A Striking Resemblance
By G. D. Ballou
IN the April number of the Geographical Magazine, the leading article, on “Castles in the Air, or Experiences and Journeys in Unknown Bhutan,” by John Claude White, an official of the British government, notes some most striking resemblances between the mixed Buddhistic and heathen ritual and the Roman Catholic forms of worship. On page 382 occurs a picture of one of their shrines, with a venerable lama in front counting his beads. I quote from the next page: “The form of worship has a curious resemblance, in many particulars, to that of the Catholic Church. On any of their high holy days, the intoning of the chief lama conducting the service, the responses chanted by the choir, sometimes voices alone, sometimes to the accompaniment of instruments, where the deep note of the large trumpet strangely resembles the roll of an organ, the ringing of the bells, burning of incense, the prostrations before the altar, the telling of beads, and burning of candles, the processions of priests in gorgeous vestments, and even the magnificent altars surmounted by images and decorated with gold and silver vessels, with lamps burning before them, even the side chapels with the smaller shrines where lights burn day and night, add to the feeling that one is present at some high festival in a Catholic place of worship.” “I have been present at the services on feast days in the temples in Sikkim, Bhutan, and in Lassa, and no great stretch of imagination was required to imagine myself in a Catholic cathedral in France or Spain, especially the latter. There is also some resemblance in the dress and vestments of the priests and lamas, and even in some of their customs. Many of them go entirely into seclusion, and they also have certain periods of time devoted to prayer, corresponding to a retreat, during which they see no one.” Bhutan is in the northernmost section of India, up under and on the slopes of the Himalaya Mountains, far out of the reach of all modern influences, thus making it clearly evident that both of these ancient systems were fashioned after the same original pattern.