The central point of primitive Buddhism was the doctrine of
"Arahatship"--a system of ethical and mental self-culture, in which
deliverance was found from all the mysteries and sorrows of life in a
change of heart to be reached here on earth. This doctrine seems to have
been held very nearly in its original purity from the time when it was
propounded by Gotama in the 6th century B.C. to the period in which
northern India was conquered by the Huns about the commencement of the
Christian era. Soon after that time there arose a school of Buddhist
teachers who called their doctrine the "Great Vehicle." It was not in
any contradiction to the older doctrine, which they contemptuously
called the "Little Vehicle," but included it all, and was based upon it.
The distinguishing characteristic of the newer school was the importance
which it attached to "Bodhisatship." The older school had taught that
Gotama, who had propounded the doctrine of Arahatship, was a Buddha,
that only a Buddha is capable of discovering that doctrine, and that a
Buddha is a man who by self-denying efforts, continued through many
hundreds of different births, has acquired the so-called _Ten Paramitas_
or cardinal virtues in such perfection that he is able, when sin and
ignorance have gained the upper hand throughout the world, to save the
human race from impending ruin. But until the process of perfection has
been completed, until the moment when at last the sage, sitting under
the Wisdom tree acquires that particular insight or wisdom which is
called Enlightenment or Buddhahood, he is still only a Bodhisat. The
link of connexion between the various Bodhisats in the future Buddha's
successive births is not a soul which is transferred from body to body,
but the _karma_, or character, which each successive Bodhisat inherits
from his predecessors in the long chain of existences. Now the older
school also held, in the first place, that, when a man had, in this
life, attained to Arahatship, his karma would not pass on to any other
individual in another life--or in other words, that after Arahatship
there would be no rebirth; and, secondly, that four thousand years after
the Buddha had proclaimed the _Dhamma_ or doctrine of Arahatship, his
teaching would have died away, and another Buddha would be required to
bring mankind once more to a knowledge of the truth. The leaders of the
Great Vehicle urged their followers to seek to attain, not so much to
Arahatship, which would involve only their own salvation, but to
Bodhisatship, by the attainment of which they would be conferring the
blessings of the Dhamma upon countless multitudes in the long ages of
the future. By thus laying stress upon Bodhisatship, rather than upon
Arahatship, the new school, though they doubtless merely thought
themselves to be carrying the older orthodox doctrines to their logical
conclusion, were really changing the central point of Buddhism, and were
altering the direction of their mental vision. It was of no avail that
they adhered in other respects in the main to the older teaching, that
they professed to hold to the same ethical system, that they adhered,
except in a few unimportant details, to the old regulations of the order
of the Buddhist mendicant recluses. The ancient books, preserved in the
_Pali Pitakas_, being mainly occupied with the details of Arahatship,
lost their exclusive value in the eyes of those whose attention was
being directed to the details of Bodhisatship. And the opinion that
every leader in their religious circles, every teacher distinguished
among them for his sanctity of life, or for his extensive learning, was
a Bodhisat, who might have and who probably had inherited the karma of
some great teacher of old, opened the door to a flood of superstitious
fancies.
