The founder of Potala died in 1681. He had appointed as "regent" or civil administrator (_Deisri_, or _Deba_) one supposed to be his own natural son. This remarkable personage, Sangye Gyamtso, of great ambition and accomplishment, still renowned in Tibet as the author of some of the most valued works of the native literature, concealed the death of his master, asserting that the latter had retired, in mystic meditation or trance, to the upper chambers of the palace. The government continued to be carried on in the lama's name by the regent, who leagued with Galdan Khan of Dzungaria against the Chinese (Manchu) power. It was not till the great emperor Kang-hi was marching on Tibet that the death of the lama, sixteen years before, was admitted. A solemn funeral was then performed, at which 108,000 lamas assisted, and a new incarnation was set up in the person of a youth of fifteen, Tsangs-yang Gyamtso. This young man was the scandal of the Lamaist Church in every kind of evil living and debauchery, so that he was deposed and assassinated in 1701. But it was under him and the regent Sangye Gyamtso that the Potala palace attained its present scale of grandeur, and that most of the other great buildings of Lhasa were extended and embellished.
For further history and bibliography, see TIBET. Consult also LAMAISM. (H. Y.; L. A. W.)
[1] The name given by Köppen (_Die lamaische Kirche_, Berlin, 1859, p. 74) is "La Brang," by which it is sometimes known.
[2] Among articles sold in the Lhasa bazaars are fossil bones, called by the people "lightning bones," and believed to have healing virtues.
L'HÔPITAL (or L'HOSPITAL), MICHEL DE (c. 1505-1573), French statesman, was born near Aigueperse in Auvergne (now Puy-de-Dôme). His father, who was physician to the constable Charles of Bourbon, sent him to study at Toulouse, whence at the age of eighteen he was driven, a consequence of the evil fortunes of the family patron, to Padua, where he studied law and letters for about six years. On the completion of his studies he joined his father at Bologna, and afterwards, the constable having died, went to Rome in the suite of Charles V. For some time he held a position in the papal court at Rome, but about 1534 he returned to France, and becoming an advocate, his marriage, in 1537, procured for him the post of counsellor to the parlement of Paris. This office he held until 1547, when he was sent by Henry II. on a mission to Bologna, where the council of Trent was at that time sitting; after sixteen months of wearisome inactivity there, he was by his own desire recalled at the close of 1548. L'Hôpital now for some time held the position of chancellor to the king's sister, Margaret, duchess of Berry. In 1553, on the recommendation of the Cardinal of Lorraine, he was named master of the requests, and afterwards president of the chambre des comptes. In 1559 he accompanied the princess Margaret, now duchess of Savoy, to Nice, where, in the following year, tidings reached him that he had been chosen to succeed François Olivier (1487-1560) in the chancellorship of France.