TIBET. 
275 
of the Hindoo mythology. Ail of these are to be met with in this col¬ 
lection, as I gathered from the communications of the Goseins, with 
whom I had afterwards frequent opportunities of visiting the gallery 
at my leisure. The idols, I learnt, were not all of equal sanctity ; some 
of them merely represented devout and pious men, in different acts of 
religion, or exercises of their faith. 
Whilst I resided at Teshoo Loomboo, I accidentally obtained know¬ 
ledge of one method, by which this cabinet is occasionally recruited. 
A senior of the Gylongs, or priests, who was styled Lama, which 
is the highest rank in that order, happened to die in an apartment 
not far from our own, and the occasion gave rise to a long and noisy 
ceremony of invocation, prayer, and purification, in the habitation 
where he had lived. His body, I was informeor, was burnt with 
sandal wood, and its ashes were afterwards carefully collected, and 
lodged within a small brass image, which was immediately translated 
to a place, among the other sacred inhabitants of the gallery. This 
cabinet, therefore, probably contains the earthly remains of a long 
series of generations of Gylongs, who from their superior sanctity, have 
in all ages, been deemed worthy to contribute to its decoration, by 
increasing the quantity of its hallowed furniture. Merit has thus, in 
I 
Tibet, a brazen monument erected to its memory. 
The manufacture of images, is an art for which they are famous in 
this country. Teshoo Loomboo has an extensive board of works, esta¬ 
blished under the direction of the monastery, and constantly employed 
in this manufacture. When images of their fabrication were pointed 
out to me, by the side of others, which had been brought from China, 
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