Sagas from the Far East Part 31

5. Paramartha (true, exact, perfect understanding), and sanvrti (imperfect, dubious understanding), were party words, arising out of the philosophical disputes of the Madhjamika and Jogatscharja schools. Wa.s.siljew, pp. 321-367.

6. Magadha. The legend is in this instance more precise than often falls to the lot of works of this nature. Instead of transferring the scene of action to a locality within the limits of the country of the narrator however, he makes Nagarg'una to have lived on the borders of Magadha [57]. La.s.sen, speaking in allusion to the kaitja named after him, mentioned above, says there is no allusion in any authentic account of him to his ever being in this part of the country; this Mongolian tradition however corroborates the local tradition of the kaitja. I have already had occasion to mention how Magadha came to receive its modern name of Behar [58].

The word Magadha is also used to designate a bard; as this meaning rests on no etymological foundation, it is natural to suppose that it arises from the fact of the country being rich in sagas, and that successful bards sprang from its people. The office of the Magadha, also called Vandin, the Speaker of praises, consisted chiefly in singing before the king the deeds of his ancestors. In several places the Magadha is named along with the Suta [59]. It is quite in accordance with this view that Vjasa's [60] mother was reckoned a daughter of a king of Magadha.

It is curious that the poetical occupation of bard came to be combined with the sordid occupation of pedlar, or travelling trader, who is also called a Magadha in Manu x. 47, and other places.

7. Krijavidja. Writings concerning the study of magic.--Julg.

8. Bede = Bhota, or Bothanga, the Indian name of Tibet. See Schmidt's translation of the "History of the Mongols," by the native historian, sSanang sSetsen.

Before proceeding farther it is necessary to say a few words concerning the history, religions, and customs of Tibet and Mongolia, to ill.u.s.trate the local colouring the following Tales have received by pa.s.sing into Mongolia.

Buddhism nowhere took so firm a grasp of the popular mind as in Tibet, where it was established as early as the 7th century by its greatest king, Ssrong-Tsan-Gampo. No where, except in China, was its influence on literature so powerful and so useful, for not only have we thus preserved to us very early translations from the Sanskrit of most of the sacred writings, but also original treatises of history, geography, and philosophy. Nowhere, either, did it possess so many colleges and teachers; it was by means of these that it was spread over Mongolia in the 13th century; the very indistinct notions of religion there prevailing previously, with no hierarchy to maintain them, readily yielding at its approach. Mang-ku, grandson of Ginghis Khan [61], added to the immense sovereignty his warlike ancestor had left him, the whole of Tibet about the year 1248. His brother and successor, Kublai Khan, who reigned from 1259 to 1290, occupied himself with the internal development of his empire. He appears to have regarded Christ, Moses, Muhammed, and Buddha as prophets of equal authority, and to have finally adopted the religion of the last-named, because he discerned the advantages to be derived in the consolidation of his power from the a.s.sistance of the Buddhist priests already possessing so great influence in Tibet. He was seconded in his design by the eager a.s.sistance of a young Lama, named sSkja Pandita, and surnamed Matidhvaga = "the ensign of penetration," whom he not only set over the whole priesthood of the Mongolian empire, but made him also tributary ruler of Tibet, with the grandiloquent t.i.tles of "King of the great and precious teaching; the most excellent Lama; King of teaching in the three countries of the Rhaghan (empire)." Among other rich insignia of his dignity which he conferred on him was a precious jasper seal. He is most commonly mentioned by the appellation, Phagss-pa = "the most excellent," which has hence often been taken erroneously for his name; his chief office was the coronation of the Emperor. The t.i.tle, Dalai Lama [62], the head of Tibetian Buddhism, is half Mongolian, and half Tibetian. Dalai is Mongolian for "ocean," and Lama Tibetian for "priest;" making, "a priest whose rule is vast as the ocean."

Of the four Khanats or kingdoms into which the Mongolian Empire was divided, that called Juan bordered on Tibet, and to its Khans consequently was committed the government of that country; but they interfered very little with it, so that the power of the people was left to strengthen itself. The last of them, Shan-ti, or Tokatmar-Khan, was turned out in 1368 by Hong-vu, the founder of the Ming dynasty, who sought to extend his power by weakening that of the Lamas. In order to this he set up four chief ones in place of one. Jong-lo who reigned from 1403 to 1425, further divided the power among eight; but this very subdivision tended to a return to the original supremacy of one; for, while all bore the similar t.i.tle of Vang = "little king,"

or "sub-king," it became gradually necessary that among so many one should take the lead, and for this one the t.i.tle of Garma or patriarch was coined ere long.

