1831), renders Bonpo by Taosse.  So much seems to be certain that it was the ancient religion of Tibet, before Buddhism penetrated into the country, and that even at later periods it several times gained the ascendancy when the secular power was of a disposition averse to the Lamaitic hierarchy.  Another opinion is that the Bon religion was originally a mere fetishism, and related to or identical with Shamanism; this appears to me very probable and easy to reconcile with the former supposition, for it may afterwards, on becoming acquainted with the Chinese doctrine of the ‘Taosse,’ have adorned itself with many of its tenets....  With regard to the following particulars, I have got most of my information from our Lama, a native of the neighbourhood of Tashi Lhunpo, whom we consulted about all your questions.  The extraordinary asceticism which struck Marco Polo so much is of course not to be understood as being practised by all members of the sect, but exclusively, or more especially, by the priests.  That these never marry, and are consequently more strictly celibatary than many sects of the Lamaitic priesthood, was confirmed by our Lama.” (Mr. Jaeschke then remarks upon the bran to much the same effect as I have done above.) “The Bonpos are by all Buddhists regarded as heretics.  Though they worship idols partly the same, at least in name, with those of the Buddhists,... their rites seem to be very different.  The most conspicuous and most generally known of their customs, futile in itself, but in the eyes of the common people the greatest sign of their sinful heresy, is that they perform the religious ceremony of making a turn round a sacred object in the opposite direction to that prescribed by Buddhism.  As to their dress, our Lama said that they had no particular colour of garments, but their priests frequently wore red clothes, as some sects of the Buddhist priesthood do.  Mr. Heyde, however, once on a journey in our neighbouring county of Langskar, saw a man clothed in black with blue borders, who the people said was a Bonpo.”

[Mr. Rockhill (Journey , 63) saw at Kao miao-tzu “a red-gowned, long-haired Boenbo Lama,” and at Kumbum (p. 68), “was surprised to see quite a large number of Boenbo Lamas, recognisable by their huge mops of hair and their red gowns, and also from their being dirtier than the ordinary run of people.”—­H.  C.]

The identity of the Bonpo and Taosse seems to have been accepted by Csoma de Koroes, who identifies the Chinese founder of the latter, Lao-tseu, with the Shen-rabs of the Tibetan Bonpos.  Klaproth also says, “Bhonbp’o, Bhanpo, and Shen, are the names by which are commonly designated (in Tibetan) the Taoszu, or follower of the Chinese philosopher Laotseu."[11] Schlagintweit refers to Schmidt’s Tibetan Grammar (p. 209) and to the Calcutta edition of the Fo-koue-ki (p. 218) for the like identification,