2. The Pyit-seṅ or Pyit-siṅ (sometimes pronounced Patzin) or full monks, who have the title Pungī or Phungī (sometimes spelt Phungee or Phongie), ‘full of great glory,’ when they have been at least ten years members of the order. They correspond to the Ṡramaṇas, and are by Europeans called Talapoins (from their carrying fans of palm leaves). Their dress usually consists of three pieces of yellow cotton cloth. 3. The Hsayā (always a Phungī) or Head of a separate monastery, who corresponds to the Abbot of European countries. 4. The Gaiṇ-ok or provincial Head, who has a kind of episcopal jurisdiction over all the monasteries of a district. 5. The Thāthanā-paing (Thāthanā = Sanskṛit Ṡāsanā) or supreme rulers, who correspond to Archbishops. They superintend all religious affairs. According to Mr. Scott, there are now eight of them. Occasionally instances occur of hermit-monks who lead solitary lives, and sit motionless in meditation for years. In Siam the gradations of monkhood are nearly similar to those in Burma, and we learn from Mr. Alabaster that the monastic vow is not binding for life, but can be cancelled at any time. This rule leads to every Siamese man spending at least three months of his life in a monastery. We have now to pass from Ceylon, Burma, and Siam to Tibet (properly called Bod or Bot or Bhot, Sanskṛit Bhoṭa). And here we leave the simpler forms of Buddhism and are brought face to face with that highly developed system which, though nominally resulting from an expansion of the Hīna-yāna, ‘Little Method,’ into the Mahā-yāna, ‘Great Method’ (p. 158), was really the product of a still further expansion of the ‘Great Method’ and its combination with other creeds. In truth, Tibetan Buddhism is so different from every other Buddhistic system that it ought to be treated of separately in a separate volume, as Koeppen has done. In his elaborate and excellent work on this subject he has remarked that for the development of a hierarchy no circumstance is more favourable than isolation, and that this advantage was offered in the highest degree by Tibet. Up to the moment of its conversion to Buddhism a profound darkness had rested on it. The inhabitants were ignorant and uncultivated, and their indigenous religion, sometimes called Bon, consisted chiefly of magic based on a kind of Shamanism. To describe exactly what Shamanism is would be no easy task. The word is said to be of Tungusic origin[120], and to be used as a name for the earliest religion of Mongolia, Siberia, and other Northern countries. Perhaps we shall not be far wrong in asserting that the two principal constituents of Shamanism are the worship of nature and the dread of spirits.