which the Tibetan pontiff is
commonly known to Europeans. The hierarchy was divided into four
classes parallel to the four ranks of Mongol nobles: the use of meat
was restricted and the custom of killing men and horses at funerals
forbidden. The observance of Buddhist festivals was made compulsory
and native idols were destroyed, but the deities which they
represented were probably identified with others in the new pantheon.
The Grand Lama specially recommended to the Mongols the worship of the
Blue Mahakala, a six armed representation of Siva standing on a
figure of Ganesa, and he left with them a priest who was esteemed
an incarnation of Manjusri, and for whom a temple and monastery
were built in Kuku-khoto.

His Holiness then returned to Tibet, but when Altan Khagan died in
1583 he made a second tour in Mongolia in order to make sure of the
allegiance of the new chiefs. He also received an embassy from the
Chinese Emperor Wan-Li, who conferred on him the same titles that
Khubilai had given to Pagspa. The alliance between the Tibetans and
Mongols was naturally disquieting to the Ming dynasty and they sought
to minimize it by showing extreme civility to the Lamas.

This Grand Lama died at the age of forty-seven, and it is significant
that the next incarnation appeared in the Mongol royal house, being a
great-grandson of Altan Khagan. Until he was fourteen he lived in
Mongolia and when he moved to Lhasa a Lama was appointed to be his
vicar and Primate of all Mongolia with residence at Kuren or
Urga.[959] The prelates of this line are considered as incarnations of
the historian Taranatha.[960] In common language they bear the name of
rJe-btsun-dam-pa but are also called Maidari Khutuktu, that is
incarnation of Maitreya. About this time the Emperor of China issued a
decree, which has since been respected, that these hierarchs must be
reborn in Tibet, or in other words that they must not reappear in a
Mongol family for fear of uniting religion and patriotism too closely.

Lozang,[961] the fifth Grand Lama, is by common consent the most
remarkable of the pontifical line. He established the right of himself
and his successors--or, as he might have said, of himself in his
successive births--to the temporal and ecclesiastical sovereignty of
Tibet: he built the Potala and his dealings with the Mongols and
the Emperor of China are of importance for general Asiatic history.

From the seventeenth century onwards there were fo