The expression “king of Butan,” as used by Tavernier, means the Grand Lama of Thibet. Tavernier’s statement has been accepted by the most careful writers. “Indorum nonnullos, incolas scilicet regni Boutan Homerda seu excrementis alvinis Regis sui siccatis et pulverisatis cibos amicis et convivis suis appositos condire, refert Johannes Baptista Tavernier, Itinerar. Indic. lib. 3, cap. 15, fol. m.” (Schurig, “Chylologia,” Dresden, 1725, p. 775.) The same paragraph quoted in the Bibliotheca Scatalogica, pages 29, 93, and 96, to which the anonymous author adds, “et les Tartares et les Japonais tenaient en pareille vénération la merde du grand lama et du Dairi.”
Rosinus Lentilius, in the Ephemeridum Physico-Medicorum, Leipsig, 1694, speaks of the Grand Lama of Thibet as held in such high veneration by the devotees of his faith that his excrements, carefully collected, dried, powdered, and sold at high prices by the priests, were used as a sternutatory powder, to induce sneezing, and as a condiment for their food, and as a remedy for all the graver forms of disease. He quotes all this from Tavernier, and from Erasmus Franciscus, p. 1662. There is also another citation from Tavernier, lib. 4, cap. 7.
“Nec de rege in Bantam, et summo Tangathani Regni Pontifice, magno Lama, quos tanto in honore subditi habent ut merda eorum magno studio collectam, et in pulverem comminutam (quam Brachmines ære multo simplicibus divendunt) illi quidem scil. Boutamenses, loco pulvere nasalis utantur, eoque lautius, victuri cibos condiant hi vero scil. Tangat hani pro remedio longe presentissimo ad varios desperatissimosque morbos habeant, aliisque medicamentis admisceant, per sæpe memoratum” Tavernier, Itin. lib. 3, cap. 15, et Franciscus, loc. cit. p. 1662.
References to “amulets” among the peoples of Tartary and Thibet are made by nearly all travellers; but few seem to have considered it worth while to determine of what these amulets were composed.
Fathers Grueber and Dorville say of the Kalmuck Tartar women, “each with a charm about their necks to preserve them from dangers.” These may have been ordure amulets of the Grand Lama.
In his condensation of the travels into Thibet of Fathers Grueber and Dorville, Pinkerton omits what they had to say about these amulets, although in another place, already cited, he refers to it.