Tsong Khapa soon acquired vast influence, and in the year 1409 was able to build on a hill about thirty miles from Lhāssa, the afterwards celebrated monastery called Galdan (or Gahdan) of the Yellow school. Of this Tsong Khapa was the first Abbot. His followers, however, rapidly became too numerous to be comprehended within so limited an area. Hence there arose in the immediate neighbourhood of Lhāssa, two other great monasteries, Brepung (also written Dapung, etc., see p. 442), founded by Jam-yang Ćhos-rje, and Sera ‘the Golden,’ founded by Byam Ćhen Ćhos-rje. These three monasteries once held 30,000 monks of the Yellow sect, but now have only 16,500. Tsong Khapa wrote many works, which enjoy a quasi-canonical authority among the adherents of the reformed sect. Many of them exist in Mongolian translations, but they have not yet been fully examined. Undeniably, Tsong Khapa’s chief merit was that he caused his followers to revert to the purer monastic discipline, especially to the rule of celibacy. He also purified the forms of worship, and greatly restricted without altogether prohibiting the use of magical rites. Tsong Khapa, too, is said to have re-established the original practice of retirement for religious meditation at certain seasons, although as there was no rainy season in Tibet, another period had to be chosen. Travellers in Tibet have often described the many points of resemblance between the Roman Catholic and Lāmistic systems, such as the Popedom, the celibacy of the priesthood, the worship of saints, confession, fasting, processions, holy water, bells, rosaries, mitres, croziers, etc. These resemblances and coincidences will be more fully noted in a subsequent Lecture (see pp. 338, 339). It is possible that Tsong Khapa may have imbibed some of his notions from his instructor at Amdo already named (p. 277), who was either a Roman Catholic missionary, or was familiar with the constitution of the Romish hierarchy. On the other hand, it is certain that celibacy, confession, and fasting existed in Buddhism before the teaching of Christ, and long before that of Tsong Khapa. In fact, Tsong Khapa’s reformation had been to a certain extent anticipated, as we have seen, by the school of Kadampa, founded in the eleventh century, by Atīsha’s disciple, Brom Ton (p. 273). Very little more is known about Tsong Khapa. He died in the year 1419, or, as his disciples believe, ascended to heaven, and that ascension is still celebrated during the festival of Lamps by all orthodox Buddhists of the Lāmistic Church (see pp. 345, 346). When some time after his death, he was canonized, he was regarded by some as an incarnation of Amitābha, or by others of Mañju-ṡrī, or by others of Vajra-pāṇi (see p. 195), or even of the Mahā-kāla form of Ṡiva, and his image is generally found in the temples of the Yellow sect, and often between the two images of the Dalai Lāma and the Panchen Lāma, on the right and left respectively.