It is worthy of note that the new school found its earliest professors
and its greatest expounders in a part of India outside the districts to
which the personal influence of Gotama and of his immediate followers
had been confined. The home of early Buddhism was round about Kosala and
Magadha; in the district, that is to say, north and south of the Ganges
between where Allahabad now lies on the west and Rajgir on the east. The
home of the Great Vehicle was, at first, in the countries farther to the
north and west. Buddhism arose in countries where Sanskrit was never
more than a learned tongue, and where the exclusive claims of the
Brahmins had never been universally admitted. The Great Vehicle arose in
the very stronghold of Brahminism, and among a people to whom Sanskrit,
like Latin in the middle ages in Europe, was the literary _lingua
franca_. The new literature therefore, which the new movement called
forth, was written, and has been preserved, in Sanskrit--its principal
books of _Dharma_, or doctrine, being the following nine: (1)
_Prajña-paramita_; (2) _Ganda-vyuha_; (3) _Dasa-bhumis-vara_; (4)
_Samadhi-raja_; (5) _Lankavatara_; (6) _Saddharma-pundarika_; (7)
_Tathagata-guhyaka_; (8) _Lalita-vistara_; (9) _Suvarna-prabhasa_. The
date of none of these works is known with any certainty, but it is
highly improbable that any one of them is older than the 6th century
after the death of Gotama. Copies of all of them were brought to Europe
by Mr B. H. Hodgson, and other copies have been received since then; but
only one of them has as yet been published in Europe (the _Lalita
Vistara_, edited by Lofmann), and only two have been translated into any
European language. These are the _Lalita Vistara_, translated into
French, through the Tibetan, by M. Foucaux, and the _Saddharma
Pundarika_, translated into English by Professor Kern. The former is
legendary work, partly in verse, on the life of Gotama, the historical
Buddha; and the latter, also partly in verse, is devoted to proving the
essential identity of the Great and the Little Vehicles, and the equal
authenticity of both as doctrines enunciated by the master himself.
Of the authors of these nine works, as of all the older Buddhist works
with one or two exceptions, nothing has been ascertained. The founder of
the system of the Great Vehicle is, however, often referred to under the
name of Nagarjuna, whose probable date is about A.D. 200.
Together with Nagarjuna, other early teachers of the Great Vehicle whose
names are known are Vasumitra, Vasubandhu, Aryadeva, Dharmapala and
Gunamati--all of whom were looked upon as Bodhisats. As the newer school
did not venture so far as to claim as Bodhisats the disciples stated in
the older books to have been the contemporaries of Gotama (they being
precisely the persons known as Arahats), they attempted to give the
appearance of age to the Bodhisat theory by representing the Buddha as
being surrounded, not only by his human companions the Arahats, but also
by fabulous beings, whom they represented as the Bodhisats existing at
that time. In the opening words of each Mahayana treatise a list is
given of such Bodhisats, who were beginning, together with the
historical Bodhisats, to occupy a position in the Buddhist church of
those times similar to that occupied by the saints in the corresponding
period of the history of Christianity in the Church of Rome. And these
lists of fabulous Bodhisats have now a distinct historical importance.
For they grow in length in the later works; and it is often possible by
comparing them one with another to fix, not the date, but the
comparative age of the books in which they occur. Thus it is a fair
inference to draw from the shortness of the list in the opening words of
the _Lalita Vistara_, as compared with that in the first sections of the
_Saddharma Pundarika_, that the latter work is much the younger of the
two, a conclusion supported also by other considerations.
Among the Bodhisats mentioned in the _Saddharma Pundarika_, and not
mentioned in the _Lalita Vistara_, as attendant on the Buddha are
Mañju-sri and Avalokitesvara. That these saints were already
acknowledged by the followers of the Great Vehicle at the beginning of
the 5th century is clear from the fact that Fa Hien, who visited India
about that time, says that "men of the Great Vehicle" were then
worshipping them at Mathura, not far from Delhi (F. H., chap. xvi.).
These were supposed to be celestial beings who, inspired by love of the
human race, had taken the so-called Great Resolve to become future
Buddhas, and who therefore descended from heaven when the actual Buddha
was on earth, to pay reverence to him, and to learn of him. The belief
in them probably arose out of the doctrine of the older school, which
did not deny the existence of the various creations of previous
mythology and speculation, but allowed of their actual existence as
spiritual beings, and only deprived them of all power over the lives of
men, and declared them to be temporary beings liable, like men, to sin
and ignorance, and requiring, like men, the salvation of Arahatship.
Among them the later Buddhists seem to have placed their numerous
Bodhisats; and to have paid especial reverence to Mañju-sri as the
personification of wisdom, and to Avalokiteswara as the personification
of overruling love. The former was afterwards identified with the
mythical first Buddhist missionary, who is supposed to have introduced
civilization into Tibet about two hundred and fifty years after the
death of the Buddha.
The five mystic trinities.
