igl PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1777- 



thing internally with unbounded authority. It is well known that the Delai 

 Lama is the great object of adoration for the various tribes of heathen Tartars, 

 who roam through the vast tract of continent which stretches from the banks of 

 the Volga to Correa on the sea of Japan, the most extensive religious dominion 

 perhaps on the face of the globe. He is not only the sovereign Pontiff, the 

 vicegerent of the Deity on earth: but, as superstiti(jn is ever the strongest where 

 it is most removed from its object, the more remote Tartars absolutely regard 

 him as the Deity himself. They believe him immortal, and endowed with all 

 knowledge and virtue. Every year they come up from different parts, to worship 

 and make rich offerings at his shrine; even the emperor of China, who is a 

 Mantchou Tartar, does not fail in acknowledgements to him in his religious 

 capacity, and actually entertains at a great expence, in the palace of Pekin, 

 an inferior Lama, deputed as his Nuncio from Thibet. Mr. Bogle says, 

 that the Lama often distributes little balls of consecrated flour, like the 

 pain benit of the Roman catholics, which the superstition and blind credulity of 

 his Tartar votaries may afterwards convert into what they please. The orthodox 

 opinion is, that when the Grand Lama seems to die, either of old age or of 

 infirmity, his soul in fact only quits an actual crazy habitation, to look for 

 another or better, and it is discovered again in the body of some child, by cer- 

 tain tokens known only to the Lamas or Priests, in which order he always 

 appears. The present Delai Lama is an infant, and was discovered only a few 

 years ago by the Tayshoo Lama, who in authority and sanctity of character is 

 next to him, and consequently, during the other's minority, acts as chief. The 

 lamas, who form the most numerous as well as the most powerful body in the 

 state, have the priesthood entirely in their hands; and besides fill up many 

 monastic orders, which are held in great veneration among them. Celibacy is 

 not positively enjoined to the lamas; but it is held indispensable for both men 

 and women, who embrace a religious life: and indeed their celibacy, their living 

 communities, their cloysters, their service in the choirs, their strings ot beads, 

 their fasts, and their penances, give them so much the air of christian monks, 

 that it is not surprizing an illiterate capuchin should be ready to hail them brothers, 

 and think he can trace the features of St. Francis in every thing about them. 

 It is an old notion that the religion of Thibet is a corrupted Christianity. The truth 

 is, that the religion of Thibet, whence-ever it sprung, is pure and simple in its 

 source, conveying very exalted notions of the Deity, with no contemptible system of 

 morality; but in its progress it has been greatly altered and corrupted by the 

 inventions of men. Polygamy, at least in the sense we commonly receive the 

 word, is not in practice among them; but it exists in a mai.ner still more 

 repugnant to European ideas; viz. in the plurality of husbands, which is firmly 

 establislu'd and higlily respected there. In a country where the means of sub- 



