INTRODUCTION. 
XV 
this interval, by employing his whole time and talents, in cultivating 
the good will of the Lama, and gratifying his insatiable thirst for 
_ \ 
foreign knowledge, Mr. Bogle so ingratiated himself into his confi¬ 
dence, as to be intrusted, some time after, with a considerable remit¬ 
tance in money, for the purpose of building a temple and a dwelling 
house, for the accommodation of his votaries to Bengal, on the banks 
of the Ganges. A piece of ground, on the opposite side of the river to 
Calcutta, was purchased, and granted to the Lama, on his application 
to the Governor for this purpose. 
In the letter which the Lama wrote to the Governor upon this 
occasion, he stated, as a motive for making the request which it con¬ 
tained, that although in, the different periods of his reviviscenee he 
had chosen many regions for the places of his birth, yet Bengal was 
the only country in which he had been born twice; for which reason 
he had a predilection for it beyond any other, and was desirous of 
making it a place of his abode, apparently esteeming the sanctity of 
the Ganges, as a consideration of inferior importance. At length, in 
the year 1779, when the Lama, yielding to the repeated solicitations 
of the Emperor of China^ visited Pekin; he, with the same spirit of 
personal kindness, and in the desire of improving his connexion with 
the government of Bengal, desired Mr. Bogle to go round by sea to 
Canton, promising to obtain the Emperor’s pass for him to proceed, 
and join him at the capital. The Emperor’s promise was also obtained, 
to permit the first openings of an intercourse between that country 
