Note 26 — Chapter VI · RESIDENCE AT LHASA.

In the course of time he rose to the dignity of a teacher in his convent; then he became its abbot, or khanpo; and finally he rose to the rank of regent. One of the first acts of his administration was to expel all public women from Lhasa, and to compel all women to cover their faces with a coating of catechu, so as to hide their comeliness from the public view.26 Women were also made to wear a bangle cut out of a conch-shell on their right wrist, by which they could be held when arrested. From his time also dates the use by women of aprons (pang-den) and of the present style of headdress, or patug. The old style of patug is now only worn by the wives (or Lhacham) of the Shape (ministers). He was the first of the Tsomoling lamas, and his reincarnations still inhabit the lamasery of that name behind Ramoche.