Rachel Harriette Busk

1. Kalmuck. “The Khalmoucks or Calmuks, are very far from enjoying in Asia the importance our books of geography assign them. In the Khalmoukia of our imagining, no one knew of the Khalmouks. At last we met with a Lama who had travelled in Eastern Tibet, and he told us that one of the Kolo tribes is called Khalmouk.” The Kolos are a nomad people of Eastern Tibet, of predatory habits, living in inaccessible gorges of the Bayen Kharet mountains, guarded by impassable torrents and frightful precipices, towards the sources of the Yellow River; they only leave their abode to scour the steppes on a mission of pillage upon the Mongolians. The Mongolians of the Koukou-Noor (Blue Lake) hold them in such terror, that there is no monstrous practice they do not ascribe to them. They profess Buddhism equally with the Mongolians. See “Missionary Travels in Tartary, Tibet, and China,” by AbbÉ Huc, vol. i. chap. iv.

2. “The various Dekhan dialects, i.e. of the Tuluvas, Malabars, Tamuls, Cingalese, of the Carnatic, &c., though greatly enriched from Sanskrit, would appear to have an entirely independent origin. The same may be said of the popular traditions.” Lassen, vol. i. 362–364.

3. The Tirolean legend of the Curse of the Marmolata, which I have given at pp. 278–335 of “Household Stories from the Land of Hofer,” may well be thought to be a reproduction and reapplication of this, one of the most ancient of myths.

4. Even the Mah BhÂrata, however, gives no consecutive and reliable account of the original settlement in the country. Franz Bopp, one of the earliest to attempt its translation, thus happily describes it. He likens it to an Egyptian obelisk covered with hieroglyphics, “an dem die Grundform von der Erde zum Himmel strebe, aber eine FÜlle von Gestalten, (von denen eine auf die andre deute, eine ohne die andre rÄthselhaft bleibe,) neben und durch einander hinziehe und Irdisches und Himmlisches wundersam verbinde.”—The pervading plan of the work is one straining from earth upwards to heaven, but overlaid with a multiplicity of figures, each one so intimately related with the other, that any would be incomprehensible without the rest; the thread of the life of one interwoven with those of the others, and all of them together creating a wondrous bond between the things of this world and the things which are above.

5. “The only way to gain acquaintance with the early history of India is by making use of its Sagas.” Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, vol. i., pref. p. vii. But I shall have more to say on this head when I come to the story of VikramÂditja.

6. Some, however, seem to go too far, when they labour to prove that this is the case with every individual European legend, many of which are manifestly created by Christianity; and write as if every accidental similarity of incident necessarily implied parentage or connexion.

7. See introduction to his Translation of Pantschatantra. I have thought it worth while to mention this on account of the present collection being Mongolian.

1. ShÂkjamuni—the family name of Buddha, the originator of Buddhism. It means “Hermit of the tribe of ShÂkja,” the ShÂkja being one of the earliest Indian dynasties of which there are any records. His great-grandfather was Gajasena, whose son SinahÂnu married KÂkkanÂ, also of the ShÂkja lineage. Their son Shuddhodana married MahÂpragÂpatÎ (more commonly called by her subsequently received name of MÂja = “the creative power of the godhead”) a daughter of Angana, KÂkkanÂ’s brother, and became the father of Buddha1.

According to the Mahavansha, Gajasena was descended from IxvÂku, through the fabulous number of eighty-two thousand ancestors! He was also wont to call himself Shramana-Gautama, to mark his alliance with a certain priestly family of Brahmans and thereby disarm any animosity on their part toward his teaching. He was also called ShÂkjasinha = “Lion of the tribe of ShÂkja,” to show that he belonged to the warrior caste.

He was brought up as heir to the crown, and was trained in the use of arms and in all matters appertaining to the duties of a ruler. At the age of sixteen he was married, and we have the names of his three wives—UtpalavarnÂ, JashodharÂ, and BhadrakÂkkanÂ. Up to the age of twenty-eight he lived a life entirely devoted to the pursuit of pleasure, his time being passed between the respective attractions of three splendid palaces built for him by his father. At about this age he appears to have grown weary of this desultory kind of life, and one day, meeting in his walks with an old man, a sick man, a corpse, and a priest, he was led to turn his thoughts upon the evils and the evanescence of life. Rambling on instead of returning home he sat down to rest under the shade of a gambu-tree, and here he found fresh food for his melancholy reflections in the miserable condition of the country people living around. The legend says the DevatÂ, or gods, appeared to him in the shape of these suffering people in order further to instruct him in his new views of existence. In all probability his previous mode of life never having brought him in contact with the actual miseries of the needy this sight appeared to him in the light of an apparition.

The result of his deliberations was the resolve to withdraw to a place of solitude, where he might be free to consider by what means human beings could be relieved from their miseries2.

With this view he forsook his family and his palatial residences, and having laid aside his rich clothing he wandered forth unknown to all, begging his food by the way till he found the retirement he sought in the hermitages of various Brahmans of GajÂshira, a hill in the neighbourhood of Gaja3, whence he is sometimes called Gajashiras.

