g to the desertion of his trust at a national crisis. Temporal power
was vested in the hands of the National Assembly and the regent, while
the spiritual power was transferred to Panchen Rinpoche, the Grand Lama
of Tashilunpo, who is venerated by Buddhists as the incarnation of
Amitabha, and held as sacred as the Dalai Lama himself. The Tashe Lama,
as he is called in Europe, has always been more accessible than the
Dalai Lama. It was to the Tashe Lama that Warren Hastings despatched the
missions of Bogle and Turner, and the intimate friendship that grew up
between George Bogle and the reigning incarnation is perhaps the only
instance of such a tie existing between an Englishman and a Tibetan. The
officials of the Tsang province, where the Tashe Lama resides, are not
so bigoted as the Lhasa oligarchy. It was a minister of the Tashe Lama
who invited Sarat Chandra Das to Shigatze, learnt the Roman characters
from him, and sat for hours listening to his talk about languages and
scientific developments. The exile of this man, and the execution of the
Abbot of Dongste, who was drowned in the Tsangpo, for hospitality shown
to the Bengali explorer, are the most recent marks of the difference in
attitude between the Lhasans and the people of Tsang.

The present incarnation has not shown himself bitterly anti-foreign.
During the operations in Tibet he remained as neutral and inactive as
safety permitted, and it is not impossible that the hope of Mr. Ular may
be realized, and an Anglophile Buddhist Pope established at Shigatze.
Herein lies a possible simplification of the Tibetan problem, which has
already lost some of its complexity by the flight of the Dalai Lama to
Urga.

In estimating the practical results of the Tibet Expedition, we should
not attach too much importance to the exact observance of the terms of
the treaty. Trade marts and roads, and telegraph-wires, and open
communications are important issues, but they were never our main
objective. What was really necessary was to make the Tibetans understand
that they could not afford to trifle with us. The existence of a
truculent race on our borders who imagined that they were beyond the
reach of our displeasure was a source of great political danger. We
went to Tibet to revolutionize the whole policy of the Lhasa oligarchy
towards the Indian Government.

The practical results of the mission are these: The removal of a ruler
who threatened our security and prestige on th