In the hall there are neither ornaments, gods, hanging canopies, nor scrolls, as in the other temples. There is neither congregation nor priests. The walls are apparently black and unpainted, but here and there a lamp reveals a Gorgon's head, a fiend's eye, a square inch or two of pigment that time has not obscured.
The place is immemorially old. There are huge vessels of carved metal and stone, embossed, like the roof, with griffins and skulls, which probably date back to before the introduction of Buddhism into Tibet, and are survivals of the old Bon religion. There is nothing bright here in colour or sound, nothing vivid or animated.
Stricken men and women come to remove a curse, vindictive ones to inflict one, bereaved ones to pay the initiated to watch the adventures of the soul in purgatory and guide it on its passage to the new birth, while demons and furies are lurking to snatch it with fiery claws and drag it to hell.
All these beings must be appeased by magic rites. So in the Ramo-ché there is no rapture of music, no communion with Buddha, no beatitudes, only solitary priests standing before the shrines and mumbling incantations, dismal groups of two or three seated Buddha-fashion on the floor, and casting spells to exercise a deciding influence, as they hope, in the continual warfare which is being waged between the tutelary and malignant deities for the prize of a soul.
In the chancel of the temple, behind the altar, is a massive pile of masonry stretching from floor to roof, under which, as folk believe, an abysmal chasm leads down to hell. Round this there is a dark and narrow passage which pilgrims circumambulate. The floor and walls are as slippery as ice, worn by centuries of pious feet and groping hands. One old woman in some urgent need is drifting round and round abstractedly.
Elsewhere one might linger in the place fascinated, but here in Lhasa one moves among mysteries casually; for one cannot wonder, in this isolated land where the elements are so aggressive, among these deserts and wildernesses, heaped mountain chains, and impenetrable barriers of snow, that the children of the soil believe that earth, air, and water are peopled by demons who are struggling passionately over the destinies of man.