He first placed himself under the teaching of the Brahman ArÂda KÂlÂma, afterwards under that of another called Rudraka, who was so struck with the progress he made in the acquisition of every kind of knowledge that he soon associated him with himself in the direction of his disciples. Five of these (four of them belonging to the royal ShÂkja family), ÂgnÂta, Ashvagit, Bhadraka, Vashpa, and MahÂrÂta, grew so much attached to him and his views that they subsequently became the first followers of his separate school of teaching.

Having after some years exhausted the satisfaction he found in the pursuit of study he set out restlessly on a new search after happiness, followed by the five disciples I have named, and retired with them to a more exclusive solitude still, where for six years he gave himself up to unbroken contemplation amid the most rigid austerities. After this he seems to have somewhat alienated his companions by relaxing his severe mode of life, for they forsook him about this time and took up their abode in the neighbourhood of VÂrÂnasÎ4, where they continued to live as he had shown them at the first5.

This mode of life even he, however, does not appear to have altered except in the matter of abridging his fasts, for his habitual meditations went on as before, and they were believed to have so illumined his understanding that he finally received the appellation of Buddha = “the enlightened one,” while from his favourite habit of making these meditations under the shade of the ashvattha, the “trembling leaf” fig-tree, that tree, which has acquired so prominent a place in Buddhist records, legends, and institutions, came to be called the bodhiruma, literally, “tree of knowledge,” and it has even been distinguished by naturalists from the ficus indica, of which it is a variety, by the title of ficus religiosa. It became so inseparable an adjunct of Buddhism that wherever the teaching of ShÂkjamuni was spread this tree was transplanted too6.

The oppression of solitude appears to have overcome ShÂkjamuni at last, and he consequently took the resolution of journeying to VÂranasÎ to seek out his former companions. At their first meeting they were so scandalized to see him look so well and hearty instead of emaciated by austerities that they refused to pay him any respect. But when he showed them that he had attained to the illumination of a Buddha they accepted his teaching and put themselves entirely under his guidance. The number of his disciples increased meantime amazingly. As they lived by alms they received the name of Bhixu as a term of reproach. Ere long we find him sending out sixty of them, whom he invested with a certain high dignity he called Arhat7, to spread his teaching wherever they came. He himself wandered for nineteen years over the central and eastern districts of the country, teaching,—his agreeable presence and benevolence of manner, and, the legends say, the wonderful things he did, winning him numerous converts wherever he went8. Some gave themselves up to a life of contemplation in the jungle, others associated themselves with him in his travels. When the rainy season set in they had to find shelter for the four months in such colleges of Brahmans or houses of families as they found well inclined towards them. This Varshavasana, as it was called, afforded them additional opportunity of making known their ideas.

ShÂkjamuni himself seems to have won over several kings to his way of thinking; one of them, king of PankÂla, he made an Arhat; another, the king of Koshala, stirred himself very much to awaken Shuddodana to a sense of the merit of his son, sending to congratulate him because one of whom he was progenitor had found the means by which mortals might attain to unending happiness. For once, making an exception to the proverb that a prophet meets with little honour in his own country, fortune favoured him in this matter also, and his father, who violently opposed his withdrawal from his due mode of life in the first instance, sent eight messengers one after the other to beg him to come and adorn his court with his wisdom. Each one of these, however, was so won by his teaching that he never returned to the king, but remained at the feet of ShÂkjamuni. Last of all the king sent his minister Karka, who, though he also adopted his views, prevailed on him to let him take back the message that he would satisfy his father’s requests. The king meantime built a vihÂra for him under a grove of his favourite Njagrodha, or sacred fig-tree. His return home happened in the twelfth year after his departure, but when he had made his teaching known among his kindred he set out on his travels again, only returning at intervals, as to any other vihÂra, for the rainy season. A great many of his family joined themselves to him, among them his son RÂhula, and his nephew Ânanda, who became one of his most celebrated followers.

In the twentieth year of his Buddhahood and the fifty-sixth of his age, he was seized with a serious illness, during which he announced his conviction that his end, or nirvÂna, was at hand, that is, his entering on that state which was the ultimate object which he bid his followers strive to attain—the completion of all possible knowledge and the consequent dissolution of personal individuality9; further, that it should take place at Kushinagara, the capital of the Malla people10. Soon after, he accomplished his prediction by setting out for this place, visiting by the way many of the spots where he had establishments of disciples, and arriving there in a state of utter exhaustion and prostration. On this journey he made more converts, but after his arrival gave himself up to contemplation which he considered necessary to perfect his fifth or highest degree of knowledge, until his death. This took place under a Shala-grove, or grove of sal-trees. His body was by his own desire treated with the honours only to be paid to a Kakravartin11, or supreme ruler. After burning his body the ashes were preserved in an urn of gold. His death is reckoned to have taken place in the year 543 B.C.12, according to the Buddhists of Ceylon and Southern India generally. Those of the northern provinces, the Japanese and Mongolians, have a very different chronology, and place his birth about the year 950 B.C. The Chinese are divided among themselves about it and say variously, 688, 1070, and 112213.

