and at death his divine and immortal spirit is born again in a child. According to some accounts the mode of discovering the Dalai Lama is similar to the method, already described, of discovering an ordinary Grand Lama. Other accounts speak of an election by lot. Wherever he is born, the trees and plants, it is said, put forth green leaves; at his bidding flowers bloom and springs of water rise; and his presence diffuses heavenly blessings. His palace stands on a commanding height; its gilded cupolas are seen sparkling in the sunlight for miles.[1]
Issuing from the sultry valleys upon the lofty plateau of the Colombian Andes, the Spanish conquerors were astonished to find, in contrast to the savage hordes they had left in the sweltering jungles below, a people enjoying a fair degree of civilisation, practising agriculture, and living under a government which Humboldt has compared to the theocracies of Tibet and Japan. These were the Chibchas, Muyscas, or Mozcas, divided into two kingdoms, with capitals at Bogota and Tunja, but united apparently in spiritual allegiance to the high pontiff of Sogamozo or Iraca. By a long and ascetic novitiate, this ghostly ruler was reputed to have acquired such sanctity that the waters and the rain obeyed him, and the weather depended on his will.[2] Weather kings are common in Africa. Thus the
- ↑ Huc, op. cit. ii. 279, 347 sq.; Meiners, Geschichte der Religionen, i. 335 sq.; Georgi, Beschreihing aller Nationen des Russischen Reichs, p. 415; A. Erman, Travels in Siberia, ii. 303 sqq.; Journal of the Roy. Geogr. Soc, xxxviii. (1868), 168, 169; Proceedings of the Roy. Geogr. Soc. N.S. vii. (1885) 67. In the Journal Roy. Geogr. Soc., l.c., the Lama in question is called the Lama Gûrû; but the context shows that he is the great Lama of Lhasa.
- ↑ Alex. von. Humboldt, Researches concerning the Institutions and Monuments of the Ancient Inhabitants of America, ii. 106 sqq.; Waitz, Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iv. 352 sqq.; J. G. Müller, Geschichte der Amerikanischen Urreligionen, p. 430 sq.; Martius Zur Ethnographie Amerikas, p. 455; Bastian, Die Culturländer des alten Amerika, ii. 204 sq.
