Confucius interrogates his destiny in the cast of dice and the movement
of the stars.**** That child, surrounded by a swarm of priests in yellow
robes and hats, is the Grand Lama, in whom the god of Thibet has just
become incarnate.*5 But a rival has arisen who partakes this benefit
with him; and the Kalmouc on the banks of the Baikal, has a God similar
to the inhabitant of Lasa. And they agree, also, in one important
point--that god can inhabit only a human body. They both laugh at
the stupidity of the Indian who pays homage to cow-dung, though they
themselves consecrate the excrements of their high-priest.*6

* The original name of this god is Baits, which in Hebrew
signifies an egg. The Arabs pronounce it Baidh, giving to
the dh an emphatic sound which makes it approach to dz.
Kempfer, an acurate traveler, writes it Budso, which must be
pronounced Boudso, whence is derived the name of Budsoist
and of Bonze, applied to the priests. Clement of
Alexandria, in his Stromata, writes it Bedou, as it is
pronounced also by the Chingulais; and Saint Jerome, Boudda
and Boutta. At Thibet they call it Budd; and hence the name
of the country called Boud-tan and Ti-budd: it was in this
province that this system of religion was first inculcated
in Upper Asia; La is a corruption of Allah, the name of God
in the Syriac language, from which many of the eastern
dialects appear to be derived. The Chinese having neither b
nor d, have supplied their place by f and t, and have
therefore said Fout.

** See in Kempfer the doctrine of the Sintoists, which is a
mixture of that of Epicurus and of the Stoics.

*** It is a leaf of the Latanier species of the palm-tree.
Hence the bonzes of Siam take the appellation of Talapoin.
The use of this screen is an exclusive privilege.

**** The sectaries of Confucius are no less addicted to
astrology than the bonzes. It is indeed the malady of every
eastern nation.

*5 The Delai-La-Ma, or immense high priest of La, is the
same person whom we find mentioned in our old books of
travels, by the name of Prester John, from a corruption of
the Persian word Djehan, which signifies the world, to which
has been prefixed the French word prestre or pretre, priest.
Thus the priest world, and the god world are in the Persian
idiom the same.

*6 In