The Tibetians and Mongolians receiving thus late the doctrines of Shakjamuni received a version of it very different from his original teaching. The meditations and mystifications of his followers had invested him with ever new prerogatives, and step by step he had come to be considered no longer in the light of an extraordinary teacher, or even a heaven-sent founder of religion, but as himself the essence of truth and the object of supreme adoration. Out of this theory again ramified developments so complicated as almost to defy condensation. Thus Addi-Buddha, as he was now called, it was taught was possessed of five kinds of gnana or knowledge; and by five operations of his dhjana or contemplative power he was supposed to have produced five Dhjani-Buddhas, each of which received a special name, and in process of time became personified and deified too, and each by virtue of an emanation of the supreme power indwelling him had brought forth a Dhjani-Bodhisattva. The fourth of these, distinguished as Dhjani-Bodhisattva-Padmapani, was the Creator, not only of the universe, but also of Brahma and other G.o.ds whom Shakjamuni or his earlier followers had acknowledged as more or less supreme. And as if this strange theogony was not perplexing enough, there had come to be added to the cycle of objects of wors.h.i.+p a mult.i.tude of other deifications too numerous even to name here in detail.

Among all these, Dhjani-Bodhisattva-Padmapani is reckoned the chief G.o.d by the Mongolians. The princ.i.p.al tribute of wors.h.i.+p paid him is the endless repet.i.tion of the e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "Om Manipadmi hum"

= "Hail Manipadmi O!" Every one has heard of the prayer-machine, the revolutions of whose wheel set going by the wors.h.i.+pper count as so many exclamations to his account. "The instrument is called Tchu-Kor (turning prayer)," writes Abbe Huc. "You see a number of them in every brook" (in the neighbourhood of a Lamaseri) "turned by the current.... The Tartars suspend them also over the fireplace to send up prayer for the peace and prosperity of the household;"

he mentions also many most curious incidents in connexion with this practice. Another similar inst.i.tution is printing the formulary an immense number of times on numbers of sheets of paper, and fixing them in a barrel similarly turned by running water. Baron Schilling de Kanstadt has given us (in "Bulletin Hist. Phil. de l'Ac. des Sciences de S. Petersburg," iv. No. 22) an interesting account of the bargain he struck with certain Mongolian priests at Kiakhtu, on the Russo-Chinese frontier. It was their great aim to multiply this e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n a hundred million times, a feat they had never been able to accomplish. They showed him a sheet which was the utmost reach of their efforts, but the sum total of which was only 250. The Baron sent to St. Petersburg and had a sheet printed, in which the words were repeated seventy times one way and forty-one times the other, giving 2870 times, but being printed in red they counted for 25 times as many, or 71,750; then he had twenty-four such sheets rolled together, making 1,793,750, so that about seventy revolutions of the barrel would give the required number. In return for this help the Mongolian Lama gave him a complete collection of the sacred writings in the Tibetian language; Tibetian being the educated, or at least the sacred, language of Mongolia.

Concerning the meaning of this e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, Abbe Huc has the following:--"According to the opinion of the celebrated Orientalist Klaproth, the 'Om mani padme houm' is merely the Tibetian transcription of a Sanskrit formula brought from India to Tibet with the introduction of Buddhism and letters.... This formula has in the Sanskrit a distinct and complete meaning which cannot be traced in the Tibetian idiom. Om is among the Hindoos, the mystic name of the Divinity, and all their prayers begin with it. It is composed of A, standing for Vishnu, O, for Siva, and M, for Brahma. This mystic particle is also equivalent to the interjection O! It expresses a profound religious conviction, and is a sort of act of faith; mani signifies a gem, a precious thing; padma, the lotus, padme, vocative case. Lastly, houm is a particle expressing a wish, and is equivalent to the use of the word Amen. The literal sense then of this phrase is

"Om mani padme houm."

O the gem in the lotus. Amen.

In the Ramajana, where Vasichta destroys the sons of Visvamitra [63]

he is said to do so by his hungkara, his breathing forth of his desire of vengeance, but literally by his breathing the interjection 'hum.'

