rst incarnation
took place in the celebrated country of the Azaras. The physiognomists
who, at our first coming to Lha-Ssa, took us for white Azaras, failed not
to urge us to go and offer our devotions to the Djachi-Loumbo, assuring
us, that in our quality of countrymen of the Bandchan-Remboutchi, we
should have a very good reception. The learned Lamas, who occupy
themselves with Buddhic genealogies, explain how the Bandchan, after
numerous and marvellous incarnations in Hindostan, ended by appearing in
Further Thibet, and fixing his residence at Djachi-Loumbo. Whatever may
be his biography, which, fortunately we are not bound to believe in, it
is certain that this able Lama has managed to establish an astonishing
reputation. The Thibetians, the Tartars, and the other Buddhists call
him by no other name than the Great Saint, and never pronounce his name
without clasping their hands and raising their eyes to heaven. They
pretend that his knowledge is universal. He knows how to speak, they
say, all the languages of the universe without having ever studied them,
and can converse with pilgrims from all parts of the world. The Tartars
have so strong a faith in his power, that they invoke him continually.
In dangers, in afflictions, in all matters of difficulty, they have in
their mouths the magic word bokte (saint).

The pilgrims who come to Thibet never fail to visit the Djachi-Loumbo, to
prostrate themselves at the feet of the saint of saints, and to present
to him their offerings. No one can form a notion of the enormous sums
which the Tartar caravans bring him every year. In return for the ingots
of gold and silver which he shuts up in his coffers, the Bandchan
distributes among his adorers shreds of his old clothes, bits of paper
printed with Mongol or Thibetian sentences, earthen statuettes, and red
pills of infallible efficaciousness against all sorts of maladies. The
pilgrims receive with veneration these trifles, and deposit them
religiously in a bag which they always have hanging from their necks.

Those who make the pilgrimage to Djachi-Loumbo, seculars or Lamas, men or
women, all enrol themselves in the society of Kalons, instituted by the
Bandchan-Remboutchi. Almost all the Buddhists aspire to the happiness of
becoming members of this association, which will give rise, some day, to
some important event in Upper Asia. All minds, even now, are vividly
occupied with the presentiment of a grand catastrop