The Bhotiyas.
That the national name Bod-pa must be of considerable antiquity is evident from the Sanskrit expression Bhotiya, derived from it, and long applied by the Hindus collectively to all southern Tibetans, but especially to those of the Himalayan slopes, such as the Rongs (Lepchas) of Sikkim and the Lho-pa dominant in Bhutan, properly Bhót-ánt, that is, "Land's End"—the extremity of Tibet. Eastwards also the Tibetan race stretches far beyond the political frontiers into the Koko-nor region (Tanguts), and the Chinese province of Se-chuan, where they are grouped with all the other Si-fan aborigines. Towards the south-east are the kindred Tawangs, Mishmi, Miri, Abor[389], Daflas, and many others about the Assam borderlands, all of whom may be regarded as true Bhotiyas in the wild state.
Prehistoric Expansion of the Tibetan Race.
Through these the primitive Tibetan race extends into Burma, where however it has become greatly modified and again civilised under different climatic and cultural influences. Thus we see how, in the course of ages, the Bod-pa have widened their domain, radiating in all directions from the central cradle-land about the Upper Brahmaputra (San-po) valley westwards into Kashmir, eastwards into China, southwards down the Himalayan slopes to the Gangetic plains, south-eastwards to Indo-China. In some places they have come into contact with other races and disappeared either by total extinction or by absorption (India, Hindu-Kush), or else preserved their type while accepting the speech, religion, and culture of later intruders. Such are the Garhwali, and many groups in Nepal, especially the dominant Gurkhas (Khas[390]), of whom there are twelve branches, all Aryanised and since the twelfth century speaking the Parbattia Bhasha, a Prakrit or vulgar Sanskrit tongue current amongst an extremely mixed population of about 2,000,000.
In other directions the migrations took place in remote prehistoric times, the primitive proto-Tibetan groups becoming more and more specialised as they receded farther and farther from the cradle-land into Mongolia, Siberia, China, Farther India, and Malaysia. This is at least how I understand the peopling of a great part of the eastern hemisphere by an original nucleus of Mongolic type first differentiated from a pleistocene precursor on the Tibetan tableland.
Temperament.
Strangely contradictory estimates have been formed of the temperament and mental characters of the Bod-pa, some, such as that of Turner[391], no doubt too favourable, while others err perhaps in the opposite direction. Thus Desgodins, who nevertheless knew them well, describes the cultured Tibetan of the south as "a slave towards the great, a despot towards the weak, knavish or treacherous according to circumstances, always on the look-out to defraud, and lying impudently to attain his end," and much more to the same effect[392].
W. W. Rockhill, who is less severe, thinks that "the Tibetan's character is not as black as Horace della Penna and Desgodins have painted it. Intercourse with these people extending over six years leads me to believe that the Tibetan is kindhearted, affectionate, and law-abiding[393]." He concludes, however, with a not very flattering native estimate deduced from the curious national legend that "the earliest inhabitants of Tibet descended from a king of monkeys and a female hobgoblin, and the character of the race perhaps from those of its first parents. From the king of monkeys [he was an incarnate god] they have religious faith and kindheartedness, intelligence and application, devotion to religion and to religious debate; from the hobgoblin they get cruelty, fondness for trade and money-making, great bodily strength, lustfulness, fondness for gossip, and carnivorous instinct[394]."
Effects of Lamaism on the Tibetan Character.
While they are cheerful under a depressing priestly regime, all allow that they are vindictive, superstitious, and cringing in the presence of the lamas, who are at heart more dreaded than revered. In fact the whole religious world is one vast organised system of hypocrisy, and above the old pagan beliefs common to all primitive peoples there is merely a veneer of Buddhism, above which follows another and most pernicious veneer of lamaism (priestcraft), under the yoke of which the natural development of the people has been almost completely arrested for several centuries. The burden is borne with surprising endurance, and would be intolerable but for the relief found in secret and occasionally even open revolt against the more oppressive ordinances of the ecclesiastical rule. Thus, despite the prescriptions regarding a strict vegetarian diet expressed in the formula "eat animal flesh eat thy brother," not only laymen but most of the lamas themselves supplement their frugal diet of milk, butter, barley-meal, and fruits with game, yak, and mutton—this last pronounced by Turner the best in the world. The public conscience, however, is saved by a few extra turns of the prayer-wheel at such repasts, and by the general contempt in which is held the hereditary caste of butchers, who like the Jews in medieval times are still confined to a "ghetto" of their own in all the large towns.