"The Buddhists of Tibet and Mongolia, however, have tortured their imagination to find a mystic interpretation of each of these six syllables. They say the doctrine contained in them is so immense that a life is insufficient to measure it. Among other things, they say the six cla.s.ses of living beings [64] correspond to these six syllables.... By continual transmigrations according to merit, living beings pa.s.s through these six cla.s.ses till they have attained the height of perfection, absorbed into the essence of Buddha.... Those who repeat the formula very frequently escape pa.s.sing after death into these six cla.s.ses.... The gem being the emblem of perfection, and the lotus of Buddha, it may perhaps be considered that these words express desire to acquire perfection in order to be united with Buddha--absorbed in the one universal soul: "Oh, the gem of the lotus, Amen," might then be paraphrased thus:--"O may I obtain perfection, and be absorbed in Buddha, Amen!" making it a summary of a vast system of Pantheism.

Buddhism, however, received its greatest and most remarkable modification in this part of the world from the teaching of an extraordinary Lama, named bThong-kha-pa, who rose to eminence in the reign of Jong-lo, and is regarded with greatest veneration among not only the Tibetians and Mongolians, including the remotest tribes of the Khalmouks, but also by the more polished Chinese, and more or less wherever Buddhism prevails.

Though subsequently p.r.o.nounced to be an incarnation of s.h.i.+va he was born in the year 1357, in the Lamaseri of ssKu-bun = "a hundred thousand images," on the Kuku-noor, or Blue Lake, in the south-west part of the Amdo country, several days' journey from the city of Sining-fu. In his youth he travelled to gTsang-lschhn, or Lha.s.sa, in order to gain the most perfect knowledge of Buddhist teaching, and during his studies there determined on effecting various reforms in the prevailing ideas. He met with many partisans, who adopted a yellow cap as their badge, in contradistinction from the red cap heretofore worn, and styled themselves the dGe-luges-pa = "the Virtuous." Besides introducing a stricter discipline his chief development of the Buddhist doctrines consisted in teaching distinctly that Buddha was possessed of a threefold nature, which was to be recognized, the first in his laws, the second in his perfections, the third in his incarnations.

The supreme rule of the Buddhist religion in Tibet also received its present form under the impulse of his labours. His nephew, dGe-dun-grub-pa (born circa 1390, died 1475), was the first Dalai Lama. He built the celebrated Lama Palace of bKra-schiss-Lhun-po, thirty miles N. of Lha.s.sa, in 1445. Under him, too, was established the inst.i.tution of the Pan-tschhen-Rin-po-tsche (the great venerable jewel of teaching), or Contemplative Lama. Tsching-Hva, the eighth Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, established their joint authority as superior to all the eight princely Lamas set up by Jo-long [65].

Abbe Huc, in the course of his enterprising missionary travels, visited all the places I have had occasion to mention, spending a considerable time at some of them. By local traditions, collected by word of mouth and from Lamaistic records, he gives us a most fantastic and entertaining narrative of Tsong-Kaba, as he calls the Buddhist reformer: of the fables concerning his birth; of the marvellous tree that grew from his hair when his mother cut it; of his mature intelligence in his tenderest years; his supernatural call to Lha-sa (Land of Spirits); and of the very peculiar mode of argument by which he converted Buddha Chakdja, the Lama of the Red Cap. More important than all this, however, is the light he throws on the mode in which the great incorporation of Christian ideas and ceremonial into Buddhist teaching came about. During his years of retirement Tsong-Kaba became acquainted with a mysterious teacher "from the far West," almost beyond question "one of those Catholic missionaries who at this precise period penetrated in such numbers into Upper Asia." The very description preserved of his face and person is that of a European. This strange teacher died, we know not by what means, while Tsong-kaba was yet in the desert; and he appears to have accepted as much of his doctrine as either he had only time to learn or as suited his purpose, and this in the main had reference "to the introduction of a new Liturgy. The feeble opposition which he encountered in his reformation would seem to indicate that already the progress of Christian ideas in these countries had materially shaken the faith in Buddha.... The tribe of Amdo, previously altogether obscure, has since this reformation acquired a prodigious celebrity.... The mountain at the foot of which Tsong-Kaba was born became a famous place of pilgrimage; Lamas a.s.sembled there from all parts to build their cells [66]; and thus by degrees was formed that flouris.h.i.+ng Lamasery, the fame of which extends to the remotest confines of Tartary. It is called Komboun, from two Tibetian words, signifying ten thousand images. He died at the Lamasery of Khaldan ('celestial beat.i.tude'), situated on the top of a mountain about four leagues east of Lha-Ssa, said to have been founded by him in 1409. The Tibetians pretend that they still see his marvellous body there fresh and incorruptible, sometimes speaking, and by a permanent prodigy always holding itself in the air without any support.