A great number of claimants demanded his ashes in memorial of him, and finally, by the advice of a Brahman named Drona, they were partitioned among eight cities, in each of which a kaitja, or shrine14, was erected to receive them. A great gathering of his followers was held at Kushinagara, of which KÂshjapa was sanghasthavira, or president, Buddha having himself previously designated him for his successor. He had been a distinguished Brahman. It is said by one of the exaggerations common in all Indian records that there were seven hundred thousand of the new religionists present. Five hundred were selected from among the most trustworthy to draw up the Sanghiti, or good laws of Buddha. Then they broke up, determining to travel over GambudvÎpa, consoling the scattered Bhixu for the loss of their master, and to meet again at RÂgagriha at the beginning of the month AshÂdha (answering to the end of our June) for the Varshavasana.

This synod lasted seven months. Its chief work was the compilation of the Tripitaka—“the three baskets” or “vessels” supposed to contain all ShÂkjamuni’s teaching: 1. The Sutra-pitaka, containing the conversation of ShÂkjamuni (of these I have had occasion to speak in another place15); 2. The Vinaja-pitaka, containing maxims by which the disciple’s life was to be guided; and the Ahidharma-pitaka, containing an exposition of religious and philosophical teaching. The first was under the revision of Ânanda; the second under that of UpÂli; and the third under that of KÂcjapa. The Tripitaka also bears the name of Sthavira, because only such took part in its compilation; also “of the five hundred,” because so many were charged with its compilation.

It is important, however, to bear in mind, because of the monstrous exaggerations and extravagant incidents subsequently introduced16 that these were only compilations preserved by word of mouth; the art of writing was scarcely known in India at this time. “After the NirvÂna of Buddha, for the space of 450 years, the text and commentaries and all the words of the TathÂgato were preserved and transmitted by wise priests orally. But having seen the evils attendant upon this mode of transmission, 550 rahats of great authority, in the cave called AlÔka (Alu) in the province of Malaya, in LankÂ, under the guardianship of the chief of that province caused the sacred books to be written17.” As this “text and commentaries” are reckoned to consist of 6,000,000 words, and the Bible of about 500,000, we may form some idea of the impossibility of so vast a body of language being in any way faithfully preserved by so treacherous a medium as memory.

Megasthenes (Fragm. 27, p. 421, b.) and Nearchos (Fragm. 7, p. 60, b.) particularly mention that the Indians had no written laws, but their code was preserved in the memory of their judges; thus testifying to the practice of trusting to memory in the most important matters. Schwanbeck (Megast. Ind. p. 51) remarks that the Sanskrit word for a collection of laws—Smriti—means also memory. J. Prinsep (in his paper on the Inscriptions of the Rocks of Girnar, in Journ. of As. Soc. of Beng. vii. 271) is inclined to think some of the rock-cut inscriptions are as early as 500 B.C.; which would show they had some knowledge of a written character then; Lassen, however, is of opinion that this is altogether too early; but there seems no doubt that there are some both of and anterior to the reign of Ashoka, 246 B.C. Megasthenes indeed mentions that he had heard they used a kind of indurated cotton for writing on. But the use, neither of this material nor of a written character, could have been very common or extended, for Nearchos (Strabo, xvi. § 67) wrote, “It is said by some, the Indians write on indurated cotton stuff, but others say they have not even the use of a written alphabet.”

Though thus disfigured and overlaid as time went by, the great intention which ShÂkjamuni himself seems to have had in view in the preparation of his doctrine was to destroy the exclusiveness of the Brahmanical castes, and that most especially in its influence on the future and final condition of every man, and thus he accepted men of all castes, even the very lowest18, and the out-caste too, among not only his disciples but among his priesthood. It was thus in its origin a system of morals rather than of faith. It was full of maxims inculcating virtue to be pursued—not indeed out of obedience to the will of a Divine and all perfect Creator—but with the object of escaping the necessity of the number of re-births taught by the Brahmans and of sooner attaining to nirvÂna. It set up, therefore, no mythology of its own19, nor put forward any statement of what gods were to be honoured. Nevertheless it was grafted on to the mythology prevailing at the time, and many of the gods then honoured are incidentally mentioned in the Sutra as accepted objects of veneration. The VÊda, or sacred teaching of the Brahmans, is quoted in almost every page20. The gods who thus come in for mention in the simple Sutra are the following21:—The three gods of the later mythology bear here the names of (1) Brahm and PelÂmaha; (2) Hari, GanÂrdana, NÂrÂjana, and UpÊndra (it is important to note that the name of Krishna does not appear at this period at all); (3) Shiva and Shankara. Indra was now placed at the head of gods of the second rank. We have also Shakra, VÂsava, and Shakipati, called the husband of Shaki. Of the other LÔkapÂla, Kuvera and Varunna are named. It is doubtless only by accident that more do not find mention. Of the demigods Visvakarman, the Gandharba, Kinnara, Garuda, Jaxa the Serpent-god, Asura, and Danava, along with other evil genii and serpent-gods. The most often named—particularly in the colloquies between Buddha and his disciples—is Indra with the adjunctive appellation of Kaushika. Indra was at the time of ShÂkjamuni himself the favourite god; the other great gods had not yet received the importance they afterwards acquired, nor had any thing like the idea of a trine unity or equality been broached22 as we shall presently see; even these allusions were but scanty23. It was long before the whole Brahmanical system of divinities came to form an integral part of the Buddhist theosophy24.