The way was now open to a rapid fall from the simplicity of early
Buddhism, in which men's attention was directed to the various parts of
the system of self-culture, to a belief in a whole pantheon of saints or
angels, which appealed more strongly to the half-civilized races among
whom the Great Vehicle was now professed. A theory sprang up which was
supposed to explain the marvellous powers of the Buddhas by representing
them as only the outward appearance, the reflection, as it were, or
emanation, of ethereal Buddhas dwelling in the skies. These were called
_Dhyani Buddhas_, and their number was supposed to be, like that of the
Buddhas, innumerable. Only five of them, however, occupied any space in
the speculative world in which the ideas of the later Buddhists had now
begun to move. But, being Buddhas, they were supposed to have their
Bodhisats; and thus out of the five last Buddhas of the earlier teaching
there grew up five mystic trinities, each group consisting of one of
these five Buddhas, his prototype in heaven the Dhyani Buddha, and his
celestial Bodhisat. Among these hypothetical beings, the creations of a
sickly scholasticism, hollow abstractions without life or reality, the
particular trinity in which the historical Gotama was assigned a
subordinate place naturally occupied the most exalted rank. Amitabha,
the Dhyani-Buddha of this trinity, soon began to fill the largest place
in the minds of the new school; and Avalokiteswara, his Bodhisat, was
looked upon with a reverence somewhat less than his former glory. It is
needless to add that, under the overpowering influence of these vain
imaginations, the earnest moral teachings of Gotama became more and more
hidden from view. The imaginary saints grew and flourished. Each new
creation, each new step in the theory, demanded another, until the whole
sky was filled with forgeries of the brain, and the nobler and simpler
lessons of the founder of the religion were hidden beneath the
glittering stream of metaphysical subtleties.
Still worse results followed on the change of the earlier point of view.
The acute minds of the Buddhist pandits, no longer occupied with the
practical lessons of Arahatship, turned their attention, as far as it
was not engaged upon their hierarchy of mythological beings, to
questions of metaphysical speculation, which, in the earliest Buddhism,
are not only discouraged but forbidden. We find long treatises on the
nature of being, idealistic dreams which have as little to do with the
Bodhisatship that is concerned with the salvation of the world as with
the Arahatship that is concerned with the perfect life. Only one lower
step was possible, and that was not long in being taken. The animism
common alike to the untaught Huns and to their Hindu conquerors, but
condemned in early Buddhism, was allowed to revive. As the stronger side
of Gotama's teaching was neglected, the debasing belief in rites and
ceremonies, and charms and incantations, which had been the especial
object of his scorn, began to spread like the Birana weed warmed by a
tropical sun in marsh and muddy soil. As in India, after the expulsion
of Buddhism, the degrading worship of Siva and his dusky bride had been
incorporated into Hinduism from the savage devil worship of Aryan and of
non-Aryan tribes, so, as pure Buddhism died away in the north, the
_Tantra_ system, a mixture of magic and witchcraft and sorcery, was
incorporated into the corrupted Buddhism.
The Tantra system.
The founder of this system seems to have been Asanga, an influential
monk of Peshawar, who wrote the first text-book of the creed, the
_Yogachchara Bhumi Sastra_, in the 6th century A.D. Hsüan Tsang, who
travelled in the first half of the 7th, found the monastery where Asanga
had lived in ruins, and says that he had lived one thousand years after
the Buddha.[1] Asanga managed with great dexterity to reconcile the two
opposing systems by placing a number of Saivite gods or devils, both
male and female, in the inferior heavens of the then prevalent Buddhism,
and by representing them as worshippers and supporters of the Buddha and
of Avalokitesvara. He thus made it possible for the half-converted and
rude tribes to remain Buddhists while they brought offerings, and even
bloody offerings, to these more congenial shrines, and while their
practical belief had no relation at all to the Truths or the Noble
Eightfold Path, but busied itself almost wholly with obtaining magic
powers (_Siddhi_), by means of magic phrases (_Dharani_), and magic
circles (_Mandala_). Asanga's happy idea bore but too ample fruit. In
his own country and Nepal, the new wine, sweet and luscious to the taste
of savages, completely disqualified them from enjoying any purer drink;
and now in both countries Saivism is supreme, and Buddhism is even
nominally extinct, except in some outlying districts of Nepal. But this
full effect has only been worked out in the lapse of ages; the Tantra
literature has also had its growth and its development, and some unhappy
scholar of a future age may have to trace its loathsome history. The
nauseous taste repelled even the self-sacrificing industry of Burnouf,
when he found the later Tantra books to be as immoral as they are
absurd. "The pen," he says, "refuses to transcribe doctrines as
miserable in respect of form as they are odious and degrading in respect
of meaning."
