Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/372

348 insufficient to measure it. Among other things, they say the six classes of living beings correspond to these six syllables By continual See Note 4 to "Vikramâditja's Throne discovered." transmigrations according to merit, living beings pass through these six classes till they have attained the height of perfection, absorbed into the essence of Buddha Those who repeat the formula very frequently escape passing after death into these six classes The gem being the emblem of perfection, and the lotus of Buddha, it may perhaps be considered that these words express desire to acquire perfection in order to be united with Buddha—absorbed in the one universal soul: "Oh, the gem of the lotus, Amen," might then be paraphrased thus:—"O may I obtain perfection, and be absorbed in Buddha, Amen!" making it a summary of a vast system of Pantheism.

Buddhism, however, received its greatest and most remarkable modification in this part of the world from the teaching of an extraordinary Lama, named bThong-kha-pa, who rose to eminence in the reign of Jong-lo, and is regarded with greatest veneration among not only the Tibetians and Mongolians, including the remotest tribes of the Khalmouks, but also by the more polished Chinese, and more or less wherever Buddhism prevails.

Though subsequently pronounced to be an incarnation of Shiva he was born in the year 1357, in the Lamaseri of ssKu-bun = "a hundred thousand images," on the Kuku-noor, or Blue Lake, in the south-west part of the Amdo country, several days' journey from the city of Sining-fu. In his youth he travelled to gTsang-lschhn, or Lhassa, in order to gain the most perfect knowledge of Buddhist teaching, and during his studies there determined on effecting various reforms in the prevailing ideas. He met with many partisans, who adopted a yellow cap as their badge, in contradistinction from the red cap heretofore worn, and styled themselves the dGe-luges-pa = "the Virtuous." Besides introducing a stricter discipline his chief development of the Buddhist doctrines consisted in teaching distinctly that Buddha was possessed of a threefold nature, which was to be recognized, the first in his laws, the second in his perfections, the third in his incarnations.

The supreme rule of the Buddhist religion in Tibet also received its present form under the impulse of his labours. His nephew, dGe-dun-grub-pa (born circa 1390, died 1475), was the first Dalai Lama. He built the celebrated Lama Palace of bKra-schiss-Lhun-po, thirty miles N. of Lhassa, in 1445. Under him, too, was established the institution