emperor Khubildi recognized1 the Lama of Saskya, or the Sakya Pandita, as head of the Lamaist church, and conferred upon him temporary power as the tributary ruler of Tibet, in return for which favour he was required to consecrate or crown the Chinese emperors. And the succession in this hereditary primacy was secured to the Pandit's nephew, Lodoi Gyal-ts'an (or Matidhvaja), a young and able Lama, who was given the title of Highness or Sublimity (p'ags-pa). Khubilai actively promoted Lāmaism and built many monasteries in Mongolia, and a large one at Pekin. Chinese history attributes to him the organisation of civil administration in Tibet, though it would appear that he exerted his authority only by diplomacy through these spiritual potentates without any actual conquest by arms.

2

The Sakya pope, assisted by a staff of scholars, achieved the great work of translating the bulky Lamaist canon (Kah-gyur) into Mongolian after its revision and collation with the Chinese texts. Indeed, the Lamaist accounts claim for the Sakya Pope the invention of the Mongolian character, though it is clearly modelled upon the Syrian; and Syriac and nestorian missionaries are known to have worked in Mongolia long prior to this epoch.

Under the succeeding Mongol emperors, the Sakya primacy seems to have maintained much of its political supremacy, and to have used its power as a church-militant to oppress its rival sects. Thus it burned the great Kar-gyu-pa monastery of Dikung about 1320 A.D. But on the accession of the Ming dynasty in 1368 A.D. the Chinese emperors deemed it politic, while conciliating the Lāmas, as a body, by gifts and titles, to strike at the Sakya power by raising the heads of two other monasteries to equal rank with it, and encouraged strife amongst them.

At the beginning of the fifteenth century a Lāma named Tson-K'a-pa re-organized Atīṣa's reformed sect, and altered its title to "The virtuous order," or Ge-lug-pa. This sect soon eclipsed all the others; and in five generations it obtained the priest-kingship of Tibet, which it still retains to this day. Its first Grand Lama was Tson-K'a-pa's nephew, Geden-dub, with his succession based on the idea of re-incarnation, a theory

1 In 1270 A.D.

2 MARCO P., ii., 38.

3 The Ka-gyupa, Dikung, and the Ka-dam-pa Ts'al.

which was afterwards, apparently in the reign of the fifth Grand Lama, developed into the fiction of re-incarnated reflexes of the divine Bodhisat Avalokita, as detailed in the chapter on the Hierarchy.

In 1640, the Ge-lug-pa leapt into temporal power under the fifth Grand Lama, the crafty Nag-wan Lô-zang. At the request of this ambitious man, a Mon

gol prince, Gusri Khan, conquered Tibet, and made a present of it to this Grand Lama, who in 1650 was confirmed in his sovereignty by the Chinese emperor, and given the Mongol title of Dalai, or "(vast as) the Ocean." And on account of this title he and his successors are called by some Europeans "the Dalai (or Tale) Lama," though this title is almost unknown to Tibetans, who call these Grand Lāmas "the great gem of majesty" (Gyal-wa Rin-poch'e).1

This daring Dalai Lama, high-handed and resourceful, lost no time in consolidating his rule as priest-king and the extension of his sect by the forcible appropriation of many monasteries of the other sects, and by inventing legends magnifying the powers of the Bodhisat Avalokita and posing himself as the incarnation of this divinity, the presiding Bodhisat of each world of re-birth, whom he also identified with the controller of metempsychosis, the dread Judge of the Dead before whose tribunal all mortals must appear.

Posing in this way as God-incarnate, he built himself the huge palace-temple on the hill near Lhasa, which he called Potala, after the mythic Indian residence of his divine prototype

1 Cf. CSOMA, Gr., 192 and 198; KÖPP., ii., 168, 235; J.A.S.B., 1882, p. 27.
2 After Pander.
3 In 1643, CSOMA, Gr., p. 190

Avalokita, "The Lord who looks down from on high," whose symbols he now invested himself with. He also tampered unscrupu

ously with Tibetan history in order to lend colour to his divine pretensions, and he succeeded perfectly. All the other sects of Lamas acknowledged him and his successors to be of divine descent, the veritable Avalokita-in-the-flesh. And they also adopted the plan of succession by re-incarnate Lamas and by divine reflexes. As for the credulous populace, they recognized the Dalai Lama to be the rightful ruler and the existing government as a theocracy, for it flattered their vanity to have a deity incarnate as their king.