Such had been the decline and fall of Buddhism considered as an ethical
system before its introduction into Tibet. The manner in which its order
of mendicant recluses, at first founded to afford better opportunities
to those who wished to carry out that system in practical life,
developed at last into a hierarchical monarchy will best be understood
by a sketch of the history of Tibet.
Early political history.
Its real history commences with Srong Tsan Gampo, who was born a little
after 600 A.D., and who is said in the Chinese chronicles to have
entered, in 634, into diplomatic relationship with Tai Tsung, one of the
emperors of the Tang dynasty. He was the founder of the present capital
of Tibet, now known as Lhasa; and in the year 622 (the same year as that
in which Mahomet fled from Mecca) he began the formal introduction of
Buddhism into Tibet. For this purpose he sent the minister Thumi
Sambhota, afterwards looked upon as an incarnation of Mañju-sri, to
India, there to collect the sacred books, and to learn and translate
them. Thumi Sambhota accordingly invented an alphabet for the Tibetan
language on the model of the Indian alphabets then in use. And, aided by
the king, who is represented to have been an industrious student and
translator, he wrote the first books by which Buddhism became known in
his native land. The most famous of the works ascribed to him is the
_Mani Kambum_, "the Myriad of Precious Words"--a treatise chiefly on
religion, but which also contains an account of the introduction of
Buddhism into Tibet, and of the closing part of the life of Srong Tsan
Gampo. He is also very probably the author of another very ancient
standard work of Tibetan Buddhism, the _Samatog_, a short digest of
Buddhist morality, on which the civil laws of Tibet have been founded.
It is said in the _Mani Kambum_ to have fallen from heaven in a casket
(Tibetan, _samatog_), and, like the last-mentioned work, is only known
to us in meagre abstract.
King Srong Tsan Gampo's zeal for Buddhism was shared and supported by
his two queens, Bribsun, a princess from Nepal, and Wen Ching, a
princess from China. They are related to have brought with them sacred
relics, books and pictures, for whose better preservation two large
monasteries were erected. These are the cloisters of La Brang (Jokhang)
and Ra Moché, still, though much changed and enlarged, the most sacred
abbeys in Tibet, and the glory of Lhasa. The two queens have become
semi-divine personages, and are worshipped under the name of the two
_Dara-Eke_, the "glorious mothers," being regarded as incarnations of
the wife of Siva, representing respectively two of the qualities which
she personifies, divine vengeance and divine love. The former is
worshipped by the Mongolians as _Okkin Tengri_, "the Virgin Goddess";
but in Tibet and China the rôle of the divine virgin is filled by _Kwan
Yin_, a personification of Avalokitesvara as the heavenly word, who is
often represented with a child in her arms. Srong Tsan Gampo has also
become a saint, being looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokitesvara;
and the description in the ecclesiastical historians of the measures he
took for the welfare of his subjects do great credit to their ideal of
the perfect Buddhist king. He is said to have spent his long reign in
the building of reservoirs, bridges and canals; in the promotion of
agriculture, horticulture and manufactures; in the establishment of
schools and colleges; and in the maintenance of justice and the
encouragement of virtue. But the degree of his success must have been
slight. For after the death of himself and of his wives Buddhism
gradually decayed, and was subjected by succeeding kings to cruel
persecutions; and it was not till more than half a century afterwards,
under King Kir Song de Tsan, who reigned 740-786, that true religion is
acknowledged by the ecclesiastical historians to have become firmly
established in the land.
The Tibetan sacred books.
