Non-fiction sentence of the year
This, from James Palmer's 'The Bloody White Baron', his take on Ungern-Sternberg. The section at issue is dealing with some of the lesser known elements of Buddhist practice:
"Even the enlightened gods had their dark sides...Even more terrible was Palden Llamo, one of the divine protectors of Buddhism but also a devouring mother who sacrificed her own children. She rode upon a lake of entrails and blood, clutching a cup made from the skull of a child born from incest, her thunderbolt staff ready to smash the unbelievers and her teeth gnawing on a corpse. Her horse's saddle was made from the flayed skin of her own child, who had become an enemy of the faith, and snakes wound through her hair. Like many gods, she bore a crown of five skulls and a necklace of severed heads. Her ostensible purpose was to defend Buddhism against its enemies, and in particular to guard the Dalai Lama, but she must have terrified many true believers as well. The Tibetans considered Queen Victoria to be one of her incarnations".
A worthy winner, I think, and puts me in mind of the Sarah Bernhardt as Cleopatra anecdote:
""After watching Sarah as Cleopatra, lasciviously entwined in her lover's arms, an elderly dowager was heard to say:' How unlike, how very unlike the home life of our own dear queen'."
Labels: Men and women of the cloth, Random anecdotes, Tibet
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on Monday, April 21, 2008 at 7:47 am.
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But that's more than one sentence, Mr. C.
James - I was meaning the Queen Victoria sentence, but it would not have made a great deal of sense out of context.....
Yes, James. Why are you being so silly?
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