92 
Gaur Das Bysack — Notes on a Buddhist Monastery [No. 1, 
order to carry the account of Bhot Bagan and Puran Gir Bhot makanta, 
down to the present time, I should say in passing, that the Lama, or 
rather the Regent, had requested Captain Turner to take with him to 
Bengal the old Suk Deo (Sukha Deva) Gosain, who was afraid to 
travel through Bhutan with his wealth accumulated by his forty years’ 
mercantile journeys over various distant countries reaching to Siberia 
on the north. This old Gosain is said to have lived for a short time in 
the Bhot Bagfin monastery. 
After Puran Gir’s death, his successor Daljit Gir continued to be 
the head of the math for nearly forty-three years, as his death is 
recorded on the said tomb to have happened on the 6th Mdgha 1243 
B. S. His place was taken by Kali Gir Mahanta, who built one of the 
S'iva temples in the vicinity of the math previously noticed, on the 15th 
Adwiria 1254 B. S., and died on the 2nd Vaisakha 1264 B. S. One of 
the two present 1 Mahantas, Bilas Gir Gosain, having consecrated the 
said temple in the month of Vaisakha 1265 B. S., was installed on the 
gaddi of the math. There was some litigation between him and another 
Gosain, named Umrao Gir, who, having established his claim, has be- 
como an associate Mahanta with equal rights and privileges. 
The Bhot Bagan has gradually lost its primitive character; for 
a long time since the murder of Puran Gir, and the plunder of the math , 
the place became notorious as a nest of robbers and wicked people ; 
guest houses fell into ruins, and hospitality and charity died away, a 
mere mummery of unmeaning puja has been kept up, the lands have 
been leased away piecemeal in maurusi and muqarrari tenure, and 
nothing brrt the math now remains, enshrining grotesque and even 
obscene figures of Hindu and Tibeto-Buddhistic mythology, a solitary 
monument of the genius and policy of the first Governor- General of 
India, of the piety of the Tashi Lama, and of the Tibeto-Bengal trade 
which flourished centuries ago, and was restored, though in a stifled 
form, a century ago. 
Before concluding this paper I am tempted to point to certain facts 
and make some observations, which the account of Bhot Bagan and the 
story of Piiran Gir Gosain suggest. In the first place, the history of 
the missions connected with these accounts unfolds the fact that Tibet, 
from time immemorial, has been the resort of merchants. 
Tibet, in the days of Warren Hastings, was little known except to 
readers of the raro works containing accounts of the travellers and 
Capuchin Missionaries, whom curiosity, love of knowledge, or religious 
1 Bilnsa Gir Mahanta, who had been suffering from a lingering disease for 
some time, expired on the 28th February 1889, and was duly buried by his associate 
Umrao Gir Gosain, who has now become the solo mahanta of the ma(h. 
