Page:Narratives of the mission of George Bogle to Tibet.djvu/52

Rh yellow dress, and are distinguished as the Yellow Cap, or GelupkaGelukpa [sic] sect; since the days of Tsong-khapa they have been in the ascendant in Tibet.

Gedun-tubpa, another great reformer, was contemporary with Tsong-khapa, having been born in 1339, and dying in 1474. He bfuilt the monastery at Teshu Lumbo in 1445, and it was in the person of this perfect Lama, as he was called, that the system of perpetual incarnation commenced. He was himself the incarnation of the Buddhisatwa Padma Pani, and on his death he relinquished the attainment of Buddha-hood that he might be born again and again for the benefit of mankind. When he died, his successor was found as an infant, by the possession of certain divine marks.

Thus arose the two powerful Abbots of Galdan and Teshu Lumbo, both of the GelupkaGelukpa [sic] or Yellow sect; but the former were soon eclipsed by the superior piety and learning of the incarnations at Teshu Lumbo; and the sixth in succession of those incarnations made himself master of all Tibet, and founded the successions of the Dalai and Teshu Lamas as they now exist. This was Navang Lobsang. He rebuilt the palace or monastery of Potala, at Lhasa, in 1643, and in 1650 he visited the Emperor of China, and accepted the designation of Dalai (or ocean) Lama. After a long reign he went away to reappear as two infants, if not three; for, although he was the fifth Teshu Lama, he was the first Dalai; and since his time there have been two great incarnations of equal rank: the Dalai Lama at Potala, who is an incarnation of the Buddhisatwa Avalokiteswara; and the Teshu Lama at Teshu Lumbo, the incarnation of the Buddhisatwa Amitabha, and also of Tsong-khapa, who was himself the incarnation of Amitabha. The Dalai Lama also has the title of Gyalba Rimboche, or "the Gem of Majesty;" and the Teshu Lama that of Panchen Rimboche, or "the Gem of Learning." When the Lamas assume political functions they are also Gyalpo or king; but the regency at Lhasa is generally held by a vicegerent or temporal sovereign,