BRITISH MISSIONS TO BHUTAN
As to the exact constitution of this theocracy, Bogle is not very clear, but he probably means that it was made up of the priests and heads of the monasteries under the Dharma Raja.
He divides the inhabitants into three classes—the priests, the servants or officers of Government, and the landholders and husbandmen.
The priests were formed from the body of the people, were received at an early age, and when admitted into orders took oaths of chastity. The second class comprehended the ministers and governors of provinces, tax-collectors, and ail their train of dependents. They were not prohibited from marrying, yet, finding it a bar to their preferment, seldom entered that state. Like the priests, they were taken from families in the country. They were bred up in the palaces under the patronage of some man in office, by whom they were fed and clothed, but received no wages. They seldom arrived at places of trust or consequence till far advanced in life, and passed through all the gradations of service. It was no uncommon thing to see a minister as expert in mending a shoe or making a tunic as in settling the business of the nation. The landholders and husbandmen, though by far the most numerous class, and “that which gives birth to the other two,” were entirely excluded from any share in the administration. Bogle evidently means that the members of the agricultural class have no chance of entering public life unless they are caught up early in childhood and trained in the households of men in office. He is not very clear in his definition of the position of the lamas. “The lamas,” he says, “are first in rank, and nominally first in power. They enjoy a joint authority, and in all their deliberations are assisted by the clergy. The lamas, though nominally superior in government, yet, as they owe their appointment to the priests, are tutored by them from their earliest infancy, and deriving all their knowledge of public affairs from them, are entirely under their management. The
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