called to our thoughts those monasteries raised by the hospitality of our own religious ancestors, in which travellers and the poor always found refreshment for the body and consolation for the soul."

The more enlightened Lamas manifest a beautiful spirit of toleration toward other religions. When the missionaries Huc and Gabet expounded Christianity to some of the Lamas of Thibet, they listened respectfully, and quietly replied: "Well, we do not suppose that our prayers are the only prayers in the world." Upon one occasion, a Lama of high rank, one of the Incarnations of Bouddha, arrived with a numerous retinue at the inn where these missionaries had put up for the night. When he sought an interview with them, they treated him kindly, but without reverence, not rising when he entered, and remaining seated while talking with him, though everybody else prostrated themselves before him. He took no offence, but was extremely gentle and affable in his manners. A Roman Catholic Breviary was lying on the table, and he admired its gilded edges and rich binding. When they explained what it was, he raised it reverentially to his forehead, saying: "It is your book of prayer. We ought always to honour and respect prayer." He supposed them to be English, or Russians. When told they were French, he exclaimed: "Ah, the West contains so many kingdoms! But what matter where you are from? All men are brothers." In answer to some inquiries by the same missionaries, the Regent of Thibet replied: “Even if our laws did prohibit strangers from entering our country, those laws could not affect you. Men of prayer belong to all countries. They are strangers nowhere. Such is the doctrine taught by our Holy Books."

All the religious orders preserve old-fashioned simplicity with regard to food and raiment. None of them go without clothing, like some of the Hindoo devotees; but some of them wear merely enough for purposes of modesty, and all dress very plainly. The universal colour of their garments is deep yellow. In Birmah and Siam the persons VOL. I.-20*

of Lamas are inviolable, and the lands belonging to Lamaseries are exempted from taxation. But the princes watch them with jealous eyes, and do not allow them to meddle in the least degree with political affairs. Any indulgence of sensual appetites is at once punished by a public and disgraceful expulsion from the brotherhood; but this penalty is rarely incurred. It is probably owing to such restriction of power, and watchfulness over morals, that the clergy of Birmah are generally exemplary men, and have a respectable knowledge of literature, compared with other classes in Asia. Among the Lamas of Thibet, and other Buddhist countries, there are also many individuals of great worth and considerable learning; but a large proportion of them are too ignorant to understand the Sanscrit prayers, which they repeat by rote. Among the Calmucks there is an inferior order of the clergy, who are allowed to marry; and innovations of this kind have crept into some other countries. But celibacy is everywhere required of those who fill the higher offices of the priesthood.

As the early devotees changed into a numerous and powerful body of priests, they gradually relaxed in devotional exercises that required much effort, and substituted in their stead an endless routine of ceremonies. The sound of the tom-tom and gong is perpetually heard from the Lamaseries, summoning the inmates to the performance of some rite. They have prayers and chants three times a day, morning, noon, and evening, as the Bramins did in Hindoo forests, ages and ages ago. Like them, also, they practise daily ablutions, and place offerings on the tombs. of ancestors, with prayers to shorten the term of unhappy transmigration for their souls. They have a great number of prescribed formulas, among which they regard as most efficacious their six mystic syllables, “Om mani padma houm," said to have been revealed to them by the first old anchorite on Bouddha La. A vast number of commentaries have been written to explain these holy words. Om is the mystic term to express the Creative Word. Mani

is said to signify a gem; padma, a lotus; and houm, amen. They attach as much value to this phrase, as Hindoos do to Om and the Gayatri. To repeat it often and devoutly is thought to be the most efficacious mode of escaping from unhappy transmigrations, and of becoming finally absorbed in Bouddha. People are continually saying over these syllables on their rosaries, they are repeated thousands of times in their public ceremonies, and are every where inscribed on the walls of temples, the rocks of sacred mountains, the banners carried in procession, and the flags floating over their doors. Rich devotees maintain, at their own expense, companies of Lamas to travel over hill and dale, carving this sacred formula on rocks and stones. Both priests and people attribute magical virtue to the recitation of these syllables, independent of the thought or feeling with which they are pronounced. One of the religious writers of Thibet says: "Mount Sumeru can be weighed in a balance; the great ocean can be drained drop by drop; the immense forests of the kingdom of snows (Thibet) can be reduced to ashes, and the atoms of these ashes can be counted; the drops of a continual rain during twelve months might be numbered; but the virtues of a single recitation of these six syllables are incalculable."

