TSONG-KHA-BA, a Buddhist priest of Tibet, born A.D. 1417, at Si-King in Tibet. In the 15th century, the Sakya priesthood, known as the Brug-pa, also Hung-Kmo or the Red Church, had introduced marriage, but Tsong-kha-ba preached the c,elibate views of Sakya Muni, and insisted on the adoption of yellow robes. Before his death, A.D. 1478, he was the recognised spiritual leader of the Letnaist majority, arid Wag acknow ledged by the Ming emperor, who gladly welcomed him, because the Red Hierarchy had favoured supporters of the descendants of Kublai. Tsong kha-ba left behind him two eminent disciples, on whom he laid commands, enjoining upon them that they should be born agaiu, generation after generation, as hubil'han, to practise tho doctrines of the Great Conveyance (Ta-ch'eng), in Sanskrit Mahayana, the esoteric form of Buddhism. Hubil lian, in Chinese Ilwa-shen, means transformed body, transformation, re-embodiment.
The two disciples were designated respectively Dalai Lama and Panshen Lama. From that time the spiritual and a large portion of the temporal authority in Tibet, which had previously been engrossed by the Red Hierarchy, has been wielded by the successive re - embodiments of Tsoug-kha-ba's disciples, whose identity, on their reappearance in human form, has been merged, according to the legends that have subsequently arisen, in the personality of the two most exalted and revered of the divinities proceeding from the essence of Buddha himself. In the senior of the two, the Dalai Lama, the Bodltisattwa Avalokit eswara (the Chinese Kwan yin), is believed to appear on earth ; and in the person of the second, the Bodhisattwa Manchusri is recognised, this deity having preliminarily occupied the form, it is also fabled, of Tsong-kha-ba himself. The second in succession of the Dalai Lamas, in the course of a long career, laid the foundation of the existing hierarchical system in Tibet, establishiug his seat of ecclesiastical rule at Lhassa, and organizing a body of lesser spiritual dignitaries, under the designation Hut-ukht'u, who, like the two supreme religious chiefs, were to be continued by a series of re-embodiments. Like the Dalai Lama and Panshen Lama, these spiritual chiefs of the Tibetan priesthood became popularly known as Living Buddhas, in Chiueso Hwoh Fu, a tenn by which they are at present commonly desig nated. During the latter half of the 17th century, the authority of tho Dalai Lama gained entire predominance throughout the greater portion of Tibet ; the Gialbo, or the descendants of the ancient kings, seem to have gradually faded into insignificance, whilst the authority of the Mongol princes grew more and more direct. Already, at
a somewhat earlier period, Gushi Khan, the reigning prince of the Khoshot Mongols, had supported the Dalai Lama of the period agrtinst the claims of the reigning sovereign, and had been rewarded with the title of Nomen' Han, or Prince (Khan) of the Religious Law, an equivalent of the Sanskrit Dharma Raja. By the influence of Gushi Khan, the Dalai Lama and Panshen Lama in A.D. 1612 were induced to despatch an embassy with tenders of allegiance to the Manchu sovereign, whose forces were then on the eve of effecting the overthrow of the Ming dynasty in China ; and from this period relations of intimacy took their rise, developing themselves in time into tho aasumption, on the part of the Chinese emperors, of the sovereign tutelage of the Buddhist papacy in Tibet. This consummation was hastened by the wars undertaken towards the close of the 17th and in the early part of the 18th centuries by the Sungar chieftains, for the subversion of the author ity of the Dalai Lama. The temporal adminis trator who, as regent under the Dalai Lama, had long conducted the government of Tibet, with the title of Deba, ruler or chief, was invested by Kiang Hi, in A.D. 1694, with the title of Tu peli-Veh-kwoh-wang, or king of Tibet. But the authority thus established was ere long attacked by an invasion of the Sungars ; and the Chinese armies, which were despatched hereupon for the liberation of Tibet, remained as conquerors of the country.
For a time the government remained in the hands of puppet nominees of the Chinese emperor ; but in 1725 an outbreak directed against one of these gave a pretext for the appointment of tl.vo High Commissioners to control the affairs of Tibet on behalf of the Chinese Government. Further attempts at revolt led, in 1750, to the entire suppression of the temporal sovereignty in Tibet, and the goverrunent of the country was placed, thenceforward, in the hands of the Dalai and Panshen Lamas, aided by a council of four laymen, entitled KaIon or Kablon, i.e. Ministers of State, under the direction in chief of the two Imperial Commissioners or Residents appointed from Pekin. The government has from that time forward con tinued to be conducted on this basis, the author ity of the Chinese Government being rendered the more complete by the long minorities which are entailed at each successive re-embodiment of the twO supreme ecclesiastical dignitaries.—Mayer, Chinese Government.