The real fact is, that since mere children, who are too young to have received any education, are elevated to the Grand Lāmaship, and most of them either die naturally or are made to die before they have gained any knowledge, the re-incarnated Lāmas are generally unfit to govern, and in monasteries which have an Avatāra Grand Lāma, an elected chief Lāma acts as regent or administrator of affairs, while the incarnated Buddha is supposed to lose himself in sublime heights of meditation and receive divine homage[131]. This elected Regent also governs during the intervals of the incarnations, and at Lhāssa he is the real Head and most powerful Tibetan official. He is called Nomun-khan or Nomin-khan (or No min han). The manner in which the Avatāra doctrine is carried into practice has varied at different times. It is alleged that formerly the departing Lāma, before he transferred himself to another body, was in the habit of revealing where and in what family he would be re-incarnated. Or occasionally it happened that children of two or three years of age called out suddenly, as if impelled by some spiritual influence, ‘I am a living Buddha, I am the chief Lāma of such and such a monastery.’ Or more commonly the sacred books were consulted; or the official soothsayers gave their opinion. But the usual rule was that at the death of the Dalai Lāma the interpretation of the traditions and oracles about his re-birth and the duty of discovering the family in which he was to appear were committed to the Panchen Lāma. When the Panchen Lāma himself died, the Dalai Grand Lāma did the same service for him. It was only natural that the holy land of Tibet, and especially the holy city of Lhāssa, should have been most fruitful in re-incarnations, and should even have supplied foreign countries with them. When Messrs. Huc and Gabet were travelling in Mongolia they were about to pass a certain Lāmistic convent without stopping, when a Lāma came out and invited them to enter, that they might have an opportunity of paying adoration to the saint enthroned within. ‘Our saint,’ he said, ‘is not a mere man. In our small convent we have the happiness to possess a living Buddha! Two years ago he deigned to descend from the holy mountains of Tibet, and he is now seven years old.’ These living Buddhas, according to M. Huc, are very numerous. Sometimes a clever Lāma builds a small temple and attracts a few disciples. Then by degrees his reputation increases. Other Lāmas build their cells near the temple, and bring it into fashion, and proclaim him to be a living Buddha. It is said, indeed, that some spiritual Heads of the Hierarchy in Lhāssa have contrived to instal their illegitimate children in the Headship of distant Lāmaseries, so that occasionally the supposed living Buddha is really the son of some Tibetan Grand Lāma.