TIBET.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1387, 26 July 1878, Page 3

TIBET.

["Spectator."] If we may credit the vague rumors which have lately floated through the Himalayan Passes, the person into whom the spirit of the late Dalai Lama had passed has been discovered, as usual, in a little child. The Dalai Lama, the Pope of Buddhism, the worldly representative of the never-dying spirit of Tsong Khapa, has once more appeared among the people, who for some two years have been eagerly expecting him. During many months a. Council of the Lamas has been assembled at Lhasa, engaged in the Bolemn quest for the person into whom the holy spirit had entered, and their secret conclave has at last resulted in the unanimous selection of the new Dalai. Long and anxious must have been the consideration of the claims of each candidate, and bitter will be the disappointment in many a household when the unsuccessful claimant is restored to his parents. No European writer has yet raised the sacred veil which shrouds that mysterious selection, nor have even Chinese writers revealed its accompanying ceremonial. That the former is conducted with all due solemnity may be accepted as the fact, and that the latter is aB gorgeous and imposing as Tibetan resources will admit, is not more doubtful. Of the nature of the ceremony something may be judged from the description of the minor proclamation of the Tcbliu Lama, which is to be found in Captain Turner's work, " Embassy to the Court of the Teshu Lama," published in 1800. The influence of the chief priest-ruler of Tibet extends wherever the doctrines of Buddha obtain. It is scarcely less potent in Pekin than it is in Lhasa itself, and it is one of the most visible tokens of religious animation in the Chinese Empire. The Dalai Lama is the Pope of sirae 400,000,000 people. At any time, a description of the state of this ruler—a state which is also connected in many ways with historical associations of great importance both to India and China—could scarcely fail to be interesting ; but, as our readers will doubtless remember, a clause in our last treaty with the Chinese attaches a significance to the subject at the present time which it has not enjoyed since the days of Warren Hastings. This is, therefore, a double opportune moment, when a new ruler has been chosen, and when our own relations towards the State have undergone some modification, for the consideration of the past history of Tibet itself. The relations between ourselves and the Tibetans have been very slight. In fact, since the days of Warren Hastings there have been none at all. In 1772, that Governor-General sent an envoy—Mr George Bogle—to the Teshu Lama, and his mission gave rise to some very instructive interchanges of opinion, for an account of which we are indebted to Mr Clements Markham; but the result of this diplomatic action was very transitory. Captain Turner, Warren Hastings's second ambassador, despatched a few years later on, for the purpose of complimenting a new Teshu on his accession to the dignity, was not more successful; and then for many years official business was transacted by our Tibetan Agent, the widely-travelled Purungi Gosain. In 1792 there occurred that war between Nepaul and China which resulted in the ignominious defeat of the former, and which the intercession of Lord Cornwallis alone prevented from closing with the sack of Khatmandoo, but which is chiefly of importance to us as marking the turning point in our intercourse with Tibet. Up to this, our diplomatic overtures had not been crowned by any very brilliant success, but they had not been complete failures. The passes through the Himalaya were at all events open, if any one cared to make use of them ; and so long ns the fair at Rangpur was maintained, so long did Tibetan goods find their way into Bengal, and our Indian fabrics into Tibet. But the Chinese Government and Generals resented our intervention in favour of the Ghoorkas, who, in the eyes both of Tibetans and Chinese were merely a set of troublesome marauders ; and after the year 1792, the Chinese, in consequence of Lord Cornwallis's well - intentioned mediation, closed the Passes of the Himalaya, erected blockhouses at their northern entrances, and put a stop to all intercourse whatsoever. Since that time, more than eighty years ago, only one Englishman has succeeded in breaking through that unyielding barrier, and it must be long before the same astonishing energy and rare acquaintance with Chinese manners will be united again in the same person as they were in Thomas Manning. That gentleman, in the disguise of a Chinaman, did in the year 1811 penetrate from Bhutan into Tibet, and his triumph was rendered more perfect by a residence of many months in its capital. Whatever information we possess we owe to these threß gentlemen, and to the French missionaries Hue and Gabet, who went to Lhasa from China in 1845. Since their time we have indeed learnt much from the explorations of the Pundit Nain Sing, but our historical knowledge has not kept pace with our geographical. The tidings that another child exercises the power of Dalai Lama will serve to remind us that whenever we seek to enforce our treaty rights, it will be solely with the Chinese Ambans that we shall have to deal. The same difficulties will have to be encountered and to be overcome as those which beßet a visit to any other unknown and secluded province of the Chinese Empire. Whatever virtues the Tibetans themselves possess —and if all is true that we are told of them, they possess more than a fair share of them—it is not they who'will decide how our Ambassador shall be received, but the Chinese Governors, who will act in accordance with the instructions remitted from Pekin. From one aspect, seeing it is the Chinese themselves who have conceded the point, this should argue favorably for the result of an English mission to Tibet j but from another, seeing that the Chinese, and not the Tibetans, have at all times been hostile to intercourse of any kind with ourselves in India, the prospect is scarcely so pleasing. In the meanwhile, the intrepid Russian traveller Prjevalsky, nothing daunted by illness or by the obstacles placed in his path by the the Chinese, is slowly wending his way along the outskirts of the great desert of Gobi towards the country of the Lamas. In the search for geographical information he is emulating the achievements of his most distinguished predecessors, and should he be successful in this case, which, to say the least, is extremely doubtful, he will most probably, now that so" many more entrancing questions are agitating the bosoms of tho Indian Council, have the double satisfaction of having been the first representative of his country to visit Lhasa, and of having anticipated the English Embassy, which Sir Thomas Wade foreshadowed in his Treaty of Chefoo.