Hence ShÂkjamuni, as well as his contemporary and earliest succeeding disciples, lived for the most part25 on good terms with the Brahmans, some of whom were among the most zealous in securing the custody of some part of his ashes. But they were not long ere they perceived that as this new teaching developed itself its tendency was to supersede their order. Then, a life and death struggle for the upper-hand ensued which lasted for centuries, for while the Buddhists were on the one side fighting against the attempted extermination, on the other side they were spreading their doctrines over an ever-fresh field by the journeyings of their missionaries, a proceeding the more exclusive Brahmans had never adopted. This went on till by the one means and the other Buddhism had been almost entirely banished from Central India, where it took its rise, but had established itself on an enduring basis as remote from its original centre as Ceylon, Mongolia, China, Japan, the Indian Archipelago, and perhaps even Mexico26. This state of things was hardly established before the 14th century27. But from information on the condition of religion in India preserved by the Chinese pilgrim Fahien, who traversed a great part of Asia, A.D. 399–414, Buddhism had already at that time suffered great losses, for at Gaja itself the temple of Buddha was a deserted ruin. From the writings of another Chinese pilgrim, Hiuen Thsang, whose travels took place in the 7th century, it would seem that the greatest Brahmanical persecution of the Buddhists did not take place before 67028. That it had cleared them out of Central India by the date I have named above is further confirmed by MÂdhava, a writer of the 14th century, quoted by Professor Wilson, who “declares that at his date not a follower of Buddha was to be found in all Hindustan, and he had only met some few old men of that faith in Kashmir.” “At the present day,” adds Wilson, “I never met with a person who had met with natives of India Proper of that faith, and it appears that an utter extirpation of the Buddha religion in India Proper was effected between the 12th and 16th centuries.” Nevertheless it is the system of religion which next after the Catholic Church counts the greatest number of followers.

Dr. GÜtzlaff (in his “Remarks on the Present State of Buddhism,” in “Journ. of R. As. Soc.” xvi. 73.) tells us two-thirds of the population of China is Buddhist. In Ungewitter’s Neueste Erdebeschreibung, the whole population is stated from native official statistics at 360,000,000; whence it would follow that there are 240,000,000 Buddhists in China alone; probably, however, the Chinese figures are to some extent an exaggeration.

Before concluding this brief notice of Buddhism it remains to say a few words on the later developments of the system which have too often been identified with its original utterances.

It does not appear to have been before the 10th century that ShÂkjamuni was reckoned to be an incarnation of a heavenly being; at least the earliest record of such an idea is found in an inscription at Gaya, ascribed to the year 94829, while much of his own teaching bears traces of a lingering belief in a great primeval tradition of the unity of the Godhead and the promise of redemption30, as well as the great primary laws of obedience and sacrifice more perfectly preserved to us in the inspired writings committed to the Hebrews. The history of the deluge, as given by Weber from the Mah BhÂrata, is almost identical in its leading features with the account in Genesis, bearing of course some additions. A great ship was laden with pairs of beasts, and seeds of every kind of plants, and was steered safely through the floods by Vishnu under the form of a great fish, who ultimately moored it on the mountain Naubandhana, one of the HimÂlajas in Eastern Kashmere. The early VÊda hymns, too, had thus spoken of the Creation, “At that time there was neither being nor no being; no world, no air, nor any thing beyond it. Death was not, neither immortality; nor distinction of day and night. But It (tad) respired alone, and without breathing; alone in Its self-consciousness (Svadha, which hence came to be used for ‘Heaven’). Besides It was nothing, only darkness. All was wrapt in darkness, and undistinguishable fluid. But the bulk thus enveloped was brought forth by the power of contemplation. Love (Kama) was first formed in Its mind, and this was the original creative germ31.” And the VÊda was, we have seen, adopted in the main by ShÂkjamuni; but the development of his views came to imply that there was no Creator at all, existences being only a series of necessary evolutions32. And when later a Creator came again to be spoken of, the term was involved in the most inconceivable contradictions33. A distinguished Roman Orientalist also writes:—“The VÊda, and principally the Jazur-VÊda and the Isa-Upanishad, contain not only many golden maxims, but distinct traces of the primitive Monotheism. But these books exercise little influence on the religion of the people, which is a mass of idolatry and superstition; moreover, they are themselves filled with the most absurd stories and fables. The Jazur-VÊda, which is the freest from these defects, is a comparatively recent production, and the author has manifestly drawn upon not only both Old and New Testament, but also the Koran34.”

