ch of what is
called the Great Law of the Universe by the ancient mystics.

--T. Subba Row

Appendix

Note I.

In this connection it will be well to draw the reader's attention to the
fact that the country called "Si-dzang" by the Chinese, and Tibet by
Western geographers, is mentioned in the oldest books preserved in the
province of Fo-kien (the headquarters of the aborigines of China) as the
great seat of occult learning in the archaic ages. According to these
records, it was inhabited by the "Teachers of Light," the "Sons of
Wisdom" and the "Brothers of the Sun." The Emperor Yu the "Great" (2207
B.C.), a pious mystic, is credited with having obtained his occult
wisdom and the system of theocracy established by him--for he was the
first one to unite in China ecclesiastical power with temporal
authority--from Si-dzang. That system was the same as with the old
Egyptians and the Chaldees; that which we know to have existed in the
Brahmanical period in India, and to exist now in Tibet--namely, all the
learning, power, the temporal as well as the secret wisdom were
concentrated within the hierarchy of the priests and limited to their
caste. Who were the aborigines of Tibet is a question which no
ethnographer is able to answer correctly at present. They practice the
Bhon religion, their sect is a pre-and anti-Buddhistic one, and they
are to be found mostly in the province of Kam. That is all that is
known of them. But even that would justify the supposition that they
are the greatly degenerated descendants of mighty and wise forefathers.
Their ethnical type shows that they are not pure Turanians, and their
rites--now those of sorcery, incantations, and Nature-worship--remind
one far more of the popular rites of the Babylonians, as found in the
records preserved on the excavated cylinders, than of the religious
practices of the Chinese sect of Tao-sse (a religion based upon pure
reason and spirituality), as alleged by some. Generally, little or no
difference is made, even by the Kyelang missionaries, who mix greatly
with these people on the borders of British Lahoul and ought to know
better, between the Bhons and the two rival Buddhist sects, the Yellow
Caps and the Red Caps. The latter of these have opposed the reform of
Tzong-ka-pa from the first, and have always adhered to old Buddhism, so
greatly mixed up now with the practices of the Bhons. Were our
Orientalists to know more of them, and compare th