like Japan could assimilate and transform as well as borrow.
The national and original element in Lamaism becomes plain when we
compare Tibet with the neighbouring land of Nepal. There late Indian
Buddhism simply decayed under an overgrowth of Brahmanism. In Tibet it
acquired more life and character than it had in its native Bengal.
This new character has something monstrous and fantastic in government
as well as art: the magic fortresses of the Snowland, peopled by
priests and demons, seem uncanny homes for plain mortals, yet Lamaism
has the strength belonging to all genuine expressions of national
character and it clearly suits the Tibetans and Mongols. The oldest
known form of Tibetan religion had some of the same characteristics.
It is called Bon or Pon. It would be outside my province to discuss it
here, but even when first heard of it was more than a rude form of
animism. In the eighth century its hierarchy was sufficiently strong
to oppose the introduction of Buddhism and it possibly contained a
pre-buddhist stratum of Iranian ideas.[1017] In later times it adopted
or travestied Buddhist dogma, ritual and literature, much as Taoism
did in China, but still remained a repository of necromancy, magic,
animal sacrifices, devil-dancing, and such like practices, which have
in all ages corrupted Tibetan Buddhism though theoretically
disapproved.

Of Tibetan Buddhism anterior to 747 there is little to be said. It
consisted in the sporadic introduction of books and images from India
and did not assume any national character, for it is clear that in
this period Tibet was not regarded as a Buddhist country. The first
phase deserving the name of Lamaism begins with the arrival of
Padma-Sambhava in 747. The Nying-ma-pa or Old School claims to
represent his teaching, but, as already mentioned, the various sects
have interacted on one another so much that their tenets are hardly
distinctive. Still it is pretty clear that what Padma-Sambhava brought
with him was the late form of India Buddhism called Mantrayana,
closely allied to the Chen Yen of China, and transported to Japan
under the name of Shingon and also to the Buddhism of Java as
represented in the sculptures of Boroboedoer. The Far East felt shy of
the tantric element in this teaching, whereas the Tibetans exaggerated
it, but the doctrinal basis is everywhere the same, namely, that there
are five celestial Buddhas, of whom Vairocana is the principal and in
some sense t