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

3J0TIBET.machine, having been once seta going, moves on, in one uniform andincessant round : whilst enthusiasm is sufficiently kept alive by thefrequent recurrence of public festivals^ in which all are seen to take ashare, celebrating them with the most extravagant pageantry and ostentatiousparade.The sober and reflecting character of the Tibetians, exhibitsa differentpicture. Among them, all is system and order. The mind readilyobeys the superiority it has been accustomed to acknowledge. Asovereign Lama, immaculate, immortal, omnipresent, and omniscient,is placed at the summit of their fabric. He is esteemed the vicegerentof the only God, the mediator between mortals and the Supreme. Theyview him only in the most amiable light, as perpetually absorbed inreligious duty ;and, when called to bestow attention on mortal beings,,as employed only in the benign office of distributing comfort and consolationby his blessing, and in exercising the first of all attributes,forgiveness and mercy. He is also the centre of all civil government,which derives from his authority all its influence and power. At thesame time that he is the soul which animates their whole system, aregular gradation, from the most venerated Lama, through the wholeorder of Gylongs to the young noviciate, is observed with rigidseverity.The inferior gradations from the president of a monastery, who isalways styled Lama, in addition tothe name of the station to whichhe belongs, are Gylong, Tohba, and Tuppa.On the establishment of the monastery of Teshoo Loomboo, werereckoned, at that period, no less than three thousand seven hundred