Ladak, Sikhim and Bhutan. In
China it is confined to the north and its presence is easily
explicable by the genuine enthusiasm of Khubilai and the encouragement
given on political grounds by the Ming and Manchu dynasties. Further,
several Mongol towns such as Kalgan and Kuku-khoto are within the
limits of the eighteen provinces.

The Kalmuks who live in European Russia are the descendants of tribes
who moved westwards from Dzungaria in the seventeenth century. Many of
them left Russia and returned to the east in 1771, but a considerable
number remained behind, chiefly between the Volga and the Don, and
the population professing Lamaism there is now reckoned at about
100,000.

Buddhist influences may have been at work in Ladak from an early
period. In later times it can be regarded as a dependency of Tibet, at
any rate for ecclesiastical purposes, for it formed part of Tibet
until the disruption of the kingdom in the tenth century and it
subsequently accepted the sovereignty of Lhasa in religious and
sometimes in political matters. Concerning the history of Bhutan, I
have been able to discover but little. The earliest known inhabitants
are called Tephu and the Tibetans are said to have conquered them
about 1670. Lamaism probably entered the country at this time, if not
earlier.[970] At any rate it must have been predominant in 1774 when
the Tashi Lama used his good offices to conclude peace between the
Bhutiyas and the East India Company. The established church however is
not the Gelugpa but the Dugpa, which is a subdivision of the
Kar-gyu-pa. There are two rulers in Bhutan, the Dharmaraja or
spiritual and the Debraja or temporal. The former is regarded as an
incarnation of the first class, though it is not clear of what
deity.[971]

The conversion of Sikhim is ascribed to a saint named Latsun Ch'embo,
who visited it about 1650 with two other Lamas. They associated with
themselves a native chief whom they ordained as a Lama and made king.
All four then governed Sikhim. Though Latsun Ch'embo is represented as
a friend of the fifth Grand Lama, the two sects at present found in
Sikhim are the Nying-ma-pa, the old unreformed style of Lamaism, and
the Karmapa, a branch of the Kar-gyu-pa, analogous to the Dugpa of
Bhutan. The principal monasteries are at Pemiongchi (Peme-yang-tse)
and Tashiding.[972]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 910: Tibetan orthography Sron-btsan-sgam-po. It is hard
to decide what is the best method of rep