An infusion of the revealed doctrines taught by Christianity was also received into it from the teaching of the missionaries of the first ages after the birth of Christ, though similarly disfigured and overwrought. To distinguish the influence of the one and the other would be a fascinating study, but one too vast for the limits of the present pages. When we come presently to the history of VikramÂditja we shall find it presents us with a striking idea of the facility with which various ideals can be heaped upon one personality; this will serve as a key to the mode in which an unenlightened admiration for the story of our Divine Redeemer’s life on earth may be supposed to have induced the ascribing of His supernatural manifestations to another being, already accepted as Divine. It is true that certain appearances of Vishnu and Shiva on earth would seem to have been believed before the Christian era; and apart from the Indian writings, the dates of which are so difficult to fix, the testimony of Megasthenes (the Historian of Seleucus Nicanor, who wrote B.C. 300) is quoted in proof that at his time such incarnations were already held. But the passages in Megasthenes, by the very fact that he identifies Vishnu with Hercules, tend only to demonstrate a belief in a different kind of manifestation of Divine power. Those who labour most to prove that the Brahmanical idea of incarnation preceded the Christian have to allow that it was only subsequently to the spread of Christian teaching that it was fully developed. Thus Lassen writes, “I have, therefore (i. e. in consequence of the allusions in Megasthenes), no hesitation in maintaining that the dogma of Vishnu’s incarnations was in existence 300 years before the birth of Christ; still, however, it only received its full development at a subsequent period35.” And in another place, speaking of the AvatÂra (incarnations) of Vishnu, in the persons of the heroes of the epic poems, he adds, “this dogma is unknown (fremd) to the VÊda, and the few allusions to such an idea existing in some of its myths, and which were later reckoned among the incarnations of Vishnu, show that in the earliest ages the recurring appearance in man’s nature of ‘the preserving god’ for the destruction of evil was not yet invented.36” And even of the early epic poems he writes, that though such ideas are introduced, yet the heroes still maintain their individuality. They are actuated and indwelt by Vishnu, but they are not he. This, it will be seen, is very different from the Christian dogma of the Incarnation.

Whether the extremely interesting and ancient tradition be genuine (as maintained by Tillemont) or not, that Abgarus, king of Edessa, sent messengers to our Lord in JudÆa, begging Him to come and visit him and heal him of his sickness, and that our Lord in reply sent him word that He must do the work of Him Who sent Him and then return to Him above, but that after His Ascension He would send an Apostle to him, and that in consequence of this promise St. Thomas received the far East for the field of his labours—and, however much be chronologically correct of the mass of records and traditions which tell that this Apostle travelled over the whole Asian continent, from Edessa to Tibet, and perhaps China—it would appear to be intrinsically probable and as well attested as most facts of equally remote date, that both this Apostle and ThaddÆus, one of the seventy-two disciples, preached the Gospel in countries east of Syria, and that his successors, more or less immediate, extended their travels farther and farther east. It is mentioned in Eusebius (Book v. c. 10), that S. PantÆus, going to India to preach the Gospel early in the 3rd century (Eusebius himself wrote at the end of the same century), met with Brahmans who showed him a copy of the Gospel of St. Matthew in Hebrew, which they said had been given to their forerunners by St. Bartholomew37. Lassen himself allows, that in all probability certain Brahmans, at a very early date, fell in with Christian teachers, and brought them back home with them. Further, that the idea of there being any merit in bhakti, or pious faith, and a development in the teaching concerning the duty of prayer may be traced to this circumstance. Nor does he deny that when in 435, Eustathius, Bp. of Antioch, with the help of Thomas Kama, a rich local merchant, went to found a mission at MahÂdevapatma (Cranganore), he found Christians who dated their conversion from St. Thomas living there. His further efforts to disprove that St. Thomas himself penetrated very far east, and that the early Christian establishments at Taprobane and Ceylon were founded by Persian Christians, though far from conclusive, tend as far as they go but to support all the more the theory of an admixture of Christian with Brahmanical and Buddhist teaching; because, the less pure the source of teaching the more likely it was to have resulted in producing such an admixture in place of actual conversion. Nor does the circumstance on which he lays much weight, that the Brahmans resented the inroads of Christian teaching on their domain, even with severe persecutions, at all afford any proof that there were not Brahmanical teachers, who either through sincere admiration (for which they were prepared by their early monotheistic tradition), or from a conviction of the advantage to be derived in increase of influence by its means, or other cause, may have thought fit, or been even unconsciously led to incorporate certain ideas of the new school with their own.

I have only space left to touch upon two of the most important of these identifications. And first the imitation of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Lassen (i. 784 and iv. 570) fixes as late a date as 1420–1445 for the introduction of the Trimurti worship, or, as he expresses it, the bootless attempt to unite various schools by propounding the equality and unity of the three great rival gods, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, who were the chief gods favoured by each respectively. DevarÂja of Vigajanagara erected the first temple to the Trimurti about this date. Ganesha, the god of wisdom and knowledge, appeared to his minister Laxmana and bid him build a temple on the banks of the Penar to the Hiranjagarbha, called Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva; this is the first example of any inscription of honour paid to the Trimurti38.

