Beyond these, that cloud of standards, which, on a yellow ground, common to them all, bear various emblems, are those of the same god, who reins under different names in the nations of the East.  The Chinese adores him in Fot,* the Japanese in Budso, the Ceylonese in Bedhou, the people of Laos in Chekia, of Pegu in Phta, of Siam in Sommona-Kodom, of Thibet in Budd and in La.  Agreeing in some points of his history, they all celebrate his life of penitence, his mortifications, his fastings, his functions of mediator and expiator, the enmity between him and another god, his adversary, their battles, and his ascendency.  But as they disagree on the means of pleasing him, they dispute about rites and ceremonies, and about the dogmas of interior doctrine and of public doctrine.  That Japanese Bonze, with a yellow robe and naked head, preaches the eternity of souls, and their successive transmigrations into various bodies; near him, the Sintoist denies that souls can exist separate from the senses,** and maintains that they are only the effect of the organs to which they belong, and with which they must perish, as the sound of the flute perishes with the flute.  Near him, the Siamese, with his eyebrows shaved, and a talipat screen*** in his hand, recommends alms, offerings, and expiations, at the same time that he preaches blind necessity and inexorable fate.  The Chinese vo-chung sacrifices to the souls of his ancestors; and next him, the follower of Confucius interrogates his destiny in the cast of dice and the movement of the stars.**** That child, surrounded by a swarm of priests in yellow robes and hats, is the Grand Lama, in whom the god of Thibet has just become incarnate.*5 But a rival has arisen who partakes this benefit with him; and the Kalmouc on the banks of the Baikal, has a God similar to the inhabitant of Lasa.  And they agree, also, in one important point—­that god can inhabit only a human body.  They both laugh at the stupidity of the Indian who pays homage to cow-dung, though they themselves consecrate the excrements of their high-priest.*6

* The original name of this god is Baits, which in Hebrew signifies an egg.  The Arabs pronounce it Baidh, giving to the dh an emphatic sound which makes it approach to dz.  Kempfer, an acurate traveler, writes it Budso, which must be pronounced Boudso, whence is derived the name of Budsoist and of Bonze, applied to the priests.  Clement of Alexandria, in his Stromata, writes it Bedou, as it is pronounced also by the Chingulais; and Saint Jerome, Boudda and Boutta.  At Thibet they call it Budd; and hence the name of the country called Boud-tan and Ti-budd:  it was in this province that this system of religion was first inculcated in Upper Asia; La is a corruption of Allah, the name of God in the Syriac language, from which many of the eastern dialects appear to be derived.  The Chinese having neither b nor d, have supplied their place by f and t, and have therefore said Fout.

     ** See in Kempfer the doctrine of the Sintoists, which is a
     mixture of that of Epicurus and of the Stoics.