beginning by British soldiers, until they entered Tibet. At the time, entry into Tibet by foreigners was absolutely illegal, and of course they two men had no documentation, money, or supplies to ease their journey or establish their bona fides.
They eventually entered Lhasa, the forbidden city, and there began new lives for themselves. They were welcomed, most surprisingly, by the nobles of the city and soon became part of it. They learned the language, became unofficial architects and engineers for the Tibetans, and Harrer became a close friend and semi-official tutor for the then teen-aged Dalai Lama. Harrer is still buddies with the Dalai Lama.
The people, customs and life that Harrer describes in this book are extraordinary, and I believe all readers will be as caught up in it as I was. Furthermore, everybody after reading this book have to watch these movies- Jean-Jacques Annaud’s “Seven Years in Tibet” with Brad Pitt and Martin Scorsese’s “Kundun” .
In chronicling the life of the 14th Dalai Lama, Kundun defies conventional narrative in kindness of an episodic approach, presenting a sequential flow of events from the life of the young leader of Buddhist Tibet. From the moment, he is recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1937 to his exile from Tibet in the wake of China’s invasion, the Dalai Lama is seen as an enlightened spiritual figurehead. This gives the film its tone of serenity and reverence but denies us the privilege of admiring the Dalai Lama as a fascinating human character. There’s a sense of mild detachment between the film and its audience, but its visual richness offers ample compensation. In close collaboration with cinematographer Roger Deakins, Scorsese filmed Kundun with great pageantry and ritual, and meticulous attention to details of costume, color, and the casting of actual Buddhist monks in the scenes at the Dalai Lama’s palace. Certain images will linger in the memory for a long time, such as the Dalai Lama’s nightmarish vision of standing among hundreds of dead monks, their lives sacrificed in pacifist defiance of Chinese aggression. However, as a political drama and an elegant gesture of devotion, Kundun is a film of great value and inspirational beauty- one, after all, that perhaps only Scorsese could have made.

Impossibly big and impossibly beautiful.

The Potala Lhasa

This immense gate was the only entrance to Lhasa when approached by the caravan route from the west. After nearly two years in flight from India—flight from a world at war—Peter Aufschnaiter and I entered the city through this gate. We had read that monks stood guard at the gate to protect the ‘Forbidden City.’ We were immensely relieved when we walked through it unhindered: we looked like beggars, and much of what had been written was by authors who had never been to Lhasa.- Heinrich Harrer

A prayer wheel, deer and Wheel of Dharma on the roof of the Jokhang. Jokhang is the spiritual center of Lhasa and has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries. It was built in 647 AD by King Songtsen Gampo to house a Buddha image. It is Tibets most revered religious structure.

Tibetan Monk Orchestra

Monk at Thrindu Valley Monastery

The leader of Tibetan Buddhism and leader-in-exile of the Chinese-occupied nation of Tibet, also known as Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama is surely the only Ocean of Wisdom, Holder of the White Lotus and Protector of the Land of Snows.

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