the Living Buddha to tell his
fortune. He predicts only when he feels the inspiration or when a
special delegate comes to him bearing a request for it from the Dalai
Lama or the Tashi Lama. When the Russian Czar, Alexander I, fell under
the influence of Baroness Kzudener and of her extreme mysticism,
he despatched a special envoy to the Living Buddha to ask about his
destiny. The then Bogdo Khan, quite a young man, told his fortune
according to the "black stone" and predicted that the White Czar would
finish his life in very painful wanderings unknown to all and everywhere
pursued. In Russia today there exists a popular belief that Alexander
I spent the last days of his life as a wanderer throughout Russia and
Siberia under the pseudonym of Feodor Kusmitch, helping and consoling
prisoners, beggars and other suffering people, often pursued and
imprisoned by the police and finally dying at Tomsk in Siberia, where
even until now they have preserved the house where he spent his
last days and have kept his grave sacred, a place of pilgrimages and
miracles. The former dynasty of Romanoff was deeply interested in the
biography of Feodor Kusmitch and this interest fixed the opinion that
Kusmitch was really the Czar Alexander I, who had voluntarily taken upon
himself this severe penance.

CHAPTER XLIII

THE BIRTH OF THE LIVING BUDDHA

The Living Buddha does not die. His soul sometimes passes into that of
a child born on the day of his death and sometimes transfers itself to
another being during the life of the Buddha. This new mortal dwelling
of the sacred spirit of the Buddha almost always appears in the yurta
of some poor Tibetan or Mongol family. There is a reason of policy for
this. If the Buddha appears in the family of a rich prince, it could
result in the elevation of a family that would not yield obedience to
the clergy (and such has happened in the past), while on the other
hand any poor, unknown family that becomes the heritor of the throne
of Jenghiz Khan acquires riches and is readily submissive to the Lamas.
Only three or four Living Buddhas were of purely Mongolian origin; the
remainder were Tibetans.

One of the Councillors of the Living Buddha, Lama-Khan Jassaktu, told me
the following:

"In the monasteries at Lhasa and Tashi Lumpo they are kept constantly
informed through letters from Urga about the health of the Living
Buddha. When his human body becomes old and the Spirit of Buddha strives
to extri