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first disciples to hold the so-called Vassa or yearly retirement, and the public meeting of the order at its close. In all these respects he was simply following the directions of the Vinaya, or regulations of the order, as established probably in the time of Gotama himself, and as certainly handed down from the earliest times in the piṯakas or sacred books. Further, he set his face against the Tantra system, and against the whole crowd of animistic superstitions which had been allowed to creep into life again among the more ignorant of the monks and the people. He laid stress on the self-culture involved in the practice of the pāramitās or cardinal virtues, and established an annual national fast or week of prayer to be held during the first days of each year. This last institution indeed is not found in the ancient Vinaya, but was almost certainly modelled on the traditional account of the similar assemblies convoked by Asoka and other Buddhist sovereigns in India every fifth year. Laymen as well as monks take part in the proceedings, the details of which are entirely unknown to us except from the accounts of the Catholic missionaries,—Fathers Huc and Gabet,—who describe the principal ceremonial as, in outward appearance, wonderfully like the high mass. In doctrine the great Tibetan teacher, who had no access to the Pāli Piṯakas, adhered in the main to the purer forms of the Mahāyāna school; in questions of church government he took little part, and did not dispute the titular supremacy of the Sākya Lāmas, though in other matters he had raised the standard of revolt. But the effects of his teaching weakened their power. The “orange-hoods,” as his followers were called, rapidly gained in numbers and influence, until they so overshadowed the “red-hoods,” as the followers of the older sect were called, that in the middle of the 15th century the emperor of China acknowledged the two leaders of the new sect at that time as the titular overlords of the church and tributary rulers over the realm of Tibet. These two leaders were then known as the Dalai Lāma and the Pantshen Lāma, and were the abbots of the great monasteries at Gedun Dubpa, near Lhasa, and at Krashis Lunpo, in Further Tibet, respectively. Since that time the abbots of these monasteries have continued to exercise the sovereignty over Tibet,—their pretensions being supported, in the few cases in which an attempt has been made to dispute it, by the power of Mongolia and China.

As there has been no further change in the doctrine, and no further reformation in discipline, we may leave the ecclesiastical history of Lāmāism since that date unnoticed, and devote our little remaining space to the consideration of some principal points in the constitution of the Lāmāism of to-day. And first as to the mode of electing successors to the two Great Lāmas. It will have been noticed above that it was an old idea of the northern Buddhists to look upon distinguished members of the order as incarnations of Avalokitesvara, of Mañju-srī, or of Amitābha. These beings were supposed to possess the power, whilst they themselves continued to live in heaven, of appearing also on earth in a Nirmāna-kāya, or apparitional body. In the same way the Pantshen Lāma is looked upon as an incarnation, the Nirmāna-kāya, of Amitābha, who had previously appeared in that way under the outward form of Tshonkapa himself; and the Dalai Lāma is looked upon as an incarnation of Avalokitesvara. Theoretically, therefore, the former, as the spiritual successor of the great teacher and also of Amitābha, who occupies the higher place in the mythology of the Great Vehicle, would be superior to the Litter, as the spiritual representative of Avalokitesvara. But practically the Dalai Lāma, owing to his position in the capital, has the political supremacy, and is actually called the Gyalpo Rinpotshe, the “glorious king,”—his companion being content with the title Pantshen Rinpotshe, “the glorious teacher.” When either of them dies it is necessary for the other to ascertain in whose body the celestial being whose outward form has been dissolved has been pleased again to incarnate himself. For that purpose the names of all male children born just after the death of the deceased Great Lāma are laid before his survivor. He chooses three out of the whole number; their names are thrown into a golden casket provided for that purpose by a former emperor of China. The Chutuktus, or abbots of the great monasteries, then assemble, and after a week of prayer, the lots are drawn in their presence and in presence of the surviving Great Lāma and of the Chinese political resident. The child whose name is first drawn is the future Great Lāma; the other two receive each of them 500 pieces of silver. The Chutuktus just mentioned correspond in many respects to the Roman cardinals. Like the Great Lāmas, they bear the title of Rinpotshe or Glorious, and are looked upon as incarnations of one or other of the celestial Bodisats of the Great Vehicle mythology. Their number varies from ten to a hundred; and it is uncertain whether the honour is inherent in the abbacy of certain of the greatest cloisters, or whether the Dalai Lāma exercises the right of choosing them. Under these high officials of the Tibetan hierarchy there come the Chubil Khāns, who fill the post of abbot to the lesser monasteries, and are also incarnations. Their number is very large; and there are but few monasteries in Tibet or in Mongolia who do not claim to possess one of these living Buddhas. Besides these mystical persons there are in the Tibetan Church a number of other ranks and degrees, corresponding to the deacon, full priest, dean, and doctor of divinity in the West. At the great yearly festival at Lhasa they make in the cathedral an imposing array, not much less magnificent than that of the clergy in Rome; for the ancient simplicity of dress has quite dis appeared in the growing differences of rank, and each division of the spiritual army is distinguished in Tibet, as in the West, by a special uniform. The political authority of the Dalai Lāma is confined to Tibet itself, but he is the acknowledged head also of the Buddhist Church throughout Mongolia and China. He has no supremacy over his co-religionists in Japan, and even in China there are many Buddhists who are not practically under his control or influence.

The principal authorities for the history of Buddhism have already been given at the close of the article Buddhism. To these may now be added T. W. Rhys Davids’s Buddhism, London, 1878; Buddhist Birth Stories, London, 1880; Buddhist Suttas from the Pāli, Oxford, 1881; and Hibbert Lectures, London, 1881; also Bushell, “The Early History of Tibet,” in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1879–80, vol. xii.; Sanang Setsen’s History of the East Mongols in Mongolian, translated into German by J. Schmidt (Geschichte der Ost-Mongolen) ; “Analyse du Kandjur,” by M. Léon Feer, in Annales du Musée Gaimet, 1881; Schott, Ueber den Buddhismus in Hoch-Asien; Gutzlaft, Geschichte des Chinesischen Reiches; Huc and Gabet, Souvenirs d’un Voyage, dans la Tartarie, le Tibet, et la Chine, Paris, 1858; Tallas’s Sammlung historischer Nachrichten über die Mongolischen Völkerschaften; and Bābu Sarat Chunder Das’s “Contributions on the Religion and History of Tibet,” in the Journal of the Bengal Asiatic Society, 1881.

(T. W. R. D.)

LAMA-MIAU, or Dolanor, one of the chief cities of Inner Mongolia, is situated 150 miles north of Peking, in a barren sandy plain watered by the Urtingol, a tributary of the Shandugol. The town proper, almost exclusively occupied by Chinese, is about a mile in length by half a mile in breadth, has narrow and dirty streets, and contains a large population for its extent. Unlike the ordinary Chinese town of the same rank, it is not walled. A busy trade is carried on between the Chinese and the Mongolians, who bring in their cattle, sheep, camels, hides, and wool to barter for tea, tobacco, cotton, and silk. At some distance from the Chinese town lies the Mongolian quarter, with