This monarch again sent to India to replace the sacred books that had
been lost, and to invite Buddhist pandits to translate them. The most
distinguished of those who came were Santa Rakshita, Padma Sambhava and
Kamala Sila, for whom, and for their companions, the king built a
splendid monastery still existing, at Samje, about three days' journey
south-east of Lhasa. It was to them that the Tibetans owed the great
collection of what are still regarded as their sacred books--the
_Kandjur_. It consists of 100 volumes containing 689 works, of which
there are two or three complete sets in Europe, one of them in the India
Office library. A detailed analysis of these scriptures has been
published by the celebrated Hungarian scholar Csoma de Körös, whose
authoritative work has been republished in French with complete indices
and very useful notes by M. Léon Feer. These volumes contain about a
dozen works of the oldest school of Buddhism, the Hinayana, and about
300 works, mostly very short, belonging to the Tantra school. But the
great bulk of the collection consists of Mahayana books, belonging to
all the previously existing varieties of that widely extended Buddhist
sect; and, as the Sanskrit originals of many of these writings are now
lost, the Tibetan translations will be of great value, not only for the
history of Lamaism, but also for the history of the later forms of
Indian Buddhism.
The last king's second son, Lang Darma, concluded in May 822 a treaty
with the then emperor of China (the twelfth of the Tang dynasty), a
record of which was engraved on a stone put up in the above-mentioned
great convent of La Brang (Jokhang), and is still to be seen there.[2]
He is described in the church chronicles as an incarnation of the evil
spirit, and is said to have succeeded in suppressing Buddhism throughout
the greater part of the land. The period from Srong Tsan Gampo down to
the death of Lang Darma, who was murdered about A.D. 850, in a civil
war, is called in the Buddhist books "the first introduction of
religion." It was followed by more than a century of civil disorder and
wars, during which the exiled Buddhist monks attempted unsuccessfully
again and again to return. Many are the stories of martyrs and
confessors who are believed to have lived in these troublous times, and
their efforts were at last crowned with success, for in the century
commencing with the reign of Bilamgur in 971 there took place "the
second introduction of religion" into Tibet, more especially under the
guidance of the pandit Atisha, who came to Tibet in 1041, and of his
famous native pupil and follower Brom Ston. The long period of
depression seems not to have been without a beneficial influence on the
persecuted Buddhist church, for these teachers are reported to have
placed the Tantra system more in the background, and to have adhered
more strongly to the purer forms of the Mahayana development of the
ancient faith.
The temporal sovereignty of the Lamas.
For about three hundred years the Buddhist church of Tibet was left in
peace, subjecting the country more and more completely to its control,
and growing in power and in wealth. During this time it achieved its
greatest victory, and underwent the most important change in its
character and organization. After the reintroduction of Buddhism into
the "kingdom of snow," the ancient dynasty never recovered its power.
Its representatives continued for some time to claim the sovereignty;
but the country was practically very much in the condition of Germany at
about the same time--chieftains of almost independent power ruled from
their castles on the hill-tops over the adjacent valleys, engaged in
petty wars, and conducted plundering expeditions against the
neighbouring tenants, whilst the great abbeys were places of refuge for
the studious or religious, and their heads were the only rivals to the
barons in social state, and in many respects the only protectors and
friends of the people. Meanwhile Jenghiz Khan had founded the Mongol
empire, and his grandson Kublai Khan became a convert to the Buddhism of
the Tibetan Lamas. He granted to the abbot of the Sakya monastery in
southern Tibet the title of tributary sovereign of the country, head of
the Buddhist church, and overlord over the numerous barons and abbots,
and in return was officially crowned by the abbot as ruler over the
extensive domain of the Mongol empire. Thus was the foundation laid at
one and the same time of the temporal sovereignty of the Lamas of Tibet,
and of the suzerainty over Tibet of the emperors of China. One of the
first acts of the "head of the church" was the printing of a carefully
revised edition of the Tibetan Scriptures--an undertaking which occupied
altogether nearly thirty years and was not completed till 1306.
