An Embassy to the Court of the Teshoo Lama in Tibet - Prajna Quest

26 8 TIBET.influence of religious prejudice.The regeneration of their Lama is saidto have taken place, in times of remote antiquity, near the siteof theancient and ruined city of Gowr; and all those places held in venerationby the Hindoos, asGya, Benares, Mahow, and Allahabad, areequally objects of superstitious zeal, with a votary of the Tibet faith,who thinks himself blessed above his fellow disciples, if he can butperform a pilgrimage to these hallowed spots.Gunga Sagor, an uninhabited island, situated at the confluence ofthe Ganges with the sea, and the pagoda of Jagarnaut, upon the coastof Orissa, are also deemed places of equal sanctity, and occasionallyvisited, from the same motives of zealous but mistaken piety.Nor arethe advantages, whatever they may be, resulting from these pilgrimages,confined to those alone, who personally perform them ;he who promotesthem by his persuasion, and supports the pilgrim by his purse, claimsto himself, nearly an equal share of merit. So that agents are oftenhired, tovisit these holy places, from whence they bring to their employers,some sacred pledge, picked up on the sea shore, or a portionof the consecrated stream, possessed of incalculable eflicacy in all theirsubsequent devotions.The late Teshoo Lama, I was told, had the merit of having thusperformed his pilgrimages by proxy, to Cashi, Prag, Gunga Sagor,and Jagarnaut.Indeed, though these pilgrimages cannot be accomplished,but at the imminent hazard, of the pilgrim's falling a martyr tothe intemperate heat of Hindostan, or to the enervating atmosphere ofthe low lands, yet an enthusiastic spirit is not to be repressed, by themelancholy fate of former adventurers.