Secondly, the worship of the god Crishna, whose name and attributes as well as his substitution for Vishnu, the second god of the Trimurti, present so many analogies with the teaching concerning our Divine Lord39. Whatever difficulty there may be in fixing the date of the origin of the great PÂnkarÂtra sect, there appears none in affirming that the full development of its teaching in the direction of these analogies was subsequent to the establishment of Christianity. This is how A. Weber speaks of it40. Brahmans, who had travelled to Alexandria, and perhaps Asia Minor, at a time when Christianity was in its first bloom, brought back its teaching respecting a Supreme God and a Christ whom they identified with and fastened upon their sage or hero, who had already in some measure received Divine honours—Crishna Devakiputra (Son of the divine woman). He also dwells on the influence exercised by the teaching of Christian missionaries. The importance given to Devaki would point to an incorporation of Christian teaching concerning the Virgin Mary. Weber, in a paper entitled “Einige Data auf das Geburtsfest Krishna’s,” instances many passages in the Bavrishjottara-Purana (one of the latest Puranas), which it is impossible to read without being reminded of the place of “the Virgin and Child” in Christian tradition, and which find no counterpart in earlier Indian writings. Similarly it was the later schools which dwelt on the fact of his having Nanda the herdsman for his father, seemingly suggested by our Lord’s character of “the good Shepherd,” because in the earlier Crishna Legends41 this fact is sunk in the view that (though sprung from the herdsmen) he was a warrior and a hero. Nor was the teaching concerning this character of Crishna at all rapid in its extension. Its chief seat, according to Lassen42, in what he expresses as “the earliest times,” was Madura; but the first date he mentions in connexion with it is 1017, when a Crishna temple was destroyed by MahmÛd of Ghazna, LalitÂditja, king of Cashmere, built him a temple containing a statue of solid silver, and he reigned from 695 to 732; but the gold armour the image bore would point to his warrior character still prevailing down to this time. Lassen even finds43 the introduction of the worship of Crishna44 a subject of opposition by certain Brahmans as late as the tenth century. The great epic poem concerning him, the Gitagovinda, by Gajadeva (still sung at the present day at the Resa festival), was not written till the end of the 12th century45. In an inscription at Gajanagara, not very far from Madura, Crishna is mentioned as an incarnation of Vishnu, but the date of this is 1288; and the idea does not seem to have reached Orissa till the end of the 15th century46.

2. From this exordium we must plainly gather that the original collector of these Tales was himself a Madhjamika, since he begins his work with an invocation of NÂgÂrg'una, founder of that school. He calls him “second teacher” because his undertaking was, not to supersede, but to develope and perfect the teaching of ShÂkjamuni, whom he himself reverenced as first teacher47.

NÂgÂrg'una was the 15th Patriarch in the Buddhist succession, born in South India, and educated a Brahman; he wrote a Treatise, in 100 chapters, on the Wisdom of the Buddhist Theology, and died B.C. 212 (Lassen, “Indische Alterthumskunde,” ii., Appendix, p. vi.); but at p. 887 of the same volume, and again at p. 1072, he tells us he lived in the reign of Abhimanju, king of Cashmere, and that it was by the assistance of his sage advice that the Buddhists were enabled for a while successfully to withstand opposition dictated by the Brahmanical proclivities of this king, whose date he fixes at 45–65 A.C. The difference between the two dates arises out of that existing between the computations of the northern and southern Buddhists48. In the Raga-Tarangini, ii. v. 172–177 (a chronicle of Cashmere, written not later than A.D. 1148) NÂgÂrg'una is thus alluded to: “When 150 years had passed by, since sacred ShÂkjamuni had completed his time in this world of sufferers, there was a Bodhisattva49, who was supreme head of all the earth. This was NÂgÂrg'una, who possessed in himself the power of six Archats50.... Protected by NÂgÂrg'una the Buddhists obtained the chief influence in the country.”

Among the Chinese Buddhists he is called Lung-shu, which name Abel RÉmusat tells us was given him because after death he was taken up into the serpent-Paradise51.

The following legend has been told concerning the manner of his conversion from Brahmanism; but it is probable that what is historically true in it belongs to the life of another and much later Buddhist patriarch.

A Samanaer52 came wandering by his residence. Seeing it to be nobly built, and pleasantly situated amid trees and fountains, and provided with all that was needful and desirable for the life of man, made up his mind to obtain admission to it. NÂgÂrg'una, before admitting him, required to know whence, and what manner of man he was. On his declaring himself a teacher of Buddhism the door was immediately closed against him. Determined not to be so easily repulsed the Samanaer knocked again and again, till NÂgÂrg'una, provoked by his pertinacity, appeared on the terrace above, and cried out to him, “It is useless for you to go on knocking. In this house is nothing.”

“Nothing!” retorted the Samanaer; “what sort of a thing is that, pray?”

NÂgÂrg'una saw by this answer the man must be of a philosophical turn of mind, and was thus induced to break his rule, which forbid him intercourse with Buddhists, and let him in that he might have more discourse with him. The Samanaer by degrees fascinated his mind with the whole Buddhist doctrine, and ultimately told him that Buddha had left a prophecy, saying, that long years after he had departed this life there should arise a great teacher out of Southern India, who by the wisdom of his teaching should renew the face of the earth; that this prophecy he was destined to accomplish. NÂgÂrg'una believed his words, and subsequently fulfilled them.

