RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Lamaism Lambert
a fourth corresponds to the historical Buddha who is known as Amitabha and incarnated in the Tasi Lama; while the fifth is the 5. Charac- Bodhisat Padmapani, the coming Budteristics of dha and savior of the world, incar- Lamaism. nated recurrently in the Dalai Lama, who is therefore sacred. The Buddhist doctrines of heavens and hells is fully accepted, while the saints of the order are objects of adoration. The principle of reincarnation is applied not only to the two heads of the Church but to the abbots and monks, and most monasteries claim to have at least one incarnated saint. Syncretism is seen in the worship of deities and spirits whose disguise as Buddhist saints is transparent, and in the formulas of worship and ritual which retain elements from the bon ceremonial and from Hinduism. Similar traces of elementary religion are seen in the magical charms and the divination which still remain in use. Baptism, confirmation, and the mass for the dead are among the rites of the Church, while the rosary is everywhere found. Especial efficacy attaches to the Buddhist formula Ommani padme hum, " Oh the jewel in the lotus." Hence it is ever on the lips of the people, is inscribed on cylinders made to revolve by hand, water, or wind, and on flags which flutter in the wind, each turn or wave being regarded as a repetition of the prayer bringing merit to the owner or maker. Great merit is attached to the ascetic life, hence about one-fifth of the population are in the cloisters. Alongside the reincarnation of the male saints are those of females, reflecting perhaps the influence of the Sakti religions of India. Of two nunneries the abbesses are incarnations of deities probably derived from the early bon religion. Politics has influenced the Church to declare the emperors of China and Russia incarnations of Lamaist saints; curiously, the king of England is not so regarded, possibly because it is the heretical red monks who are most numerous on the Indian border. The accession to the headship depends upon the assumption that when a Dalai Lama dies the soul of the Boddhisat who lived in him is reincarnated in an infant born forty-nine or more days after his death. This infant is discovered in various ways — by the use of the lot, by divination, or, as in the case of the last Lama, by the intervention of a monk of pure life, who had first to be discovered. When found, the infant and his parents are brought to a palace near Lhasa, kept there till the child is four years of age, when he is entered as a novice; at eight years of age he becomes a monk, then abbot and Dalai Lama. In this way the real control of the Church and the direction of affairs is kept in the hands of the advisers, and the Dalai Lama is hardly more than the living idol of the population. Of the literature of the bon religion little is known, but such as has been investigated is in a native script and dialect, both of early 6. Tibetan date. The Lamaist literature consists Literature, of translations of the Buddhist canon and standard commentaries, and of the Tibetan writings of the monks on encyclopedic subjects. The canon embraces 1,083 titles, an immense mass of writings, which exists in several VI.— 26
recensions. The literature includes rules for the discipline of monks and nuns, metaphysical treatises, discourses of the Buddhas, legends from their lives, treatises on magic, hymns to deities, commentaries on the canon and commentaries on commentaries, dictionaries of philosophical terms and phraseology and of language, and works on philosophy, medicine, astronomy, and astrology, translated from the Sanscrit. Many of these are diglots of Sanscrit and Tibetan, and the literature has been translated also into Mongolian, a large collection of the plates of which was kept at Peking and destroyed during the Boxer uprising. The red church literature outside of the foregoing is by the yellow church held heterodox, and the principal work is the book of the legends of Padmasambhava, existing in many editions in Tibetan, Lepcha, and Mongolian. The popular literature is also immense and various — apocalyptic, miraculous, prophetic, and ritualistic. Noteworthy are the works of Milareba (1038-1122), a story of his life and travels, and the " Collection of 100,000 Songs." Both are valuable as pictures of the language and customs of the times. Another monk of about the same period, Kasarrgyalpo, wrote a huge epic on the deeds of heroes assigned to the eighth century, which has been widely diffused in the Mongolian and Kalmuck languages. The principal printing-press is at Nartang near Shigatse, in the jurisdiction of the Tasi Lama. Block printing is done from wooden plates, 12x24 inches in size, each block representing a page of text.
The language, while akin to the crude dialects of the wild peoples of the Himalayas, has been so developed by the monks as to be capable of expressing with fulness and precision the sublimest and subtlest thought of India. The religion of Lamaism has made of Tibet a land of culture so far as the monasteries are concerned, but has not raised the mass of the population much above the level of animistic peoples, so hedged about is life with ritualistic and magical observances. Geo. W. Gilmore.
Bibliography: The best account of the religion available in English is L. A. Waddell, The Buddhism of Tibet, London, 1894. An excellent though condensed account, covering the literature and the history, is A. Grtinwedel, in Die Kultur der Gegenwart, I., iii. 1, Die orientalischen Beligionen, pp. 136-161, Berlin, 1906, cf. his Mythologie des Buddhismus in Tibet und der Mongolei, Leipsic, 1900. The account in P. D. Chantepie de la Saussaye, Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, ii. 113-117, is so abbreviated as to be misleading. Material is found also in E. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Thibet, London, 1863; idem, Lebensbeschreibung des Padma Sambhava, in Abhandlungen der kbniglichen bayrischen Akademie, Munich, 1899, 1903; W W. Rockhill, The Lamaist Ceremony called " Making of Mani Pills," in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, 1890, pp. xxii.-xxiv.; idem, The Use of Skulls in Lamaist Ceremonies, ib. pp. xxiv.-xxxi.; Sarachandra Dasa, Journey to Lhasa and Central Tibet, London, 1902. Still of use is B. H. Hodgson, Essays on the Languages, Literature and Religion of Nepal and Tibet, ib. 1874. For travels consult: G. Sandberg, The Exploration of Tibet 1623-1904, Calcutta, 1904; W. W. Rockhill, The Land of the Lamas, New York, 1891; H. S. Landor, In the Forbidden Land, London, 1898; O. T. Crosby, Tibet and Turkestan, New York, 1905; L. A. Waddell, Lhassa and its Mysteries, with a Record of the (British) Expedition of 1903-04, London, 1905.
LAMBERT LE BEGUE: Belgian ecclesiastic; b. in the first quarter of the twelfth century of a
Lambert Lambeth