Like the Hindoo hermits of very ancient times, they make use of long rosaries of seed, or beads. Devotees may be continually met, fingering their beads as they walk, and repeating, "Om mani padma houm." Some of their rosaries are very richly ornamented. In all the great Lamaseries they have machines which resemble a barrel and turn on an axle. They are composed of a vast number of sheets of paper, written all over with prayers, and pasted together till they form a substance thick as a board. When set in motion, it turns of itself for a long while, and he who turns has the merit of having said all the prayers it contains. Sometimes quarrels arise among the devotees, because one comes and stops the barrel set in motion by another, and turns it again for his own benefit. All the streams near Lamaseries are interrupted by dams, con

structed for the purpose of turning numerous prayer-wheels, the motion of which is considered equivalent to repeating prayers day and night for those who erected them. The Tartars place them over their fireplaces, where, being moved by the draught, they are supposed to repeat prayers incessantly for the safety and prosperity of the household. In Japan, almost every mountain, hill, and cliff, is sacred to some presiding saint, to whom travellers are requested, by inscribed tablets, to address prayers as they pass. As this would occupy too much time, upright posts are placed on the roadside, with an iron plate fastened on the top; and turning a plate is equivalent to repeating a prayer.

Priests teach that whosoever consecrates a son or a daughter to the monastic life, is not only a religious benefactor, but thereby becomes a relation of Bouddha. The princess Sanghamitta and her brother are mentioned in early records as having been thus consecrated by their royal parents. They wrought many miracles, "became like the Sun and the Moon, illuminating the whole land with the religion of Bouddha,” and finally, while yet in the body, attained complete absorption into the Supreme Being. A princess in Ceylon hearing the renown of their sanctity, became interested to know by what process it was acquired; and Sanghamitta went to that island, to initiate her into the holy life. Several other women joined them, and lived together in secluded apartments, where they spent their time in contemplation and prayer. This is supposed to have been the beginning of Buddhist nunneries.

Lamas are exceedingly numerous. In the Chinese empire alone there are reckoned to be more than a million. In Tartary, all the male children, except the oldest sons, are brought up as Lamas. In Siam they are called Talapoins; in China, Ho Chang; but European writers generally style all Buddhist monks and priests, Bonzes. The reverence bestowed on saintly character, and the facility of obtaining a living by assuming it, are of course strong temptations to the indolent and selfish, who practise

many impositions on the credulous people. The old Asiatic idea that diseases are occasioned by Evil Spirits, who have taken possession of the human body, and can be cast out by forms of prayer, or at the command of holy men, is universally believed. In Tartary, rich families are sometimes told that it is necessary to give the demon a rich suit of clothes, or a valuable horse, to induce him to depart. When the required articles are bestowed, the Lamas recite prayers and perform ceremonies, a week or fortnight, till the invalid is either dispossessed of the demon, or dies. In the latter case, mourners are comforted by the assurance that his soul has transmigrated to a much happier state than it possibly could have done without their prayers. Sometimes they make an image to represent the Evil Spirit, on which they pronounce curses, accompanied by furious gestures and the din of noisy instruments, and at last they set fire to the image. The expense of casting out a devil sometimes proves ruinous to the fortune of a patient. Such practices are disapproved by the better sort of Lamas. The Superior of one of the Lamaseries said to the French missionaries: "When a person is ill, the recitation of prayers is proper; for Bouddha is the master of life and death. It is he who rules the transmigration of beings. To take remedies is also fitting; for the great virtue of medicinal herbs comes to us from Bouddha. That devils may possess rich persons is credible, but to give them horses, garments, and other rich presents to induce them to depart, is a fiction invented by ignorant and deceiving Lamas, who thus try to accumulate wealth at the expense of their brothers."

Many of the devotees have no settled abode, but are always wandering about asking alms. In Japan especially, crowds of men and women, with shaven heads, are traversing the country in all directions, living at the expense of the industrious. The character of many of them is said. to be far from stainless. Sometimes they attempt to excite compassion by fastening to their neck and feet a heavy chain, which they drag through the streets with great