"Mongolia is at present divided into several sovereignties, whose chiefs are subject to the Emperor of China, himself a Tartar, but of the Mantchu race. These chiefs bear t.i.tles corresponding to those of kings, dukes, earls, barons, &c. They govern their states according to their own pleasure. They acknowledge as sovereign only the Emperor of China. Whenever any difference arises between them they appeal to Pekin and submit to its decisions implicitly. Though the Mongol sovereigns consider it their duty to prostrate themselves once a year before the 'Sun of Heaven,' they nevertheless do not concede to him the right of dethroning their reigning families. He may, they say, cas.h.i.+er a king for gross misconduct, but he is bound to fill up the vacant place with one of the superseded prince's sons.... Nothing can be more vague and indefinite than these relations.... In practice the will of the Emperor is never disputed.... All families related to any reigning family form a patrician caste and are proprietors of the soil.... They are called Taitsi, and are distinguished by a blue b.u.t.ton surmounting their cap. It is from these that the sovereigns of the different states select their ministers, who are distinguished by a red b.u.t.ton.... In the country of the Khalkhas, to the north of the desert of Gobi, there is a district entirely occupied by Taitsi, said to be descendants of Tchen-kis-Khan.... They live in the greatest independence, recognizing no sovereign. Their wealth consists in tents and cattle. Of all the Mongolian regions it is this district in which are to be found most accurately preserved patriarchal manners, just as the Bible describes them, though every where also more or less prevailing.... The Tartars who are not Taitsi are slaves, bound to keep their master's herds, but not forbidden to herd cattle of their own. The n.o.ble families differ little from the slave families ... both live in tents and both occupy themselves with pasturing their flocks. When the slave enters the master's tent he never fails to offer him tea and milk; they smoke together and exchange pipes. Round the tents young slaves and young n.o.blemen romp and wrestle together without distinction. We met with many slaves who were richer than their masters.... Lamas born of slave families become free in some degree as soon as they enter the sacerdotal life; they are no longer liable to enforced labour, and can travel without interference." He further describes the Mongols in general as a hardy, laborious, peace-loving people, usually simple and upright in their dealings, devout and punctual in such religious faith and observances as they have been taught, caring, however, little for mental studies, occupied only with their flocks and herds, and continually overreached by the Chinese in all their dealings with them.

9. Citavana, a burying-place.--Julg.

10. Siddhi-kur, a dead body endowed with supernatural or magic powers (Siddhi, Sanskr., perfection of power).

11. Mango-tree, Mangifera indica. La.s.sen (Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 276) calls it "the Indians' favourite tree; their household companion; rejoicing their existence; the cool and cheerful shade of whose groves embowers their villages, surrounds their fountains and pools with freshness, and affords delicious coolness to the Karavan-halt: one of the mightiest of their kings (Ashoka, 246 B.C.) makes it his boast (in an Inscription given in "Journal of Asiatic Soc. of Bengal," vi. 595) that besides the wide-spreading shade of the fig-tree he had also planted the leafy mango." In Sanskrit, amra, kuta, rasala (rich in juice). Crawford (Ind. Arch. i. 424) says the fruit is called in Sanskrit mahaphala, "the great fruit,"

whence the Telingu word Mahampala and the Malay Mamplans and Manga, whence the European Mango. It grows more or less all over India from Ceylon to the Himalajas, except perhaps in the arid north-east highland of the Dekhan, but it reaches its most luxuriant development in Malabar and over the whole west coast. Besides its luxuriant shade its blossoms bear the most delicious scent, and its glorious gold-coloured fruit often attains a pound in weight, though its quality is much acted upon by site and climate. In Malabar it ripens in April; in Bengal, in May; in Bhotan, not till August. There are also many kinds--some affording nourishment to the poorest, and some appearing only on the tables of the opulent. Bp. Heber ("Journey," i. 522) p.r.o.nounces it the largest of all fruit-bearing trees. To the high regard in which this tree was held it is to be ascribed that the story makes the Siddhi-kur prefer giving himself up to the Khan rather than let it be felled.

12. Gambudvipa, native name for India. See infra, Note 6, Tale XXII., and Note 6 to "Vikramaditja's Birth."

13. Only magic words of no meaning.

14. The "white moon," designated the moon in the waxing quarter; meaning that the axe had the form of a sickle.--Julg.

TALE I.

