-ra-zi or the "Compassionate Spirit of the
Mountains." In him is everything, even the Sun Myth and the fascination
of the mysterious peaks of the Himalayas, tales of the Indian pagoda,
the stern majesty of the Mongolian Conquerors--Emperors of All Asia--and
the ancient, hazy legends of the Chinese sages; immersion in the
thoughts of the Brahmans; the severities of life of the monks of the
"Virtuous Order"; the vengeance of the eternally wandering warriors, the
Olets, with their Khans, Batur Hun Taigi and Gushi; the proud bequests
of Jenghiz and Kublai Khan; the clerical reactionary psychology of the
Lamas; the mystery of Tibetan kings beginning from Srong-Tsang Gampo;
and the mercilessness of the Yellow Sect of Paspa. All the hazy history
of Asia, of Mongolia, Pamir, Himalayas, Mesopotamia, Persia and China,
surrounds the Living God of Urga. It is little wonder that his name
is honored along the Volga, in Siberia, Arabia, between the Tigris and
Euphrates, in Indo-China and on the shores of the Arctic Ocean.

During my stay in Urga I visited the abode of the Living Buddha several
times, spoke with him and observed his life. His favorite learned
Marambas gave me long accounts of him. I saw him reading horoscopes, I
heard his predictions, I looked over his archives of ancient books and
the manuscripts containing the lives and predictions of all the Bogdo
Khans. The Lamas were very frank and open with me, because the letter of
the Hutuktu of Narabanchi won for me their confidence.

The personality of the Living Buddha is double, just as everything in
Lamaism is double. Clever, penetrating, energetic, he at the same time
indulges in the drunkenness which has brought on blindness. When he
became blind, the Lamas were thrown into a state of desperation. Some of
them maintained that Bogdo Khan must be poisoned and another Incarnate
Buddha set in his place; while the others pointed out the great merits
of the Pontiff in the eyes of Mongolians and the followers of the Yellow
Faith. They finally decided to propitiate the gods by building a great
temple with a gigantic statue of Buddha. However, this did not help
the Bogdo's sight but the whole incident gave him the opportunity of
hurrying on to their higher life those among the Lamas who had shown too
much radicalism in their proposed method of solving his problem.

He never ceases to ponder upon the cause of the church and of Mongolia
and at the same time likes to indulge himsel