ny faith which would humanize his
rude Mongols. Buddhism was more congenial to them than Confucianism
and besides, they had made its acquaintance earlier. Even before
Khubilai became Emperor, one of his most trusted advisers was a
Tibetan lama known as Pagspa, Bashpa or Pa-ssu-pa.[680] He received
the title of Kuo-Shih, and after his death his brother succeeded to
the same honours.

Khubilai also showed favour to Mohammedans, Christians, Jews and
Confucianists, but little to Taoists. This prejudice was doubtless due
to the suggestions of his Buddhist advisers, for, as we have seen,
there was often rivalry between the two religions and on two occasions
at least (in the reigns of Hui Tsung and Wu Tsung) the Taoists made
determined, if unsuccessful, attempts to destroy or assimilate
Buddhism. Khubilai received complaints that the Taoists represented
Buddhism as an offshoot of Taoism and that this objectionable
perversion of truth and history was found in many of their books,
particularly the Hua-Hu-Ching.[681] An edict was issued ordering all
Taoist books to be burnt with the sole exception of the Tao-Te-Ching
but it does not appear that the sect was otherwise persecuted.

The Yuan dynasty was consistently favourable to Buddhism. Enormous
sums were expended on subventions to monasteries, printing books and
performing public ceremonies. Old restrictions were removed and no new
ones were imposed. But the sect which was the special recipient of the
imperial favour was not one of the Chinese schools but Lamaism,
the form of Buddhism developed in Tibet, which spread about this time
to northern China, and still exists there. It does not appear that in
the Yuan period Lamaism and other forms of Buddhism were regarded as
different sects.[682] A lamaist ecclesiastic was the hierarchical head
of all Buddhists, all other religions being placed under the
supervision of a special board.

The Mongol Emperors paid attention to religious literature. Khubilai
saw to it that the monasteries in Peking were well supplied with books
and ordered the bonzes to recite them on stated days. A new collection
of the Tripitaka (the ninth) was published 1285-87. In 1312, the
Emperor Jen-tsung ordered further translations to be made into Mongol
and later had the whole Tripitaka copied in letters of gold. It is
noticeable that another Emperor, Cheng Tsung, had the Book of Filial
Piety translated into Mongol and circulated together with a brief
prefac