106 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [ April, 1905. 
12. The Monasteries of Tibet.*—By Rai Sarat CHanpra Das 
Bahadur, C.1.E. 
INTRODUCTION. 
Tibet is the land of monasteries. Her history chiefly compri- 
ses records of the establishment of monasteries and temples and 
their endowments by the State, chiefs and nobles of the country, 
commencing from the middle of the 7th Century A.D., to the 
18th Century. 
There are eighteen different Buddhist sects, out of which four 
are widely distributed all over higher Asia including Tibet, Mongo- 
lia and Western China. Of these four sects three, viz., Sakya, 
Dtk-pa and Ning-ma have the red-cap, which they use during 
religious services only, to distinguish them from the remaining 
15 sects. The fourth which is the reformed sect and therefore the 
purest of all, has become dominant since the middle of the 17th 
Century. Its monks use the yellow-cap. The Dalai Lama is the 
head of this Church. 
In the official register at Lhasa, in 1882, the total number of 
monasteries belonging to the Yellow-cap Church was 1026 with 
491,242 monks. _Out ofthis number, 281 monasteries belonged to 
the provinces of U and Tsang which constitute Tibet proper, 150 to 
the provinces of Nyang, Lhobrag and Kong-po; 27 to Upper 
Kham; 154 to Lower Kham and 414 to Ulterior Tibet which is 
called Poi-Chen or greater Tibet. In this list village-monasteries 
and Mani-lhakhang (prayer-wheel temples) have not been entered. 
The number of monasteries belonging to the three red-cap 
sects, is a little more than the total of the Yellow-cap Church insti- 
tutions. This would bring the total of the monasteries of all the 
18 sects to over 2,500 and that of the monks to about 760,000. 
In Tibet every third boy in a family, as a rule, is sent to the 
monastery, in consequence of which the male population of the coun- 
try may be roughly estimated at 24 to 3 millions. 
The Yellow-cap Church Lamas take the vow of celebacy, which 
circumstances precludes them from keeping female company. But 
many among them while residing abroad seldom conform them- 
selves to monastic discipline. 
The miserable pittance which the monks of even the State- 
supported monasteries get for their subsistence, hardly exceeds 
three Tanka, 7.e.,1 3 Re. a month. Owing to this, about one-fifth 
of the monks in a monastery generally turn into traders. Many 
among them become mendicant priests and roam over the country in 
quest of the necessaries of life. These are called Tapa or monas- 
tery-boys. The agricultural population often regard them with 
dread for their irregular habits of life and clamouring for alms. 
There are few convents in Tibet and the number of nuns 
(Tstinmo) in them is very small. While the largest monastery 
contains 10,000 monks, the largest convent can hardly count 100 
* Compiled from Pagsam Jon zai and other Tibetan historical works. 
