There is no evidence that Chinggiz was specially favourable to Buddhism.  His principle was one King and one God[933] and like other princes of his race he thought of religions not as incompatible systems but as different methods of worship of no more importance than the different languages used in prayer.  The destruction wrought by the Mongol conquerors has often been noticed, but they had also an ample, unifying temper which deserves recognition.  China, Russia and Persia all achieved a unity after the Mongol conquest which they did not possess before, and though this unification may be described as a protest and reaction, yet but for the Mongols and their treatment of large areas as units it would not have been possible.  The Mings could not have united China before the Yuan dynasty as they did after it.

In spite of some statements to the contrary there is no proof that the early Mongols invaded or conquered central Tibet, but Khubilai subdued the eastern provinces and through the Lamaist hierarchy established a special connection between Tibet and his dynasty.  This connection began even in the time of his predecessor, for the head Lama of the Sakya monastery commonly known as Sakya Pandita (or Sa-skya-pan-cen) was summoned to the Mongol Court in 1246-8, and cured the Emperor of an illness.[934] This Lama was a man of great learning and influence.  He had received a double education both secular and religious, and was acquainted with foreign languages.  The favourable impression which he created no doubt facilitated the brilliant achievements of his nephew and successor, who is commonly known as Bashpa or Pagspa.[935]

Khubilai Khan was not content with the vague theism of Central Asia and wished to give his rude Mongols a definite religion with some accessories of literature and manners.  Confucianism was clearly too scholastic for a fighting race and we may surmise that he rejected Christianity as distant and unimportant, Mohammedanism as inconveniently mixed with politics.  But why did he prefer Lamaism to Chinese Buddhism?  The latter can hardly have been too austerely pure to suit his ends, and Tibetan was as strange as Chinese to the Mongols.  But the Mongol Court had already been favourably impressed by Tibetan Lamas and the Emperor probably had a just feeling that the intellectual calibre of the Mongols and Tibetans was similar and also that it was politic to conciliate the uncanny spiritual potentates who ruled in a land which it was difficult to invade.  At any rate he summoned the abbot of Sakya to China in 1261 and was initiated by him into the mysteries of Lamaism.[936]

It is said that before Pagspa’s birth the God Ganesa showed his father all the land of Tibet and told him that it would be the kingdom of his son.  In later life when he had difficulties at the Chinese Court Mahakala appeared and helped him, and the mystery which he imparted to Khubilai is called the Hevajravasita.[937] These legends indicate that there was a large proportion of Sivaism in the religion first taught to the Mongols, larger perhaps than in the present Lamaism of Lhasa.