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The general organization of the monasteries in Tartary and Tibet, the costume of the Lamas, and many particulars of the manner in which religious service is celebrated in the temples, have often struck travellers as presenting close analogies to the conventual system and the religious offices of the Roman Catholic Church. In this latter respect, we have the admission of the French missionaries, whose enumeration we may safely follow, and who specify the use of the cross, the mitre, the dalmatic, the hood, the office of two choirs, the psalmody, the exorcisms, the censer of five chains, the benediction of the lamas by placing the right hand on the head of the faithful, the rosary, celibacy of the clergy, spiritual retirement, the worship of saints, fasts, processions, litanies, and holy water, as so many coincidences with the Romish ritual, the origin of which cannot be accidental. The present costume and ceremonial are said to have originated with a celebrated reformer, who was born in the latter half of the fourteenth century, named Tsong Kaba, who founded the monastery of Khaldan, near Lhassa, in 1409, and died in 1419*. The chief pontiff of Lhassa at first opposed the innovations of Tsong Kaba, and having in vain invited him to a conference, paid a visit to the reformer, and expatiated at great length upon the sacredness of the ancient practices and his own preeminence; he was interrupted in his harangue by Tsong Kaba, who had pre
BUDDHA AND BUDDHISM.
*
[Koeppen, 1. 1., II, 108-120. Comp. also "Arbeiten der K. Russischen Gesandtschaft zu Peking". Berlin: 1858, I, p. 315-17.]
