Page:Three Years in Tibet.djvu/544

514 However, even the Tsan-ni's painstaking efforts appear to have fallen short of his expectations, and there is a danger of a reaction setting in against him.

It must be remembered that the sentiment of the common people towards China still retains its old force, even though they know that the power of their old patron has considerably declined lately. They are well aware that Tibet has been placed from time immemorial in a state of vassalage to China, that Prince Srong-tsan Gambo who first introduced Buḍḍhism into Tibet had as his wife a daughter of the then Emperor of China, while the Tibetans believe that the present Emperor of China is an incarnation of a Buḍḍhist deity (the Chang-chub Semba Tambe yang in Tibetan) worshipped on Mount Utai, China. And so both from tradition and prejudice and from present superstition, the mass of the people, who are conservative, cannot but regard China with a lingering sentiment of respect and attachment, and the position which China still occupies in the niches of their hearts can hardly be supplanted by Russia, even when the Tsan-ni Kenbo ingeniously represents her as the country indicated in the Tibetan Book of Prophecy.

As I have mentioned before, some few of the influential Government officials do not seem to approve of the Tsan-ni's movement. They even suspect that Russia might have some sinister object in view when she presented gold and other valuable things to the Dalai Lama and others. Tibet has no newspapers, but even without that organ of public opinion the public become acquainted sooner or later with most important occurrences, and so it stands to reason that the unfavorable view which is secretly entertained by a limited number of thoughtful men must have leaked out one way or other to at least a section of the public. The result is that not a small number of priests have begun to side, though not as an organised