1844.] and on Gerald's Account of Kundwar. 187 



regular priesthood, the necessity of mixing with others, and the am- 

 bition natural to the human mind, may have led the successors of the 

 more enthusiastic anchorites to take advantage of the ignorance of the 

 people, and by degrees to institute a sort of hierarchy ; not however, 

 complete or rigorous, for persevering asceticism, or direct inspiration, 

 will even now elevate the poor and the ignorant above the wealthy 

 and the learned. On the other hand, we know but little of the state 

 of Tibet when it was entered by the votaries of Buddha, and they 

 may have met with a waning ministry of congenial speculatists. 

 A subsequent union with the missionaries of another faith may have 

 taken place, and may have encouraged the progress towards a regular 

 hierarchy ; and if the Nestorian Christians have produced any lasting 

 effects on the belief or practices of Chinese Tartary, the impress will 

 probably be found among the Gelukpa, a sect of Lamas, notwithstand- 

 ing their celibacy, and the allowance of marriage by the Greek 

 church. With the Gelukpas, priestcraft has, I think advanced further 

 than with the others, and they may bear some marks of the training 

 or system brought about by the heresies of the Church, after it had 

 obtained authority and place in the empire. I am, however, very 

 doubtful whether any certain trace of a corrupted Christianity can be 

 found in Tibet itself, and I am not aware that auricular confession, 

 or the worship of relics, obtains in the sense of the eastern and the 

 western Churches. 



All the three sects, Gelukpa, Ningma, and Dukpa, with which I have 

 fallen in, insist upon the doctrines of transmigration and of absorption, 

 and maintain a gradation of animals ending in man, through which 

 the soul must pass before its final emancipation. During certain 

 ceremonies, (corrupted ones indeed,) Lamas are seemingly possessed 

 with the divinity. I have seen one who has been considered from his 

 childhood as a "preseus Divus," and the ready faith of the people 

 lays the mind prostrate in either case. All Lamas refuse to take 

 animal life, and some of superior sanctity observe their doctrine, and 

 also refuse to take vegetable life ; that is, they will not themselves cut 

 down trees until they wither, or gather fruits or grains until they 

 ripen. Wine is forbidden to all Lamas. Of the three sects above- 

 mentioned, celibacy is incumbent on the Gelukpa only, but all prac- 

 tice it who wish to attain to superior sanctity. All Lamas fast in the 



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