Tibet enters Adams through the Grand Lama, at once high priest and object of adoration, the zone the archive reads for Kalacakra and the Silk-Road transmissions.
In Hannah Adams
In Adams’s own words, from the 1817 Dictionary. Each passage is quoted verbatim under its own entry.
THIBETIANS. The Grind Lama is at once the High Priest and the visible object of adoration, to this nation, to the hordes of wandering Tartars, and to the prodigious population of China. He resides at Patoli, a vast palace on a mountain near the banks of the Burampooter, about seven miles from Lahassa. The foot of the mountain is surrounded by twenty thousand Lamas, in attendance on their Sovereign Pontiff, who is considered as the vicegerent of the Deity on earth; and the more remote Tartars are said to regard him absolutely as the Deity himself, and call him God, the everlasting Father of heaven. They believe him to be immortal, and endowed with all knowledge and virtue. Every year they come tip from different parts to worship, and make rich offerings at his shrine. Even the emperor of China, who is a Mantchou Tartar, does not fail in acknowledgments to him in his religious capacity; and entertains in the palace of Pekin an inferiour Lama, deputed as his nuncio from Thibet. The grand Lama is only to be seen in a secret place of his palace, amidst a great number of lamps, sitting cross-legged on a cushion, and decked all over with gold and precious stones; while, at a distance, the people prostrate themselves before him; it being not lawful for any so much as to kiss his feet. He returns not the least sign of respect, nor ever speaks even to the greatest princes; but only lays his hand upon their heads, and they are fully pursuaded that they thereby receive a full forgiveness of their sins. The Sunniasses, or Indian pilgrims, often visit Thibet as a holy place; and the Lama THI 2! entertains a body of two or three hundred in his pay. Besides his religions influence and authority, he is possessed of mnlimited power throughout his dominions, which are very extensive. ‘Che inferior Lamas, who form the most numerous, as well as the most powerful body in the state, have the priesthood entirely in their hands; and besides, fill np many monastic orders, which are held in great veneration among them. The whole country, like Italy, avounds with priests; and they entirely subsist on the rich preseuts sent them from the utmost extent of Tartary, from the empire of the Great Mogul, and from almost all parts of the Indies. The opinion of those, who are reputed the most orthodox among the Thibctians, is, that when the grand Lama seems to die, either of old age or infirmities, his soul, in fact, only quits a crazy habitation, to look for another, younger or better; and is discovered again in the body of some child, by certain tokens, known only to the Lamas. or priests, in which order he always appears.
Almost all the nations of the East, except the Mahometans, believe the metempsychosis, or transmigration of the soul, as the most important article of their faith; especially the inhabitants of Thibet and Ava, the Peguans, the Siamese, the * Annual Register for 1780, p. 62, greater part of the Chinese and Japanese, and the Moguls and Calmucks. According to their doctrine, the soul no sooner leaves her old habitation, than she enters a new one. The Dailai Lama, being a divine person, can find no better lodging than the body of his successor; or the Foe, residing in the Dailai Lama, which passes to his successor: and thisbeing a god, to whom all things are known, the grand Lama is therefore acquainted with every thing which happened during his residence in his former body.
This religion, which was early adopted in a large part of the globe, is said to have been of three thousand years’ standing; and neither time, nor the influence of men, has had the power of shaking the authority of the grand Lama. This theocracy, Which extends as fully to teinporal as to spiritual concerns, is professed all over Thibet and Mongalia; is almost universal in Greater and Lesser Bucharia, and several provinces of ‘Uartary; has some followers in the kingdom of Cassimere, in India, and is the predominant religion of China.
Ithasbecn observed, * that the religion of Thihet is the counterpart of the Roman Catholic, since the inhabitants of that country use holy water and a singing service: they also oifer alms, prayers, and sacrifices for the dead. ‘They have a vast number of convents filled with monks and friars, amounting to thirty thousand; and confessors, chosen by their superiors. They use beads; wear the mitre and cap like the bishops; and their Dailai Lama is nearly the same among them as the sovereign pontiff is ainong the Romanists.”* Sce Chinese.
LAMA, worship of the. See Shamanism.
Hannah Adams, A Dictionary of All Religions and Religious Denominations, 4th ed. (Boston: Cummings and Hilliard, 1817), entries “Thibetians” (pp. 288–290), “Lama” (p. 150).