key to 1000 doors

Gopan is the central protagonist of the novel. He is a humble rickshaw driver of the lowest Hindu caste and he dreams of having a better life, of ending his inherited cycle of endless rebirths into the same lowly social class. He finds the magic key after a rickshaw mishap and his life changes forever when he discovers that the key's powers allow him to open any door. 

Sid is a supporting character in the novel. A professor of Buddhism at Stanford University, he embarks on a mission to retrieve the magic key from a monk in Tibet and take it to the Dalai Lama. In Kathmandu, during a rickshaw mishap, he loses the key and Gopan Subba, the rickshaw driver, finds it. The key will forever change the lives of those who possess it.

Fa Wong is my ancient protagonist who tells his story in the history of the relic key. He is a Song Dynasty monk at the Mogao Grottoes in Dunhuang, China, and keeper of the magic key. In a dream, the spirit of Empress Wu tells Fa Wong that she is the mummy at a Buddhist temple in Tibet that nuns are worshiping as the goddess of long life, White Tara. Fa Wong embarks on a journey to Tibet to return the key to the Heavenly Empress and to ask her for a long life.