The Buddhism of Tibet, or Lamaism

This work provides a clue to several disputed doctrinal points of fundamental importance, such as the formula of the Causal Nexus The Buddhist doctrine of "Dependent Origination," explaining the chain of causes that lead to rebirth and suffering. It also interprets many of the interesting Mahayana original: Mahāyāna; the "Great Vehicle" school of Buddhism and Tantric original: Tāntrik; refers to esoteric ritual and meditative traditions developments in the later Indian Buddhism of Magadha An ancient kingdom in what is now Bihar, India, where the Buddha lived and taught.

It attempts to separate the early history of Lamaism from the chaotic growth of myths that has surrounded it. To this end, I have critically examined the vague so-called "history" of Tibet’s earlier periods using information provided by scholarly Lamas and contemporary historical records. I have rejected all fictional chronicles, such as the Mani-ka-'bum original: Maṇi-kah-’bum; a famous Tibetan collection of teachings and history attributed to King Songtsen Gampo, which have previously been treated as historical. These cannot be considered authoritative for events that happened a thousand years before they were written, especially for a time when writing was admittedly unknown in Tibet. If we discard these obviously fictional "histories" and the supernatural elements, the remaining portion provides a fairly probable historical foundation that is consistent and in harmony with known facts and oral tradition.

Readers will see that I consider the founder of Lamaism to be Padmasambhava—a person whom previous writers usually mention only briefly. In fact, some careful writers¹ omit his name entirely, even though the Lamas of all sects consider him the founder of their order. To the majority of them, he is even more significant and deserving of worship than Buddha himself.

Most of the chief internal movements of Lamaism are now for the first time presented in an intelligible and systematic form. Thus, for example, my account of its

¹ For example, W. R. S. Ralston in his Tibetan Tales.