186 Notes on Moorcrofts Travels in Ladakh, [No. 147. 



any thing and neither it, nor three of those I have mentioned are in- 

 cluded by Csoma-de-Koros among his nine principal sects, (Grammar, 

 p. 175.) Afterwards indeed (p. 194) that scholar says, there ^.re/our di- 

 visions comprehending eighteen sects, and it may be that these divisions 

 correspond with Mr. Hodgson's four systems of speculative Buddhism. 

 (Lit. and Rel. of the Buddists, p. 33. ) 



Notwithstanding its wide diffusion and great authority, I would de- 

 fine Buddhism to be the religion of a priesthood rather than of a 

 people. In the abstract it does not diligently seek for proselytes, and 

 it has but little active interest in the welfare of mankind. Its precepts 

 appear to be silent about reclaiming the unbeliever, and about com- 

 forting the lowly and those who pass their days in toil. Its exhorta- 

 tions are towards asceticism, and it insists on a solitary communing 

 with oneself and with God, as the surest road to a happy immortality, 

 or to a speedy incorporation with the deity. This passive excellence 

 produces indeed an indirect effect on the people, who believe their 

 priests to be the chosen of Heaven, and who see that they avoid much 

 of the fraud and violence usual in the world. It is also true, that the 

 people are told of the punishment awaiting evil deeds, but the priest is 

 always more intent on his own salvation than on exhorting the people 

 to be good. He does not consider himself to be a teacher from God, or 

 that he should seek to explain to others the means of attaining to ex- 

 cellence. The poor are without pastors, and can only be specta- 

 tors of the religious service of the brotherhood of monks, nor perhaps 

 do the devotions of the rich bring them nearer to God, although they 

 have their private chapels, and attend while the priests offer their 

 supplications to the Almighty. The indifference of the Lamas to the 

 belief or practice of the people is well exhibited in Kunawar; temples 

 erected to the spirits of the hills appear close to Buddhistic monuments, 

 and the priest of a hierarchy share the veneration of the villagers with 

 the creations of ignorance and fancy. 



The votaries of Buddhism being taught that in order to attain 

 to divinity, or to a speedy salvation, they must wholly abstract 

 themselves from the affairs of the world ; it forms a curious en- 

 quiry how this inactive and self-denying system became mixed 

 with other faiths, and took a hold upon the mind of millions. 

 If the persecuted Buddhists entered Tibet, and found a race without a 



