Page:History of Indian and Eastern Architecture Vol 1.djvu/339

 CHAP. II. TIBET. 293 though inferior to this one, are still objects of worship in the places where they reside, and by particular sects of Buddhists. 1 It is this worship of a living, rather than of a dead deity, that marks the difference of the forms of Buddhism in India and Tibet. In the countries we have hitherto been describing no actual incarnation of a Buddha is believed to have taken place since the death of Sakyamuni though there have been many saints and holy men ; in India, therefore, they have been content to worship images of the departed, or relics which recall his presence. In Tibet, where their divinity is still present among them, continually transmigrating, but never dying, of course such a form of worship is absurd ; no relic of a still living god can logically exist, though this has probably never been thought of, and the chaityas of the Great Lamas are honoured, and worshipped in the palace or monastery occupied by their successors. The earliest monastery founded in Tibet is that of Sam-yas, about 35 miles south-east from Lhasa, near the Sang-po river. It was established by a famous teacher, Padma Sambhava, who went from Bihar with other Buddhist teachers, about the middle of the 8th century. He is said to have modelled it after the great temple monastery of Otantapuri, near Nalanda, and it became the metropolis of the Red-cap order. 2 The monastery, with its large temple and four separate colleges, is enclosed by a circular wall about a mile and a half in circuit, and contains a notable library and the State treasury. Another Indian Pandit, named Atisha, came from the Vikrama^ila monastery about 1038 and restored the Lamaism of his time, establishing what afterwards became the Yellow -cap or Gelugpa order of Lamas, which became the State church when its chiefs, the Dalai Lamas, usurped the temporal power. The monastery of Sakya, about 50 miles west-south-west from Shigatse, was founded in 1071. Its Grand Lama was acknowledged by Khubilai Khan in 1270 as head of the church, and made tributary prince of Tibet. This position his successors maintained for a century, and the sect played an important role in the history of Tibet till the Gelugpas super- seded it early in the I5th century. The establishment is said to contain the largest single building in Tibet: it is seven 1 The heads of the Pan-chhen Rin-po- ches of Tashi-lhunpo are regarded as perpetual incarnations of Amitabha. The Tar&natha Dalai Ldmas have their seat at Urga in Mongolia, whither the late Lama Pope fled. 2 Otantapuri and Vikramarila' monas- teries were most probably among those destroyed by Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji about 1194. 'Jour. Asiat. Soc. Bengal,' vol. Ivi. pt. i. p. 19, and vol. iii. (1907), p. 221 ; Griinwedel, ' Mythologie des Buddhismus in Tibet,' etc., p. 55 ; L. de Milloue, ' Bod-Youl ou Tibet,' pp. 28iff. ; Elliot, 'History of India,' vol. ii. PP- 35 f -