XXIV. Remarks on the Religious and Social Institutions of the Bouteas, or Inhabitants of Boutan

Abstract

Many principles and forms of the religion of the Lamas are evidently borrowed from that of the Hindoos. They have similar ceremonies performed on the banks of rivers, and the Ganges is held in equal veneration, A little of its water is a most valuable acquisition to one of their faquires or pilgrims, who carries it in a small brass or silver bottle, carefully corked, and tied to his girdle. Their supreme deity, called indiscriminately by the name Sijamony, Mahamony, and Sejatoba, is said to have been brought many ages ago by one of the superior Lamas from Benares, and others of them must have been of foreign extraction; for although plainly drawn and carved as females, the priests will not allow them of that sex; and often, as they think, decide the distinction with a pair of whiskers, when the turn of the features and swell of the bosom shew whiskers to be misapplied.