Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 11.djvu/783

* LAXO. 709 LAMAISM. f and composed Le rot d'Ys (1888), a comic opera in four acts. Its beauties were at once recog- nized, and it has ever sin(ri' liecn regarded a= his masterpiece. An untinislicd oiiera. Lit Juc- queric, was completed by ('(jcpKud, and plaj'ed at Monte Carlo in IS'.to. Lain ranks high among modern French composers. His oreliest ration is daint}' and scholarly, and remarkable for its reat flexil)ility; while all his music is marked &v warmth and color. Other works include: Ij'iillci/ro si/i)ii>lioiii(iue. Concerto for the cello, I{liiij)>ioili(' )ionrr<iicnne, anil a Concerto for the I'iano. He died in Paris. LA LUZ, la hxith. The harbor of Las Palmas (<l.v. ). Canary Islands. LAMA. A genus, formerly known as Auche- nia, of the Camelid;e Iq.v. ), composed of the guanaco, llama, alpaca, and vicuna (qq.v.). It has been specially studied by 0. Thomas (Pro- ceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1891), who concludes that the llama and alpaca are forms of the guanaco {Lama huanacha) . and that the vicuna {Lama vicugna) is distinct. LAMACHUS, lam'a-kiis ( Lat., from Gk. Aifxaxoi. l-iiiii"clios} I c.40.5-414 B.C. ) . An Athenian commander. He took part in the earlier cam- paigns of the Peloponnesian War; in B.C. 433 drove Timesilaus from Sinope; was in command of a lleet in the Euxine (4"J4). and signed the Peace of Nicias (421). But he is better known for his bravery in the Sicilian expedition, where he was in command with Alcibiades and Nicias. He was killed in the summer oi 414, in a skirmish with the Syracusans. He was ridiculed as a member of the war party by Aristophanes. LAMAISM. la'ma-Iz'm (from Tibetan hlamn, superior, lama ). The name given to that form of Buddhism which prevails in Tibet and Jlongolia. It is BuiMhism (q.v.) corrupted by Sivaism (see Siv.) and by Shamanism (q.v.). The re- ligion was not known in Tibet until the seventh century a.d.. when King .'■Jroii Tsan Oampo (a.d. 638-fi4n married two princesses, one from India and one from Western China, bnlh of wlioni were devoted Buddhists. Through their influence this monarch became converted to the faith of the Enlightened One. But Srofi Tsan appears to have been a Buddhist more in naine than in fact: it was left to a later king, Tbi-Sron Detsan. to become the true promoter and ardent upholder of the faith. This ruler invited a Buddhist monk named Padma-Sambhava, nr 'T.otus-Born.' to come from Xnrthern India to Tibet, wliieh he did in the year A.n. 747. and became the real founder, organi/er. and patron saint of Laniaism as the religion of Tibet. He gave his attention at once to checking sorcery and devilish practices, and, aided by the King, he established the order of I.ama priests. The character of this new Tibetan faith, as Waddell points out. was largely "ji priestly mixture of Sivaite mysticism, magic, and Indo-Tilictan demonolatry. overlaid by a tliin var- nish of .Mahayana lXorthern| Buddhism. And to the present day Laniaism still retains this character." From the date of its founding the religion continued to develop and spread until about A.D. 000. when it received a check and under- went a brief period of persecution or reaction; but it soon recovered, growing stronger than ever, and continuing to ailvance until in the seven- teenth century Church and State beeanie united in a single priestly indivi.lual. It was Xag-wan Lii- zang, the fifth Grand Lama, who in A.D. 1640, by a stroke of statecraft, got himself confirmed as the Dalai-Lama, or Lama vast as the Ocean, and the modern period of Laniaism may be said to have begun with him. To-day Laniaism extends beyond the borders of Tibet to the Kalinuk Ta- tars on the banks of the Volga, through Siberia, Manchuria, Mongolia, and scatteringly in China, so that it is estimated that its followers number no fewer than 10,000.000. With regard to doctrine and religious belief, the Buddhistic theory of the universe, with its Hindu heaven and hell and its general .system ol morality, w'as adopted, but the presence of abun- dant extraneous matter or foreign accretions has already been mentioned. As ancient Bud- dhism knows of no worship of God, but merely of an adoration of saints, the latter is also the main feature of Laniaism. The essence of all that is sacred is comprised by this religion under the name of dKon mChliog gSsum (pronounced Pon-ch'og-stim), which consists of the ■three most precious jewels' — 'the Buddha-jewel,' the 'doe- trine-jewel,' and 'the priesthood-jewel' — which represent a kind of trinity, with essential unity. The first person of this trinit}' is the Buddha; but he is not the creator, or the origin of the universe: as in Buddhism, he is merely the founder of the doctrine, the highest saint, though endowed with all the qualities of su]ireme wisdom, power, virtue, and beauty, which raise liiiii beyond the jiale of ordinary existence. The second jewel, or the doctrine, is the law or reli- gion — that which isj as it were, the incarna- tion of the Buddha, his actual existence after he had disappeared in Nirvana. The third jewel, or the priesthood, is the congregation of the saints, comprising the whole clerg^'. the in- carnate as Avell as the non-incarnate representa- tives of the various Buddhistic saints. The latter comprise the five Dhyani-Buddhas. or the Bud- dhas of Contemplation, and. besides all those myriads of Bodhisattvas, Pratyeka-Buddhas, or solitari' saints who have attained perfection by themselves without the Supreme Buddha's help, and pious men. who beeanie canonized after their death. It is obvious that among their num- ber a portion only can enjoy practical worship; but the clerg", as the visible representative of these saints, claim and receive due homage at all the religious ceremonies. Inferior in rank to these saints are the gods and spirits, the former chiefly taken from the pantheon of the Sivaites. The highest position among these is occupied by the four spirit-kings — -Indra (q.v.), the god of the firmament: Yama. the god of death and the infernal regions: Yamantaka, or Siva, as revenger in his most formidable shape: and Vai.?r<avaha, or the god of wealth. Besides all these, there are a number of genii, tutelary demons, and spirits, which receive recognition or worship. The worship of these saints, gods, and spirits consists chiefly in the reciting of prayers and sacred texts, and in the intonation of hymns, accompanied with a kind of music, which is a chaos of deafening sounds of horns, trumpets, and drums. During this worship, which takes place three times a day, the clergj-. summoned by the tolling of a little bell, are seated in two or more lows, according to their rank: and on special holidays, the shrines, temples, and altars are decorated with symbolical figures, while offer- ings of tea, flour, milk, butter, and others of a