Huc and Gabet (the lamasery of Kounboum), is occupied by four thousand lamas.
The structure of these monasteries shows clearly that the monkish system of the Buddhists is far too ancient to have been copied from the Christians.
Is, then, the reverse true?
Did the Catholic Christians derive their monastic institutions, their bells, their rosary, their tonsure, their incense, their mitre and cope, their worship of relics, their custom of confession, etc., from the Buddhists?
Such is the opinion of Mr.Prinsep (Thibet, Tartary, and Mongolia, 1852) and of Lassen (Indische Alterthumskunde).

But, in reply to this view, Mr.Hardwicke objects that we do not find in history any trace of such an influence.

Possibly, therefore, the resemblances may be the result of common human tendencies working out, independently, the same results.

If, however, it is necessary to assume that either religion copied from the other, the Buddhists may claim originality, on the ground of antiquity.
But, however this may he, the question returns, Why call Buddhism the Protestantism of the East, when all its external features so much resemble those of the Roman Catholic Church?
We answer: Because deeper and more essential relations connect Brahmanism with the Romish Church, and the Buddhist system with Protestantism.

The human mind in Asia went through the same course of experience, afterward repeated in Europe.