[362]. Though strong affinities exist between Gnosticism and Buddhism, which may indicate later connection, in their origin they appear to have been quite distinct. The methods, aims, and terminology of Gnosticism, all betoken derivation from purely Western sources. It is quite possible that Gnosticism may have given Adi-Buddha to the East, but the question of their relations is still undetermined. See Weber, Hist. Ind. Lit. p. 309; Obry’s Nirvana, etc., p. 161; Bishop Lightfoot, Essay on the Essenes (Epistle to Colossians), p. 157; Home and Foreign Review, vol. iii. pp. 143 seq. (1863).
[363]. Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism, p. 203; Dr. Beal, Chinese Buddhism, p. 128; Dr. Eitel, Lectures, p. 98.
[364]. Kullavagga, v. 21. 4; Sacred Books of the East, vol. xx.
[365]. Introd. § vi. p. 558: “La plume se refuse à transcrire des doctrines aussi misérables quant à la forme, qu’odieuses et dégradantes pour le fond.”
[366]. Âryasanga, founder of the Yôgacharya or contemplative system of Mahāyāna (circa 400 A.D.). For an account of his doctrine, see Wassilief, Le Boudd. pp. 288 seq., and Schlagintweit, Bud. in Tibet, pp. 39 seq., 46 seq.; Rhys Davids, Buddhism, p. 207 seq.
[367]. A writer in the Nineteenth Century, October 1889, professes to describe the testimony of the only reporter who has written of Lhása since Huc and Gabet were expelled from it forty-five years ago. According to this witness, the Church is now actually in grip of the State, though nominally dominant. Of five members of the Council of the Grand Lama four are laymen, superior military officers, with the Regent at their head. Till the Grand Lama is eighteen years of age, the Regent is supreme, and for sixty years, not a single Grand Lama, chosen as an infant, has survived his eighteenth birthday!!
[368]. Buddhism, however, introduced into Tibet the benefits of the art of writing, the reduction of its language to an alphabet, and grammar; and not only the sacred literature represented by the collection of the Kandjur, but the very miscellaneous literature of the Tandjur. Several of its Buddhist missionaries and the kings who favoured them were really great men. Kublai Khan and the first Lamistic Pope Phags-pa, 1259-94, rendered lasting service to the cause of civilisation. See Köppen’s Die Lamaische Hierarchie und Kirche, being vol. ii. of his celebrated and most laborious work, Die Religion des Buddha; T. W. Rhys Davids, Art. Lamaism, Encyc. Brit. vol. xiv.; Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism, pp. 262-302.
[369]. The most recent and reliable information as to this perverted form of Buddhism—if it is to be called Buddhism, for it seems to be no more Buddhism than Vandoux worship can be called Christianity—will be found in the works of T. W. Rhys Davids; Sir Monier Williams, Buddhism; Babu Sarat Chunder Das, “Religious Hist. of Thibet,” Journ. Asiat. Soc. Beng. 1881; Life and Works of Alex. Csoma de Koros, Th. Duka, Lond. 1885; E. Colborne Baber, Travels and Researches in Western China; Bushell’s “Hist. of Thibet,” Journ. R.A.S. vol. xii. 1878-79.
[370]. An invocation of Avalôkitês’vara, who is believed to have delivered it to the Tibetans.—Klaproth, Fragments Bouddhiques, p. 27; Hodgson, Illustrations, p. 171; Charles Loring Brace, Gesta Christi, p. 455.
[371]. Schlagintweit, Buddhism in Tibet, pp. 227-272.