Word: lama
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...faith of 3,000,000 Tibetans, 7,000,000 Mongols and other races in Central Asia, is a form of Buddhism, brought from India through the snow-swept passes of the Himalayas in the 7th Century. Lamaists believe in numerous divine incarnations, chief of which are-1) the Dalai Lama, temporal master of Tibet and "Buddha of Mercy," 2) His Serenity the Panchen or Tashi Lama, spiritual leader and "Buddha of Boundless Light...
...nine months plus 149 days (the period a soul spends in purgatory) after the death of a Grand Lama, priests throughout the fastnesses of Central Asia watch for eclipses, earthquakes, avalanches, cloudbursts. Where such phenomena occur, the Lama's soul may, on the appointed day, enter the body of an infant about to be born. The mother may identify her holy offspring by other portents & miracles and by seven signs which include a full set of teeth in the babe, a birthmark resembling a tiger's stripes, an ability to utter the name of Buddha...
...such a manner, after the death of a Panchen Lama in 1883, was his successor chosen, one Ch'osgyi-nyima. son of a woodcutter in a remote Tibetan village. In the great monastery of Tashilhunpo for 13 years Lamas trained him in the intricacies of Lamaist ritual. At 18 this "Buddha of Boundless Light" was installed on his yellow satin throne, presumably for the rest of his days to guide the souls of Tibetans, while the Dalai Lama, an older and wilier man, conducted its temporal affairs. The ''Buddha of Mercy" proved to be more sinister than...
Thereafter, while regents ruled Tibet, the Panchen Lama, a paunchy little god with false teeth, sought unceasingly to return to the land of his birth. Last week word reached China that, instead, His Serenity had gone to his Nirvana, aged 54. The thoroughly kindly, intelligent pontiff had died at the Tibetan border town of Jyekundo where, for days, his priestly retinue had twirled prayer wheels, chanted the mystic syllables Om Mani Padme...
...Three men made an appearance before the monastery's Grand Lama, although they were actually lying in a trance several miles away...