Under Kublai's successors in China the Buddhist cause flourished
greatly, and the Sakya Lamas extended their power both at home and
abroad. The dignity of abbot at Sakya became hereditary, the abbots
breaking so far the Buddhist rule of celibacy that they remained married
until they had begotten a son and heir. But rather more than half a
century afterwards their power was threatened by a formidable rival at
home, a Buddhist reformer.
The Luther of Tibet.
Tsongkapa, the Luther of Tibet, was born about 1357 on the spot where
the famous monastery of Kunbum now stands. He very early entered the
order, and studied at Sakya, Brigung and other monasteries. He then
spent eight years as a hermit in Takpo in southern Tibet, where the
comparatively purer teaching of Atisha (referred to above) was still
prevalent. About 1390 he appeared as a public teacher and reformer in
Lhasa, and before his death in 1419 there were three huge monasteries
there containing 30,000 of his disciples, besides others in other parts
of the country. His voluminous works, of which the most famous are the
_Sumbun_ and the _Lam Nim Tshenpo_, exist in printed Tibetan copies in
Europe, but have not yet been translated or analysed. But the principal
lines on which his reformation proceeded are sufficiently attested. He
insisted in the first place on the complete carrying out of the ancient
rules of the order as to the celibacy of its members, and as to
simplicity in dress. One result of the second of these two reforms was
to make it necessary for every monk openly to declare himself either in
favour of or against the new views. For Tsongkapa and his followers wore
the yellow or orange-coloured garments which had been the distinguishing
mark of the order in the lifetime of its founder, and in support of the
ancient rules Tsongkapa reinstated the fortnightly rehearsal of the
_Patimokkha_ or "disburdenment" in regular assemblies of the order at
Lhasa--a practice which had fallen into desuetude. He also restored the
custom of the first disciples to hold the so-called _Vassa_ or yearly
retirement, and the public meeting of the order at its close. In all
these respects he was simply following the directions of the Vinaya, or
regulations of the order, as established probably in the time of Gotama
himself, and as certainly handed down from the earliest times in the
pitakas or sacred books. Further, he set his face against the Tantra
system, and against the animistic superstitions which had been allowed
to creep into life again. He laid stress on the self-culture involved in
the practice of the paramitas or cardinal virtues, and established an
annual national fast or week of prayer to be held during the first days
of each year. This last institution indeed is not found in the ancient
Vinaya, but was almost certainly modelled on the traditional account of
the similar assemblies convoked by Asoka and other Buddhist sovereigns
in India every fifth year. Laymen as well as monks take part in the
proceedings, the details of which are unknown to us except from the
accounts of the Catholic missionaries--Fathers Huc and Gabet--who
describe the principal ceremonial as, in outward appearance, wonderfully
like the high mass. In doctrine the great Tibetan teacher, who had no
access to the Pali Pitakas, adhered in the main to the purer forms of
the Mahayana school; in questions of church government he took little
part, and did not dispute the titular supremacy of the Sakya Lamas. But
the effects of his teaching weakened their power. The "orange-hoods," as
his followers were called, rapidly gained in numbers and influence,
until they so overshadowed the "red-hoods," as the followers of the
older sect were called, that in the middle of the 15th century the
emperor of China acknowledged the two leaders of the new sect at that
time as the titular overlords of the church and tributary rulers over
the realm of Tibet. These two leaders were then known as the _Dalai
Lama_ and the _Pantshen Lama_, and were the abbots of the great
monasteries at Gedun Dubpa, near Lhasa, and at Tashi Lunpo, in Farther
Tibet, respectively. Since that time the abbots of these monasteries
have continued to exercise the sovereignty over Tibet.
Constitution of Lamaism.
As there has been no further change in the doctrine, and no further
reformation in discipline, we may leave the ecclesiastical history of
Lamaism since that date unnoticed, and consider some principal points on
the constitution of the Lamaism of to-day. And first as to the mode of
electing successors to the two Great Lamas. It will have been noticed
that it was an old idea of the northern Buddhists to look upon
distinguished members of the order as incarnations of Avalokitesvara, of
Mañju-sri, or of Amitabha. These beings were supposed to possess the
power, whilst they continued to live in heaven, of appearing on earth in
a _Nirmana-kaya_, or apparitional body. In the same way the Pantshen
Lama is looked upon as an incarnation, the Nirmana-kaya, of Amitabha,
who had previously appeared under the outward form of Tshonkapa himself;
and the Dalai Lama is looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokitesvara.
