Page:The Visit of the Teshoo Lama to Peking.djvu/29

Rh mourning had elapsed, he made arrangements to have the body conveyed to Tashi-lhunpo, with all possible funeral pomp, on the day of the Fire-Dragon (or the 13th) day of the 2nd moon in the year of the Golden Ox, which must be February or March of 1781.

The Emperor in person went with the procession, as far as he "thought it proper," and his eldest son accompanied it the distance of three days' journey from the capital. Then the coffin was carried on the shoulders of men to Tashi-lhunpo, which the cortège reached after seven months and eight days.

The Emperor erected a mausolem in Tashi-lhunpo, a reference to which is found in Captain Turner's "Account of an Embassy, etc."..... ....: The "Teshoo Lama," I was told, had lavished upon this shrine of his predecessor immense wealth; yet his own, which was nearly completed before his visit to the Emperor of China, had been since greatly enriched by the tributary offerings made to him on that journey (by the Emperor), and was now considered as the more splendid and magnificent of the two................

It now appeared that the building we had hitherto seen, served only as a case to cover a most beautiful pyramid placed within it. At the base of this pyramid the body of the late lama was deposited in a coffin of pure gold, made by command of the Emperor of China upon the decease of the Lama at his court, and in which the body was conveyed, with the utmost solemnity and state, from Peking through the provinces of China and Tibet to Teshoo Loomboo."

The Dagoba in the Yellow Temple for which the