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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
The Lāmas always say Grace before food or drink. Most of these Graces are curiously blended with demonolatry, though they always are pervaded by universal charity and other truly Buddhistic principles. And they throw some light on the later Mahāyāna ritual of Indian Buddhism, from which they are alleged to have been borrowed.
page 265 note 1 Zhal-zas.
page 266 note 1 Yidam mKhah-gro Chhos-skyong.
page 266 note 2 This is the celebrated man-eating Yakshini fiendess, with the 500 children, whose youngest and most beloved son Pingala was hid away by Buddha (or, as some Lāmas say, by his chief diaciple, Maudgalayana), in his begging bowl until she promised to cease cannibalism and accept the Buddhist Doctrine as detailed in the Ratnakūta Sūtra. See also the Japanese version of this legend and its pictorial illustration by DrFranks, A. W., F.R.S., in the Journ. Soc. Antiquaries, lii. 1892Google Scholar. The Lāmas assert that Buddha also promised Hariti that the monks of his order would hereafter feed both herself and her sons: hence their introduction into this Grace; and each Lāma daily leaves on his plate a handful of his food expressly for these demons, and these leavings are ceremoniously gathered and thrown down outside the Monastery gate to these pretas and other starveling demons.
page 266 note 3 The children of the above Hariti.