Theoretically, therefore, the former, as the spiritual successor of the
great teacher and also of Amitabha, who occupies the higher place in the
mythology of the Great Vehicle, would be superior to the latter, as the
spiritual representative of Avalokitesvara. But practically the Dalai
Lama, owing to his position in the capital,[3] has the political
supremacy, and is actually called the _Gyalpo Rinpotshe_, "the glorious
king"--his companion being content with the title _Pantshen Rinpotshe_,
"the glorious teacher." When either of them dies it is necessary for the
other to ascertain in whose body the celestial being whose outward form
has been dissolved has been pleased again to incarnate himself. For that
purpose the names of all male children born just after the death of the
deceased Great Lama are laid before his survivor. He chooses three out
of the whole number; their names are thrown into a golden casket
provided for that purpose by a former emperor of China. The Chutuktus,
or abbots of the great monasteries, then assemble, and after a week of
prayer, the lots are drawn in their presence and in presence of the
surviving Great Lama and of the Chinese political resident. The child
whose name is first drawn is the future Great Lama; the other two
receive each of them 500 pieces of silver. The Chutuktus just mentioned
correspond in many respects to the Roman cardinals. Like the Great
Lamas, they bear the title of Rinpotshe or Glorious, and are looked upon
as incarnations of one or other of the celestial Bodhisats of the Great
Vehicle mythology. Their number varies from ten to a hundred; and it is
uncertain whether the honour is inherent in the abbacy of certain of the
greatest cloisters, or whether the Dalai Lama exercises the right of
choosing them. Under these high officials of the Tibetan hierarchy there
come the Chubil Khans, who fill the post of abbot to the lesser
monasteries, and are also incarnations. Their number is very large;
there are few monasteries in Tibet or in Mongolia which do not claim to
possess one of these living Buddhas. Besides these mystical persons
there are in the Tibetan church other ranks and degrees, corresponding
to the deacon, full priest, dean and doctor of divinity in the West. At
the great yearly festival at Lhasa they make in the cathedral an
imposing array, not much less magnificent than that of the clergy in
Rome; for the ancient simplicity of dress has disappeared in the growing
differences of rank, and each division of the spiritual army is
distinguished in Tibet, as in the West, by a special uniform. The
political authority of the Dalai Lama is confined to Tibet itself, but
he is the acknowledged head also of the Buddhist church throughout
Mongolia and China. He has no supremacy over his co-religionists in
Japan, and even in China there are many Buddhists who are not
practically under his control or influence.
The best work on Lamaism is still Köppen's _Die Lamaische Hierarchie
und Kirche_ (Berlin, 1859). See also Bushell, "The Early History of
Tibet," in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, 1879-1880, vol.
xii.; Sanang Setzen's _History of the East Mongols_ (in Mongolian,
translated into German by J. Schmidt, _Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen_);
"Analyse du Kandjur," by M. Léon Feer, in _Annales du Musée Gaimet_
(1881); Schott, _Ueber den Buddhismus in Hoch-Asien_; Gutzlaff,
_Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches_; Hue and Gabet, _Souvenirs d'un
voyage dans la Tartarie, le Tibet, et la Chine_ (Paris, 1858);
Pallas's _Sammlung historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolischen
Völkerschaften_; Babu Sarat Chunder Das's "Contributions on the
Religion and History of Tibet," in the _Journal of the Bengal Asiatic
Society_, 1881; L. A. Waddell, _The Buddhism of Tibet_ (London, 1895);
A. H. Francke, _History of Western Tibet_ (London, 1907); A.
Grünwedel, _Mythologie des Buddhismus in Tibet und der Mongolei_
(Berlin, 1900). (T. W. R. D.)