The declining years of this great Grand Lama, Nag-wan, were tro bled by the cares and obligations of the temporal rule, and his ambitious schemes, and by the intrigues of the Manchus, who sought the temporal sovereignty. On account of these political troubles his death was concealed for twelve years by the minister De-Si,1 who is believed to have been his natural son. And the succeeding Grand Lama, the sixth, proving hopelessly dissolute, he was executed at the instigation of the Chinese government,

which then assumed the suzerainty, and which has since continued to control in a general way the temporal affairs, especially its foreign policy, and also to regulate more or less the hierarchal succession, as will be referred to presently.

But the Ge-lug-pa sect, or the established church, going on the lines laid down for it by the fifth Grand Lama, continued to prosper, and his successors, despite the presence of a few Chinese officials, are now, each in turn, the de facto ruler of Tibet, and recognized by the Lamas of all denominations as the supreme head of the Lāmaist church.

In its spread beyond Tibet, Lämaism almost everywhere exhibits. the same tendency to dominate both king and people and to repress the national life. It seems now to have ceased extending, but shows no sign of losing hold upon its votaries in Tibet.

The present day distribution of Lāmaism extends through states stretching more or less continuously from the European Caucasus to near Kamschatka; and from Buriat Siberia down to Sikhim and Yun-nan. But although the area of its prevalence is so vast, the population is extremely sparse, and so little is known of their numbers over the greater part of the area that no trustworthy figures can be given in regard to the total number of professing Lamaists.

The population of Tibet itself is probably not more than 4,000,000, but almost all of these may be classed as Lāmaists, for although a considerable proportion of the people in eastern Tibet are adherents of the Bön, many of these are said to patronize the Lāmas as well, and the Bön religion has become assimilated in great part to un-reformed Lāmaism.1

1 Thus it procured for Tibet satisfaction from the Gorkhas under Prithivī-nārāyan for their invasion of Western Tibet and sack of Tashi-lhunpo in 1768 (KIRKPATRICK'S Acct. of Nepal, p. 268; BUCHANAN-HAMILTON, Nepal, p. 244), and the present seclusion of Tibet against Europeans is mainly due to Chinese policy.

An interesting glimpse into the country of that period is got in the contemporary record of the friar Horace della Penna, translated into English by Markham (op. cit., p. 320 et seq.)

3 ROCKHILL, L., p. 296, estimates it at 3,500,000.

Though it must be remembered that Mr. Rockhill found a large tract of N.E. Tibet exclusively occupied by Bön-pa. In the north-eastern province of Gya-de, with about 50,000 people, between the Dang River and Chamdo, Mr. Rockhill found that the Bön-pa religion reigns supreme, and in order to save these people from persecution at the hands of the Lāmaist Government at Lhasa, China itself supervises the administration of this province. And "all along the eastern borderland of Tibet from the

The European outpost of the Lāmaist Church, situated amid the Kalmuk Tartars on the banks of the Volga, has been described in some detail by Köppen.1

After the flight of the Torgots, about 12,000 cottages of the Kalmuk Tartars still remained in Russian territory, between the Don and the Yaik. Now they number at least 20,000, and contain more than 100,000 souls, of which by far the great majority retain the Lamaist faith. Of course, since the flight, all intercourse with the priest-god at Lhasa is strictly forbidden, nor are they allowed to accept from him any orders or patents, nor to send him any ambassadors or presents. Nevertheless, he gives them secret advice by oracle and otherwise, and maintains their religious enthusiasm. Thus, even now, he exercises an important influence on his pious flock on the Volga, so that they can be considered of the Lamaist church, although the head Lama (for the Kalmuks still call their head priest "Lāma") is sanctioned at present by the Russian government, and no longer by the Dalai Lāma.

Altogether, evidently for a reason not far to seek, the number of priests has greatly increased since their connection with Lhasa has been cut off. Formerly the Dalai Lama had also on the Volga a quite disproportionate number of bondsmen or Schabinären, whose contributions (taxes) went to Lhasa; but since the flight of the Torgots the money remains there, and the Schabinärs of the remaining Ulusse have been divided amongst the several Churulls. These clergy also would appear to have developed extraordinary zeal, for in the year 1803 it was reported that the Kālmuk priests formed a tenth part of the whole population, that they perpetually enriched themselves at the expense of the people, that they meddled in everything, and received all the young men who were averse to labour at their proper calling, etc., etc.

Since 1838 the Russian government has succeeded, through the head Lama Jambo Namka, in preventing in some measure these abuses, and severer laws were issued, especially against the

Kokonor to Yun-nan, it (the Bön-pa religion) flourishes side by side with the Lāmaist faith . . and in all the southern portions of Tibet, not under the direct rule of Lhasa, its Lāmaseries may be found. So it seems that this faith obtains in over two-thirds of Tibet, and that it is popular with at least a fifth of the Tibetan-speaking tribes."-Geographical Jour., May, 1894.

1 Op. cit., ii., 385 et seq.