1. Songs commemorating the deeds of the departed, were sung at their funeral rites, often instead of erecting monuments to them; the fixing their acts in the memory of the living being considered a more lasting memorial than a tablet of stone. Probably the custom originated before the discovery of the art of writing; it seems, however, to have been continued afterwards. Gatha was the name given to these songs in praise of ancestry, particularly the ancestors of kings, usually accompanied by the lute. Weber, Indische Studien, i. p. 186, gives specimen translations from such.

2. The elephant is the subject of frequent mention in the very oldest writings of India. He is mentioned as a useful and companionable beast just as at the present day, in the Veda, and the Manu (e. g. Rig-Veda, i. 84, 17, "Whoso calls upon Indra in any need concerning his sons, his elephants, his goods and possessions, himself or his people, &c."). In the epic poems, he is constantly mentioned as the ordinary mount of warriors. There is no tradition, however, as to his being first tamed and brought under the service of man, though the art penetrated so little into the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, that the inhabitants used to smear themselves and their plants with poison as the best protection against being devoured by him as a wild beast.

The elephant is distributed over the whole of India from Ceylon to China, wherever there is sufficient growth of foliage. In a domestic state he may live to 120 years, probably nearly double that time when left wild; he is reckoned at his strongest prime in his sixtieth year. His habit is to live in herds.

A beast so intelligent and available as an aid to man, and particularly to a primitive people, naturally took an important place in the mythology of the country. We find this saliently impressed on the architectural decorations of the country; constantly he is to be seen used as a karyatyd; the world is again seen resting on the backs of four huge elephants, or the king of G.o.ds carried along by one. It is a curious instance of appreciativeness of the acuteness of the sensibility of the elephant's trunk, that Ganesha, the G.o.d who personifies the sense of touch, is represented gifted with such an appendage. It is among the Buddhistic peoples we find him most especially honoured. In Ceylon the white elephant (a variety actually found in the most easterly provinces) is regarded as a divine incarnation; "Ruler of the white elephant," is one of the t.i.tles of the Birmese Emperor; in Siam also it is counted sacred. In war he was an invaluable ally: they called him the Eightfold-armed one, because his four tramping feet, his two formidable tusks, his hard frontal bone and his tusk supply eight weapons. The number of elephants a king could bring into the field was counted among his most important munitions of war and const.i.tuted one princ.i.p.al element of his power.

The derivation of the word elephant does not seem easy to fix, but the best supported opinion is that it is a Greek adoption of the Sanskrit word for ivory ibhadanta, compounded with the Arabic article al from its having been received along with the article itself through Arabian traders; the transition from alibhadanta to >El'eyac, >El'eyantoc, is easily conceived [67].

Among the Brahmanical writers the most ordinary designation was gag'a; also ibha, probably from ibhja, mighty, but they had an infinite number of others; such as rag avahja, "the king-bearer;" matanga, "doing that which (he) is meant (to do); dvirada, "the two-toothed;"

hastin or karin, "the handed" (beast), or beast with a hand, for the Indians, like the Romans, call his trunk a hand; dvipa, dvipajin, anekapa, "the twice drinking," or "more than once drinking," in allusion to his taking water first into his trunk and then pouring it down his throat. Among the facts and early notions concerning him, collected and handed down by aelia.n.u.s, are the following:--that elephants were employed by various kings to keep watch over them by night, an office which their power of withstanding sleep facilitated; that in a wild state, they frequently had encounters with the larger serpents, whose first plan was to climb up into the trees and then dart upon and throttle them. But the most curious remark of all is, that they were endowed with a certain kind of religion, and that when wounded, overladen, or injured, it was their custom to look up to heaven, asking why they had been thus dealt with. (aelia.n.u.s, De Nat. Anim. v. 49 and vii. 44; also Pliny, viii. 12. 2.) There are also legends about their paying divine honours to the sun and moon, and in the Indian collection of fables called the Hitopadesha, there is one of an elephant being conducted by a hare to wors.h.i.+p the reflection of the moon in a lake.

In peace they were equally serviceable as in war, and were employed not only for riding, but for ploughing. A beast so useful was naturally treated with great regard, and we read of Indian princes keeping a special physician to attend to the ailments of their elephants, and particularly to have care of their eyesight (aelia.n.u.s, De Nat. Anim. xiii. 7).

3. The office of the erliks or servants of Erlik-Khan, (see next note) was to bring every soul before this judge to receive from him the sentence determining their state in their next re-birth, according to the merits or demerits of their last past existence. (Schmidt's translation of sSanang sSetsen, 417-421, quoted by Julg.)

