Secret Tibet

Fosco Maraini visited Tibet in 1937 and again in 1948. In 1951 he published Secret Tibet, an account that was a synthesis of the two journeys. This book is not a guidebook: the author's studies and journeys concentrated on the valleys and passes that bring travellers from India via Sikkim on their way to the forbidden city of Lhasa. Maraini spent much time in villages and monasteries along the way, at Gangtok, Phari, Iwang and Gyantse in particular. Lhasa he never reached. So how can he call his book "Secret Tibet"? Because he arrived commanding a serviceable knowledge of the language and with no need for interpreters was able to make a warm and fulfilling human contact with men and women representing the very soul of the nation - lamas, scholars, merchants, herdsmen, peasants, children, villains and even princesses. Above all he penetrates the secrets that make Tibetan Buddhism not only the sheet anchor for the nation's sense of identity but indeed a religion and philosophy as intriguing as it is paradoxical. The photographs taken by the author now stand in many instances as a unique record of religious artefacts irrecoverably destroyed.