Note 1407 — Chapter XVI · —Influences Of A Mountain Environment

Buddhism, once the official religion of Korea but disestablished three centuries ago, has taken refuge in the Diamond Mountains, far from the main roads; there a dull, moribund form of the faith dozes on in the monasteries and monastic shrines of these secluded highlands.1407 Driven out of India, Buddhism survives only in the Himalayan border of the country among the local Tibeto-Burman peoples, and in Ceylon, whose mountain city of Kandy is its stronghold. The persecuted Waldenses, a heretic sect who fled in 1178 from the cities of France to the Alps, took refuge in the remote valleys of the Pellice, Chisone, and Augrogne some thirty miles southwest of Turin. There, protected equally against attack and modification, the Waldenses have maintained the old tenets and organization of their religion.1408