Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume II.djvu/24

 10 CHRISTIANITY IN CHINA, ETC. office of Grand Lama did not exist in the days of Tchinguiz-Khan, and was only instituted by his succes- sors. Kublai-Khan, after subduing China, adopted the Buddhist doctrines, which had made considerable pro- gress among the Tartars. In the year 1261 he raised a Buddhist priest named Mati to the dignity of head of the Faith in the empire. This priest is better known under the name of Pakbo Lama, or supreme Lama : he was a native of Thibet, and had gained the good graces and confidence of Kublai, who, at the same time that he conferred on him the supreme sacerdotal office, invested him with the temporal power in Thibet, with the titles of " King of the Great and Precious Law " and " Institutor of the Empire." Such was the origin of the Grand Lamas of Thibet, and it is not impossible that the Tartar Emperor, who had had frequent communica- tions with the Christian missionaries, may have wished to create a religious organisation after the model of the Romish liierarchy, with which he was well ac- quainted. Thibet had not been a monarchy for many centuries, and the various tribes of the country obeyed each a different chief. In order the better to establish his own dominion, Kublai divided it into provinces, governed each by an ecclesiastic, who in turn was subject to the sovereign pontiff whom he had appointed. A hundred years later, Buddhism underwent impor- tant changes, and the forms of worship were introduced which present such a striking analogy to the Catholic liturgy. The Lama reform arose in the country of Amdo, to the south of Koukou-Noor, where we resided six months in our travels through Thibet in 1845. This part of the country is inhabited by the Si Fans,