from one another by tribal names as well, such as Licchavis, Vrijjis, Mallas, Andhas, etc., some of which remain to the present day. The S'akyan nobles, it is said, welcomed the person of S'akyamuni, their kinsman prophet, whose teachings encouraged them in their resistance to Brahman usurpations, but they were not always equally willing to adopt his practical teachings. The Brahmans, ultimately victorious in the struggle for political and religious supremacy in India, have had their revenge on these S'akyan tribes by refusing to consider them as families of pure descent. It is hard to determine the point. All Buddhists claim that S'akyamuni's lineage came from Ikshvaku, the descendant of Manu, the descendant of Brahma. Licchavis ruled later, by virtue of Kshatriyan descent, in Nepaul, Bhutan, Ladakh, and (through marriage) in Tibet, and the Licchavi dynasty in Nepaul was succeeded by a line of Malla kings. At the same time it must be admitted that we have from the very earliest times traces of intercourse between Nepaul, Tibet, and China, which should be considered.

China, as shown by the late Prof. Lacouperie and others, e.g. Mr. Morse (in his "Trade and Administration of the Chinese Empire"), was occupied, before the advent of the Chinese from Western Asia, by many aboriginal

tribes, whom it took the Chinese centuries to absorb successfully into themselves. Many of these original tribes, such as the Lolo, the Mantsze, and the Miao, took leading parts in Chinese history, and many of them would seem to have had dealings with nations beyond the borders of their empire. The earliest traditions of Nepaul ascribe the first draining and development of their land, in pre-Buddhistic times, to the Bodhisattva Manjus'ri (Jap. Monju), whose chief temple is at Wu-tai-chan, near Pekin, who is the patron deity, par excellence, of the western and northern tribes of China, and who is considered to be perpetually reincarnated in the person of the Manchu sovereign of China. It seems probable, therefore, that Manjus'ri was originally the deified hero of one of the tribes of Northern China, possibly the Mantsze, that he distinguished himself during his lifetime by his successful development and colonization of Nepaul, and that he was

subsequently adopted into the Buddhist pantheon by the all-embracing Mahayana. As M. Sylvain Levi has said, it is impossible as yet adequately to define the extent of the influence exerted on Buddhism in remote times by China and neighbouring countries.