His peculiar school received the name of MÂdhjamika, because of three prevailing interpretations of the earlier Buddhist teaching he chose the one which steered its course midway (madhjana) between two extremes, one of which held that the Buddhist nirvÂna, implied the return and absorption of the soul at death into the creative essence whence it had emanated; and the other, its total annihilation.

He left his ideas to posterity in a treatise, bearing the name of KÂrikÂ, denoting an exposition of a theory in verse53. Some idea of its intricacy may be formed from the fact that the shortest edition of it contains eight thousand sections; while the most complete has a hundred thousand. His teaching was followed up by two chief disciples, Ârjadeva, a Cingalese, and BuddhapÂlita, and still holds sway in the higher schools of Tibet, which accounts for the homage of the editor of these Mongolian tales. He is honoured almost everywhere where Buddhism is honoured; near Gaj is a kaitja, or rock-cut temple, called NÂgÂrgunÎ, probably commemorating some visit of his to the shrine of ShÂkjamuni.

3. The whole of Buddhist literature is spoken of by its followers as contained in three “vessels,” or “baskets”—tripÎtaka (Wassiljew, p. 118, quoted by JÜlg); in Tibetian called samatog (KÖppen, Die Lamaische Hierarchie, p. 57).

4. Madhjamika. See above, Note 2.

5. ParamÂrtha (true, exact, perfect understanding), and sanvrti (imperfect, dubious understanding), were party words, arising out of the philosophical disputes of the Madhjamika and JogÂtschÂrja schools. Wassiljew, 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 NÂgÂrg'una to have lived on the borders of Magadha54. Lassen, 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 Behar55.

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 SÛta56. It is quite in accordance with this view that VjÂsa’s57 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. KrijÂvidja. Writings concerning the study of magic.—JÜlg.

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 illustrate the local colouring the following Tales have received by passing 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 Khan58, 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 assistance of the Buddhist priests already possessing so great influence in Tibet. He was seconded in his design by the eager assistance 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 titles of “King of the great and precious teaching; the most excellent Lama; King of teaching in the three countries of the RhaghÂn (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 title, Dalai Lama59, 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 KhÂnats or kingdoms into which the Mongolian Empire was divided, that called Juan bordered on Tibet, and to its KhÂns 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-KhÂn, 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 title 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 title of Garma or patriarch was coined ere long.

The Tibetians and Mongolians receiving thus late the doctrines of ShÂkjamuni 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 gnÂna or knowledge; and by five operations of his dhjÂna or contemplative power he was supposed to have produced five DhjÂni-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 DhjÂni-Bodhisattva. The fourth of these, distinguished as DhjÂni-Bodhisattva-PadmapÂni, was the Creator, not only of the universe, but also of Brahma and other gods whom ShÂkjamuni 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 worship a multitude of other deifications too numerous even to name here in detail.

Among all these, DhjÂni-Bodhisattva-PadmapÂni is reckoned the chief god by the Mongolians. The principal tribute of worship paid him is the endless repetition of the ejaculation, “Om Manipadmi hum” = “Hail Manipadmi O!” Every one has heard of the prayer-machine, the revolutions of whose wheel set going by the worshipper count as so many exclamations to his account. “The instrument is called Tchu-Kor (turning prayer),” writes AbbÉ 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 institution 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 ejaculation 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 ejaculation, AbbÉ 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

In the Ramajana, where Vasichta destroys the sons of Visvamitra60 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 classes of living beings61 correspond to these six syllables.... By continual transmigrations according to merit, living beings pass through these six classes till they have attained the height of perfection, absorbed into the essence of Buddha.... Those who repeat the formula very frequently escape passing after death into these six classes.... 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 pronounced to be an incarnation of Shiva 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 Lhassa, 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 Lhassa, in 1445. Under him, too, was established the institution 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-long62.

AbbÉ 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 assembled there from all parts to build their cells63; and thus by degrees was formed that flourishing 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 beatitude’), 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 titles 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, cashier 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 button surmounting their cap. It is from these that the sovereigns of the different states select their ministers, who are distinguished by a red button.... 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 noble 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 noblemen 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. CÎtavana, a burying-place.—JÜlg.

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

11. Mango-tree, Mangifera indica. Lassen (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 (AshÔka, 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, Âmra, kÛta, rasÂla (rich in juice). Crawford (Ind. Arch. i. 424) says the fruit is called in Sanskrit mahÂphala, “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 HimÂlajas, 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) pronounces 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 SiddhÎ-kÜr prefer giving himself up to the Khan rather than let it be felled.

12. GambudvÎpa, native name for India. See infra, Note 6, Tale XXII., and Note 6 to “VikramÂditja’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.—JÜlg.

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. GÂth 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 VÊda, and the Manu (e. g. Rig-VÊda, 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 gods 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 god 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 titles 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 constituted one principal 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 ????a?, ????a?t??, is easily conceived64.

