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94 BIBMAH.
The .
Grand Lama is an hereditary living deity,
before whom millions prostrate themselves. He dies
only to re-appear in another form. Captain Turner,
"
It seems to
speaking of the religion of Tibet, says :
be the schismatical offspring of the religion of the
Hindoos, deriving its origin from one of the followers
of that faith, a disciple of Bouddhu, who first broached
the doctrine which now prevails over the wide extent
of Tartary. It is reported to have received its earliest
admission in that part of Tibet bordering upon India,
which hence became the seat of the sovereign Lamas,
to have traversed Mantchieux Tartary, and to have
been ultimately disseminated over China and Japan.
Though it differs from the Hindoo in many of its
outward forms, yet, it still bears a very close affinity
with the religion of Brumha in many important parti-
culars. The principal idol in the temples of Tibet is
Muha-Moonee (the Great Philosopher), the Booddhu
of Bengal, who is worshipped under these and various
other epithets throughout the great extent of Tartary
and among all nations to the eastward of the Brumhupootru.
He is styled Godumii or Goutumu in Assam
Pythagoreans, the followers of Heraclitus, and others. They held
God to have been eternally united to matter in one whole, which
they called Chaos, whence it was sent forth, and at a certain time
brought into form by the energy of the divine inhabitant. Thia
deity, far from being a simple spiritual essence, is a compound
being, "the soul of the world inclosed in matter, the primeval
energy, the prolific and vivifying principle dwelling in all animated
existences." In fact, this atheistic system is that of the materialist,
applied to the Divine Being, whose intelligence is made absolutely
dependent on some mode of organisation. A learned bramhun,
on having the well-known lines of Pope read to him, beginning,
"
All are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose body Nature is, and God the soul,"
started from his seat, and declared that the author must have
been a Hindoo.