4. Erlik-Khan is the Tibetian name of Jama (Sanskrit), the Judge of the Dead and Ruler over the abode of the Departed; he is son of Vivasvat or the Sun considered as "the bringer forth and nourisher of all the produce of the earth and seer of all that is on it." Vivasvat has another son, Manu, the founder of social life and source of all kingly dynasties. (La.s.sen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 19, 20.) As with all mythological personages or embodiments, however, the characteristics of Jama have undergone considerable modifications under the handling of different teachers and peoples in different ages, and in some Indian writings he is spoken of as if he were the personification of conscience. Thus, in the ancient collection of laws called the Manu (viii. 92) occurs the following pa.s.sage, "Within thine heart dwells the G.o.d Jama, the son of Vivasvat: when thou hast no variance with him, thou hast no need to repair to the Ganga, nor the Kuruxetra;" meaning clearly, "If thou hast nothing on thy conscience, thou hast no object in making a pilgrimage." Muni, "who keepeth watch over virtue and over sin," however, more properly represents conscience. Sir William Jones, in quoting the above pa.s.sage, inserts the words "subduer of all" after "Jama," probably not without some good reason or authority for a.s.signing to him that character.

La.s.sen finds early mention of a people living on the westernmost borders of the valley of the Indus (iii. 352, 353) who paid special honour to Jama as G.o.d of death, deprecating his wrath with offerings of beasts; and he connects with it a pa.s.sage in aelia.n.u.s, who wrote on India in the 3rd century of our era, making mention of a bottomless pit or cave of Pluto, "in the land of the Aryan Indians," into which "every one who had heard a divine voice or met with an evil omen, threw a beast according to the measure of his possessions; thousands of sheep, goats, oxen and horses being sacrificed in this way. He says further that there was no need to bind or drive them, as a supernatural power constrained them to go without resistance. He appears also to have believed that notwithstanding the height from which they were thrown, they continued a mysterious existence in the regions beneath.

"To walk the path of Jama," is an expression for dying, in the very early poems; and a battle-field was called the camp of Jama (La.s.sen, i. 767). In the Veda, the South, which is also reckoned the place of the infernal regions, is spoken of as the kingdom of Jama (i. 772).

5. Mandala, a magic circle. (Wa.s.siljew, 202, 205, 212, 216, quoted by Julg.)

TALE II.

1. Dragons, serpents, serpent-G.o.ds, serpent-daemons (naga), play a great part in Indian mythology. Their king is Shesa. Serpent-cultus was of very ancient observance and is practised by both followers of Brahmanism and Buddhism. The Brahmans seem to have desired to show their disapproval of it by placing the serpent-G.o.ds in the lower ranks of their mythology (La.s.sen, i. 707 and 544, n. 2). This cultus, however, seems to have received a fresh development about the time of Ashoka, circa 250 B.C. (ii. 467). When Madhjantika went into Cashmere and Gandhara to teach Buddhism after the holding of the third Synod, it is mentioned that he found sacrifices to serpents practised there (ii. 234, 235). There is a pa.s.sage in Plutarch from which it appears the custom to sacrifice an old woman (previously condemned to death for some crime) in honour of the serpent-G.o.ds by burying her alive on the banks of the Indus (ii. 467, and note 4). Ktesias also mentions the serpent-wors.h.i.+p (ii. 642). In Buddhist legends, serpents are often mentioned as protecting-patrons of certain towns (ii. 467). Among the many kinds of serpents which India possesses, it is the gigantic Cobra di capello which is the object of wors.h.i.+p (ii. 679). (See further notice of the serpent-wors.h.i.+p, iv. 109.)

It would seem that the Buddhist teachers, too, discouraged the wors.h.i.+p at the beginning of their career at least, for when the Sthavira Madhjantika was sent to convert Cashmere, as above mentioned he was so indignant at the extent to which he found serpent-wors.h.i.+p carried, that it is recorded in the Mahavansha, xii. p. 72, that he caused himself to be carried through the air dispersing them; that they sought by every means to scare him away--by thunder and storm, and by changing themselves into all manner of hideous shapes, but finding the attempt vain, they gave in and accepted the teaching of the Sthavira, like the rest of the country. Under which last image, we can easily read the fact that the Buddhist teacher suffered his followers to continue the wors.h.i.+p, while he set limits to it and delivered them from the extreme awe in which they had previously stood of the serpents. See also note 4 to Tale XXII.

2. Strong drink. See note 8 to Tale V., and note 3 to Tale VI.

3. Baling-cakes. See notes 6 and 9 to Tale IV.