indeed, we may see from Marco Polo's repeated allusions to the diabolical arts of the sorcerer Bakshis of Tebet and Keshemir. The reform did not, apparently, prohibit all magic, but only its grosser arts, distinguishing, as Koeppen felicitously expresses it, between white magic and black; forbidding necromantic incantations, with regular sorcery and witch-broth-cookery, as well as vulgar tricks like fire-breathing, knife-swallowing, and the pretended amputation of the limbs,—or even the head,—of the performer by his own hand. These were all pet practices of the old red unreformed Lamas, and still remain so. Tsongkaba's reform had great swing, and has long been predominant in numbers and power.
He was, of course, canonized among his followers, and is generally regarded as having been an incarnation of the Dhyâni Buddha[1] of the present world-period, Amitâbha, though sometimes also of the Bodhisatvas,—or Buddhas designate,—Manjusri and Vajrapâni. His image is found in all the temples of his Yellow Church, often between those of its two Pontiffs, the Dalai Lama of Lhassa, and the Lama Panchhan Rinbochhi of Tashilunpo.
The reforms of Tsongkaba led to, or at least culminated in, a new development of Lama doctrine and order; from one point of view, in the establishment of a regular papacy,—though dual or bicephalous; from another point of view, in that of a peculiar system of succession such as has, probably, no parallel on earth.
Thus there exist since his time two chief prelates and pontiffs of the Yellow Church, exercising both spiritual and temporal power,—two popes, in fact, each within his own dominion; the one at Lhassa, the Dalai Lama, as he is best
- ↑ The Dhyâni Buddhas (or Buddhas of contemplation) belong to the complex subtleties of northern Buddhism. The human Buddha performing his work upon the earth has a celestial reflexion, or representative, in the world of forms, who is a Dhyâni Buddha. A Bodhisatva is one who has fulfilled all the conditions necessary to the attainment of Buddahood (and its consequent Nirvâna), but from charity continues voluntarily subject to reincorporation for the benefit of mankind.
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