86 Gaur Das Bysack — Notes on a Buddhist Monastery [No. 1, 
Kuch Behar, in 1769, and the masterly and conciliatory policy of 
Warren Hastings ; and proxiraately to the mysterious doctrine of Lama 
metempsychosis and the zealous and faithful service of a Sivite Sanny&si ; 
the most audacious Gurkhali invasion above alludod to, culminating 
in the sack of Tashi Lhunpo and the flight to Lhasa of the same Tashi 
Lama who as an infant had received the Turner and the Gosain 
missions, as well as the foresightless and the masterly inactive policy 
of the Cornwallis rule, are to bo regarded as immediate causes of the 
final closure of the gates for British officials to the Ois- and Trans-nivean 
states. It was also within a shoi-t while subsequent to those events 
that in the Bhot Bagan the brave Gosain met his death at the hands 
of robbers, as the sequel of the narrative will show. The Gurkha inva- 
sions, therefore, of 1769 and 1792, should be remembered as the two 
mile-stones of very important occurrences in the history of British 
India. 
The important features of the extraordinary character of Puran 
Gir, the co-assignee of the Tashi Lama, have been gleaned from the 
history of the missions to Tibet. He possessed remarkable intelligence 
and wisdom, a fund of inexhaustible energy, a mastery of many lan- 
guages including Tibetan and Mongolian, a wide range of experience 
acquired by travel in and out of India, a practical insight into all the 
commercial relations of Asia of which Tibet formed the heart, and enjoyed 
and deserved a reputation for piety and integrity which made him the 
trusted agent of the Tashi Lhunpo authorities and the Bengal Government 
Of the personal history of this remarkable and extraordinary, 
Sannyasi, unfortunately there exists no record ; whatever was known 
of him, has, like that of most of our illustrious countrymen, passed into 
oblivion. It is a happy thing that so many particulars aud incidents 
connected with his public life and such abundant testimony to his 
character, capacity and comprehensive knowledge of the important 
affairs of the time, have been preserved in the pages of Markham’s 
“ Narrative of the Mission of George Bogle to Tibet ” — a narrative the 
materials of which were traced by the author in the possession of 
private individuals, and were not found in the public records of Govern- 
ment ; and in the Reports of Captain Turner as well as of the Gosain 
himself. The statement of the Gosain was taken down by Turner and 
submitted to the Governor-General Macphorson, and this forms an 
annexure of the Report. But even such information as is here given 
from these works is of a meagre character, and is so promiscuously 
scattered rather as digressive matter that it had to be collected with 
great circumspection. 
Among the papers which were kindly delivered to me by Umrao 
