In the times of Buddhist prosperity persons received from the emperor a written permission to become ho-shang or "monks." When this practice was abandoned, as by Kau-tsung, one of the emperors who reigned at Hang-cheu, A.D. 1143, the higher members of the Buddhist hierarchy undertook to distribute the usual certificates of membership in the order. Thus the aim of the emperor,

who had argued that for want of imperial patronage the inmates of the monasteries would be thinned in numbers, until death effected what former emperors had sought to accomplish by persecution, was frustrated. When the neophyte visits the chief monk at some monastery, in order to go through the ceremonies of initiation, an indentation is usually burnt in at the top of his shaven head, and a new one is made at every repetition of the visit. A priest is proud to show these marks of distinction, arranged in a square on his naked cranium, as testifying to the self-denial he has practised in attaining his position.

There are various evidences of the continued influence of Indian Buddhism on that of China at this comparatively late period. The "History of the Sung Dynasty," in its account of India, details the arrival in A.D. 951 of Samanta, a monk, with a large party of companions from Western India, belonging to sixteen families. In 965 a Chinese priest, named Tau-yuen, returned from a journey to the Western countries with relics and Sanscrit copies of Buddhist books written on the "palm-leaf" (pei-to) to the number of forty volumes. He was absent twelve years, and resided in India itself half of that time. He returned by the usual route round the north-west of the great mountain mass denominated Ts'ung-ling. He gave an account of his travels to the emperor on his return, and showed him the Sanscrit books. The next year 157 Chinese priests set out together, with the emperor's permission, to visit India and obtain Buddhist books. They passed through Pu-lu-sha and "Cashmere" (Ka-shi-mi-lo), but nothing is said of their further proceedings. During the latter part of the tenth century Sanscrit manuscripts continued to arrive at court in great numbers. On one occasion the son of a king of Eastern India was a visitor. The reason of his abandoning his native land, continues our authority, was that it is customary for the younger sons of a deceased king to leave their eldest brother at home to