aries, Huc and Gabet, had seen some coloured lithographs representing our Saviour Jesus Christ, and various episodes of Bible history. The Lama alleged against the creed of these missionaries, that it does not afford final emancipation. According to the principles of their religion, he said, the pious are rewarded with a re-birth among the servants of the supreme God, when they are obliged to pass an eternity in reciting hymns, psalms, and prayers, in his glory and honour. Such beings, he argued, are consequently not yet freed from metempsychosis; for who can assert, that, in the event of their relaxing in the duty assigned them, they shall not be expelled from the world where God resides, and in punishment be re-born in the habitation of the wretched.1 Buddhist doctrines, the Lama concluded, are certainly preferable to this theory: they do not allow a man to be deprived of the fruits of the good works performed during life; and if once arrived at final perfection, he is never again, under any circumstances, subjected to metempsychosis, although, at the same time, if desiring to benefit animated beings, he is at liberty to re-assume the human form, whenever it pleases him, without being obliged to retain it or to suffer from any of its disadvantages.

The happy region Sukhavati, where thrones Amitābha, lies towards the west.2 In Sanskrit it is called Sukha

In the prints seen by the Lama angels were doubtless depicted soaring in the air and hovering round the chief figures of the picture. He must have also heard of the expulsion of the bad angels from heaver..

2 Genuine Buddhism rejects the idea of a particular locality being appropriated to Nirvana. In the remarkable treatise entitled Milinda prasna,

1

SUKHAVATI, THE ABODE OF THE BLESSED.

101

vati, "abounding in pleasures;" in Tibetan Devachan, "the happy;" the Chineses designate it Ngyan-lo, "pleasure;" Kio-lo "the greatest pleasure;" Tsing-tu "pure or glorious land;" and in sacred treatises it is denominated "the pure region, a kind of prosperity." We find an account of this glorious region of Amitabha in many religious books. Sukhavati is declared to be a large lake, the surface of which is covered with lotus-flowers (Padmas), red and white, with perfumes of rare odour. These flowers form the couches for pious men, whose virtues were the cause of their growth, while yet sojourners upon earth. Such men, after being purified from their sins, soar up into their lotus-flowers. The inhabitants. of this paradise are moved to earnest devotion by the beautiful song of paradisiacal birds, and receive food and clothes for the mere wishing, without any exertion on

translated by Hardy in his works on Buddhism, the priest Nāgasena (Nägärjuna), is said to have replied to the King Milinda of Sangala (who ruled about 140 B.C.; see A. Weber, Indische Studien, Vol. III., p. 121), in answer to his inquiries about the nature, essence, and locality of Nirvana: "Nirvana is wherever the precepts can be observed; and there may be the observance in Yawana, China, Milata, Alasanda, Nikumba, Kāsi, Kōsala, Kasmira, Ghandhara, the summit of Maha Mēru, or the Brahma-lokas; it may be anywhere; just as he who has two eyes can see the sky from any or all of these places; or as any of these places may have an eastern side." Eastern Monachism, p. 300.

1 Some descriptions of this region were translated from the Mongolian and Chinese into European languages by Pallas, "Mongol. Völker,” Vol. II. p. 63 (his description, however, seems not to have been correctly be rendered from the original text, see Schott); Schmidt, "Geschichte Ssanang Ssetsens," p. 323 (from the Bodhimör); Kowalewsky in his "Mongolian Chrestomathy" (in Russian), Vol. II., p. 319. Schott, "Der Buddhaismus in Hochasien," pp. 50-9. Compare also the analysis of the Sukhavati vyuha in Burnouf's "Introduction," p. 99, and in Csoma's paper, As. Res., Vol. XX., p. 439. Among other Tibetan books containing a description of it, are the Mani Kambun and the Odpagmed kyi shing kod, "construction of Amitabha's land." The library of St. Petersburgh has a copy of it in a Mongolian translation, entitled: Abida in oronu dsokiyal.

their part. They have not yet reached the estate of a Buddha, but have entered the direct path which leads to it; they are endowed with the faculty of assuming human forms and descending upon earth; although when doing so, they are not subjected to a repetition of births, but rise again to the region they have left. Re-birth into a Padmaflower of this paradise is obtained by invocations of the Buddhas, and more particularly of Amitābha; a form of devotion, according to the Tsing tu nen, translated by Schott, involving greater merit, than that of offerings and mortifications,

CHAPTER X.

DETAILS CHARACTERISTIC OF THE RELIGION OF THE PEOPLE.

AMOUNT OF RELIGIOUS KNOWLEDGE.-GODS, GENII AND MALIGNANT SPIRITS. The spirits Lhamayin and Dudpos. The legends about Lhamo, Tsangpa, and Chakdor.-PRAYERS.

Amount of religious knowledge.

IT is evident that a religion containing so much of philosophical speculation and divided into many various systems, schools and sects, cannot be known in its full extent by the lower classes forming the bulk of the population, but only by those of a certain degree of education. Csoma, who paid great attention during his personal intercourse to the general amount of religious knowledge amongst the various classes, gives the following details in his "Notices:"1

"The systems Vaibhashika, Sautrāntika, Yogacharya, and Madhyamika, are well known to many of the learned 1 Journ. As. Soc. Beng., Vol. VII., p. 145.

in Tíbet; but there are, on the other hand, many who are acquainted with their names only. The works explanatory of the Yogacharya and Madhyamika theories can be understood only by the learned, because they deal with too many abstract terms and minute distinctions, while the generality of the religious persons (or the clergy) prefer reading Tantrika works, and of the Kanjur, the Dulva (or discipline), and some tracts of the Do (or Sūtra) class." He adds, that the Tibetans are tolerably familiar with the dogma of the "three vehicles" (Tib. Thegpasum, Sanskr. Triyāna). This dogma, which has been taken from the Mahayana schools, is explained in detail in the Tibetan compendiums entitled Lamrim, or the gradual way to perfection, of which the most celebrated was written by Tsonkhapa. The argumentations of these books are taken from the consideration, that the dogmas of the Buddha are intended alike for the lowest, the mean or middle, and the highest capacities; as they contain low, or vulgar, middle, and high principles; thus, from the knowledge of each of these classes a particular degree of perfection is deducible. They then describe what a man must believe according to his capacities, in the following terms:

1. "Men of vulgar capacities must believe, that there is a God, that there is a future life, and that they shall earn the fruits of their works in this, their worldly life.

2. Those that are in a middle degree of intellectual and moral capacity, besides admitting the former Compare p. 22.