I will not attempt to catalogue this fantastic host but will merely notice the principal elements in it.

The first of these may be called early Buddhist.  The figure of Sakyamuni is frequent in poses which illustrate the familiar story of his life and the statue in the cathedral of Lhasa representing him as a young man is the most venerated image in all Tibet.  The human Buddhas anterior to him also receive recognition together with Maitreya.  The Pratimoksha is still known, the Uposatha days are observed and the details of the ordination services recall the prescriptions of the Pali Vinaya; formulae such as the four truths, the eightfold path and the chain of causation are still in use and form the basis of ethics.

The later (but still not tantric) doctrines of Indian Mahayanism are naturally prominent.  The three bodies of Buddha are well known and also the series of five Celestial Buddhas with corresponding Bodhisattvas and other manifestations.  I feel doubtful whether the table given by Waddell[1033] can be accepted as a compendium of the Lamaist creed.  The symmetry is spoiled by the existence of other groups such as the Thirty Buddhas, the Thousand Buddhas, and the Buddhas of Healing, and also by the habit just mentioned of representing deities in various forms.  For instance Amoghapasa, theoretically a form of Avalokita, is in practice distinct.  The fact is that Lamaism accepted the whole host of Indian Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, with additions of its own.  The classifications made by various sutras and tantras were not sufficiently dogmatic to become articles of faith:  chance and fancy determined the prominence and popularity of a given figure.  Among the Buddhas those most worshipped are Amitabha, Sakya and Bhaishajyaguru or the Buddha of Healing:  among the Bodhisattvas, Avalokita, Maitreya and Manjusri.

There is nothing in the above differing materially from Chinese or Japanese Buddhism.  The peculiarities of Tibet are brought out by the tantric phase which those countries eschewed.  Three characteristics of Tibetan Tantrism, which are all more or less Indian, may be mentioned.  Firstly, all deities, even the most august, become familiar spirits, who are not so much worshipped as coerced by spells.  The neophyte is initiated into their mysteries by a special ceremonial:[1034] the adept can summon them, assume their attributes and attain union with them.  Secondly, great prominence is given to goddesses, either as the counterparts of male deities or as independent.  Thirdly, deities appear in various forms, described as mild, angry or fiendish.  It is specially characteristic of Lamaism that naturally benevolent deities are represented as raging in furious frenzy.

Whether the superhuman beings of Tantrism are Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, or Hindu gods like Mahakala, it is correct to describe them as deities, for they behave and are treated like Indian Devas.  Besides the relatively old and simple forms of the various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, there are many others which are usually accommodated to the system by being described as protecting spirits, that is virtuous and religious fiends who expend their ferocity on the enemies of the Church.