In 1539, Tsarchen Losal Gyatso, a Tibetan lama whose mastery of the tantric Buddhism of the Sakya tradition has never been surpassed since, made a pilgrimage from Tibet's western regions into the center of the country. This is his record of that journey, providing a uniquely personal window into the country at that time and into the mind of this charming master. Tsarchen and his companions slowly pass through the countryside, crossing high passes and rivers, descending into deep valleys, visiting hermitages, estates, temples, villages. The richness of the language, imagery, and visionary experiences set it apart from other works of the same genre in Tibet.
Tsarchen's journal is sometimes strikingly similar to the famous "Narrow Road to the Interior (Oku no Hosomichi)" of the Japanese haiku master Matsuo Basho, which records a journey taken in 1689, exactly 150 years after Tsarchen's trip. As with Basho's classic, Tsarchen's text is written in a mixture of luminous prose and verse, with an immense amount of hidden meaning. The extensive notes essential to revealing the layers of meaning beneath Tsarchen's words, placing them in the context of the spiritual topography of the land he travels, the centuries of history and legend permeating the

Cyrus Stearns has been a student of Tibetan language, literature, and religion since 1973, when he began studying with the great Tibetan polymath, Dezhung Rinpoche (1906-87), and serving as his principal translator. In 1985 Cyrus was the leader of the Smithsonian Institutes Associates Tour to Tibet and China, one of the first groups allowed into Tibet after many years of travel restriction by the Chinese government, and he has lived in Asia eight years all together. Since receiving a Ph.D. in Buddhist Studies from the University of Washington in 1996, he has established himself as one of the most admired translators of Tibetan literature today. His numerous books include "Taking the Result As the Path," "Hermit of Go Cliffs," and "King of the Empty Plain." He is currently a fellow at the Tsadra Foundation and a translator for the Library of Tibetan Classics. He lives in the woods on Whidbey Island, north of Seattle, Washington.

Contents: SONG of the ROAD: The Poetic Travel Journal of Tsarchen Losal Gyatso by Cyrus Stearns
Illustrations	vii
Preface	xiii
Introduction	1
Notes to the Introduction	17
Map of Tsarchen's Tibet	22
Celebration of the Cuckoo:
MY AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SONG OF THE ROAD
by Tsarchen Losal Gyatso	25
Notes to the Translation	124
Bibliography	157
Index	163