Travels in the Mogul Empire (Bernier) 19.6.4

19.6.4

a tribe which is the depositary of the law in Lassa as that of the Brehmens is in the Indies, with this difference, that the Brehmens of the Indies have no Calife or Pontiff, which these people have, who is not only recognised as such in the kingdom of Lassa, but throughout all Tartary, and is honoured and reverenced as a divine personage. The physician had a book of receipts which I could not persuade him to sell; the writing at a distance looked something like ours. We induced him to write down the alphabet, but he did this with so much difficulty, and his writing was so wretchedly bad in comparison with that in his book, that we pronounced him an ignoramus. He was an ardent believer in metempsychosis, and entertained us with wonderful tales. Among others, he mentioned that when his Grand Lama was very old and on the point of death, he assembled the council, and declared to them that his soul was going to pass into the body of an infant recently born. The child was nourished with tender care; and when he had attained his sixth or seventh year, a large quantity of household furniture and wearing apparel was placed before him, mixed up with his own, and he had the sagacity to discern which part was his own property, and which was not; a decisive proof, the physician observed, how true is the doctrine of the transmigration of souls. At first I thought the man was speaking in irony, but I soon discovered that he was perfectly serious.