NOTES.
223
At Monla, a churcb, presbytery and college, erected in 1770. The Talapoins claimed tbe ground on which this was built, and it was consequently thrown down. A much larger one was accordingly built by F. Corteuovis, who tells us he had fifty boys residing in it.
In the environs of this city, six other churches. In Subaroa two churches.
At Cliiam-sua-rocca are six churches, which in 1822 were served by F. Amato.
Finally in Rangoon, a church and house, with a convent and orphan school.
Subsequently many able missionaries laboured in this country, among whom deserve notice the two Cortenovis, F. Sangermano, author of the foregoing history, who returned to Europe in 1808 . and F. Amato who was still alive and zealously exerting himself at the close of 1828, though seventy years of age. He was then the only European clergyman in the country; as, in consequence of the dissolution of the religious congregations, under the French occupation of Italy, the Barnabite Fathers had not been able to supply the wants of the mission. In i83o the state of this mission was taken into consideration by the Propaganda, and four clergymen of distinguished merit, who offered their services were dispatched thither. They all arrived safe, and a farther supply will perhaps be furnished before long.
NOTE B Page too.
Our readers will probably have observed the resemblance that exists between the practises described in the last chapter, and some of the institutions of the Catholic religion. In the Buddhaism of Tibet, which is the same as the religion of the Burmese, Godama being only another name for Buddha, this resemblance is still more marked. “The first missionaries,” says Abel Remusat (a) “were not a little surprised to find in the heart of Asia, Monasteries, processions, pilgrimages, festivals, a pontifical court, a college of superior lamas electing a chief, who was ecclesiastical sovereign and spiritual father to all the Tibetans and Tartars. But, as good faith was a characteristic of the time, as well as the profession of these men, they contented themselves with considering this Lamaism as a sort of degenerate Christianity and as vestiges of the former settlement of Syrian sects in those countries.”
But this resemblance was afterwards used as a controversial weapon, and the French Plii- losophes pretended to find in Lamaism the origin of Christianity. But the celebrated Orientalist just quoted has completely confuted these assertions from the works of native authors. In his memoir he has made us acquainted with a valuable fragment preserved in the Japanese Encyclopedia, which contains the true history of the Lamaic hierarch y. The first seat ol Buddhaism was India, whence its patriarchs migrated to Tibet and there established their religion, but still in dependance upon the civil power of the state, till the house of Tchingkis- khan delivered them from it and invested them with dominion. It was the grandson of the conqueror who first bestowed this sovereignty on the head of the religion, who then took the title of Lama, which signifies a priest, as his peculiar designation. The account given by Abel Remusat of the origin of the Lamaic dynasty accords perfectly with another interesting document, brought to light, and translated into Russian, by the Archimandrite F. Hyacinth Pitchourinsky, ( b ) and from Russian into French by M. Julius Klaproth (c).
(a) Abel Remusat. Apercu d’un Memoire intitule Recherehes chronologiques sur Vorigine de la Hierarchic Lamaique, in the Journal Asiatique for May 1824. Tom. IV. pp. 287. seq.
(i) St. Pelersburgh. 1828.
(c) In the Nouveau Journal Asiatique. Aug. and Oct. 1829. Tom. IV. pp. 81. seq.