Note 11 — Chapter X · VISIT TO SAKYA AND RETURN TO INDIA.

It is told of the late Sakya Panchen that, some sixteen years ago, after the death of the two famous Dayan khanpo, the treasurer of the Gadan gomba of Lhasa, when his wicked spirit was causing various dire calamities to Tibet, every endeavour to expel it from the country proved abortive. So finally the Government of Lhasa, at the suggestion of the oracles, requested the Sakya Panchen to visit Lhasa to drive the fiend away. At the foot of Mount Potala he had lighted a great fire, and, by the potency of his charms, drove the evil spirit into a lay figure prepared for the occasion, whereupon it fell straight-way into the fire. Then the Panchen drove his charmed phurbu11 into the image, but while so doing the flames of the pyre surrounded him, and all thought he was dead; but lo! after an hour or so he came out of the flames dressed in rich satins, and with not even so much as a hair of his head scorched.