|
Page6
According to a legend the buzhen order was founded by on,
Thang-teong Gyalpo (Ying of the desert) under the circumstances that a certain king of
Lhasa the famous Langdrama, converted the people of Tibet from Buddhism to a new religion
of his own. The Gyalposucceeded so well that in the course of fifty years the old faith
was quite forgotten, and the Om Mane Padme Hum or sacred ejaculation, quite disused. To
win back the people Chan-rezin, the divinity worshipped at Triloknath caused an
incarnation of himself to be born in the king's house in the person of Thang-teong Gyalpo.
The child grew up a saint and reformer; he
saw that it was impossible to reclaim the people by books, and he, therefore, adopted the
dress since worn by the buzhens, and spent his fife in wandering from village to village,
offering to amuse the people by acting miracle-plays on condition of their repeating after
him the chorus Om Mane Padme Hum wherever it occurred in the recitation. In this way the
people became again accustomed to repeat the sacred sentence' their mouths became
purified, and the religion of Buddha revived.
They have impressive ceremonies in which Om
Mane Padme Hum is enchanted with great fervor and zeal. Frequently the buzhens perform a
conjuring trick in which a huge stone is split into two on the bare stomach of another
buzhen. Generally only the younger sons of the landowning class are admitted into a
monastery; but of late the Kye monastery which admits younger sons of the landless
sections also has relaxed this rule. When the boy is seven years old, his guardians take
him to a monastery.
|
