226 
Sarat Chandra Das —Contributions on Tibet. 
[No. 3, 
self-sacrifice. The minister Mashan volunteered to do so, and was followed 
by Gos the Buddhist minister. They both entered the cell, the depth of 
which was three times a man’s length. At midnight, Gos’s friends threw a 
rope into the grave, by means of which he climbed up and escaped. The 
unfortunate Mashan was left alone there, to realize the horrors of the 
grave. His mortal enemies, the “ Buddhist Ministers”, blocked the mouth 
of the grave with a huge rock and buried him alive. As soon as the king 
came of age, he invited the Indian Sage S'anta Bakshita and Pandit Padma 
Sambhava from Udyayana to fill the whole country of Tibet with the blessings 
of the Buddhist religion. They suppressed the eight kinds of demons, nymphs, 
and evil spirits. With the munificent assistance of the king, Padma Sam¬ 
bhava founded the great monastery of Samye (Z>Samyes). They also 
translated many works on Sutra (or aphorisms) and Tantra. They con¬ 
structed innumerable {religious symbols, such as images of Buddhas and 
saints and chhortens (chaitya), and concealed many sacred treasures 
for the benefit of future generations. During the reign of this king 
a Chinese sage named Hwashah Mahayana arrived in Tibet and, by 
interpreting in a strange way the theories of Buddhism, converted the 
ignorant classes of men to his tenets. The king, harbouring great doubts 
as to the correctness of Hwashan’s theories, invited Pandit Kamala- 
sila from India to expose his fallacies. Kamalasila held long controversies 
with Hwashah and in the end defeated him. The king put down the 
Bon religion and persecuted all unbelievers in Buddhism. He enforced 
clerical laws and instituted codes of civil and criminal justice for the 
good government of his people. His statutes were written on large tablets 
and proclaimed all over the country. He had several wives, among whom 
Tshe-poh-Ssah was his favourite, by whom he had three sons. After a 
prosperous reign of 46 years, at the age of 59, he passed away from the 
abodes of men. He left three sons, of whom the eldest Muni-tsanpo 
succeeded him on the throne. 
During the infancy of Muni-tsanpo the state affairs were conducted 
in his name by his pious ministers. He commenced his independent reign 
with a generous determination of raising all his subjects to the same level. 
He ruled that there should be no distinction between poor and rich, humble 
and great. He compelled the wealthy to share their riches with the indigent 
and helpless, and to make them their equal in all the comforts and conditions 
of life. Thrice he tried this exj)eriment, but every time he found that the poor 
»eturned to their former condition; the rich becoming richer still, and the 
poor, by growing more indolent and wretched, turning poorer still. The 
Pandits and Lochava attributed this curious phenomenon to the consequence 
of the good and evil acts of their former births. For the enlightened and 
humane beginning of his reign Muni-tsanpo was greatly loved by his people. 