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 rÂg avÂhja, “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, dvipÂjin, anÊkapa, “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 Ælianus, 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. (Ælianus, 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 worship 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 (Ælianus, 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 JÜlg.)

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. (Lassen, 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 passage, “Within thine heart dwells the god Jama, the son of Vivasvat: when thou hast no variance with him, thou hast no need to repair to the GangÂ, nor the KuruxÊtra;” 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 passage, inserts the words “subduer of all” after “Jama,” probably not without some good reason or authority for assigning to him that character.

Lassen 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 god of death, deprecating his wrath with offerings of beasts; and he connects with it a passage in Ælianus, 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 (Lassen, i. 767). In the VÊda, 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. (Wassiljew, 202, 205, 212, 216, quoted by JÜlg.)

1. Dragons, serpents, serpent-gods, serpent-dÆmons (nÂga), 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-gods in the lower ranks of their mythology (Lassen, 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 GandhÂra 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 passage 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-gods by burying her alive on the banks of the Indus (ii. 467, and note 4). Ktesias also mentions the serpent-worship (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 worship (ii. 679). (See further notice of the serpent-worship, iv. 109.)

It would seem that the Buddhist teachers, too, discouraged the worship 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-worship carried, that it is recorded in the MahÂvansha, 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 worship, 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.

4. On the custom adopted by priests of hiding precious objects in the sacred images of the gods, see Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, iii. 351.

1. Milk-broth is mentioned by AbbÉ Huc repeatedly in his travels as a staple article of food in Mongolia.

2. Schimnu or Schumnu (in Sanskrit, KÂma or MÂra) is the Buddhist Devil, or personified evil. He is also the God of Love, Sin, and Death, the Prince of the third or lower world. Sensuality is called his kingdom. The Schumnus are represented as tempters and doing all in their power to hinder mortals in their struggle after perfection, and in this view, take every sort of forms according to their design at the time. They as often appear in female as in male form. Schmidt’s translation of sSanang sSetsen.

3. As an instance of the migration of myths, I may mention here, that I met in Spain with a ballad, which I am sorry I have mislaid and cannot therefore quote the verse, in which the love-lorn swain in singing the praises of his mistress, among other charms enumerates, that the flowers spring from the stones as she treads her way through the streets.

The present story, too, reminds forcibly in all its leading details of the legend I have entitled “The Ill-tempered Princess,” in “PatraÑas,” though so unlike in the dÉnouement.

4. I have had occasion to speak in another place of the early Indian’s belief in the dwelling of the gods being situated among the inaccessible heights which bound his sight and his fancy. The mountain of MeerÛ was a spot so sacred that it was fabled the sun might not pass it. Consult Lassen, i. 847, &c. &c.

5. Churmusta = Indra. The ruler of the lower gods, king of the earth and of the spirits of the air; his heaven is the place of earthly pleasures. DÆmons often go to war with him to obtain entrance into his paradise, and he can only fight them through the agency of an earthly hero (Brockhaus, Somadeva Bhatta, i. 213); hence it is that he calls Massang to fight the Schimnu-Khan for him.

According to AbbÉ Huc’s spelling, Hormoustha.

1. Here is one of the numerous instances where the Mongolian tale-repeater introduces into the Indian story details drawn to the life from the manners and customs around him of his own people. Compare with it the following sketch from personal observation in Mongolia, given in AbbÉ Huc’s “Travels:”—“You sometimes come upon a plain covered with animation; tents and herds dotted all over it.... It is a place whither the greater supply of water and the choicer pastures have attracted for a time a number of nomadic families; you see rising in all directions tents of various dimensions, looking like balloons newly inflated and just about to take flight; children with a sort of hod upon their backs run about collecting argols (dried dung for fuel), which they pile up in heaps round their respective tents. The women look after the calves, make tea in the open air, or prepare milk in various ways; the men, mounted on fiery horses, armed with a long pole, gallop about, guiding to the best pastures the great herds of cattle which undulate over the surrounding country like waves of the sea. All of a sudden these pictures, anon so full of animation, disappear. Men, tents, herds, all have vanished in the twinkling of an eye. You see nothing left behind but deserted heaps of embers, half-extinguished fires, and a few bones of which birds of prey are disputing the possession. Such are the sole vestiges that a Mongol tribe has just passed that way. The animals having devoured all the grass around, the chief gives the signal for departure, and all the herdsmen, folding their tents, drive their herds before them, no matter whither, in search of fresh pastures.”

This nomadic life, characteristic of the Mongols, would seem never at any time to have entered into Indian manners and customs. Though in early times pastoral occupations so engrossed them that they have left deep traces in their language (e. g. gotra, meaning originally a breed of cows, came to stand for a family lineage; and gÔpa, gÔpala, originally a cowherd, for a prince), and the hymns of the Rig-VÊda are full of invocations of blessings on the herds (Rig V. 1. 42, 8. 67, 3. 118, 2); yet wherever they came they occupied themselves with agriculture also, and settled themselves down with social habits which early led to the foundation of cities. Consult Lassen, i. 494, 685, 815, &c.

2. AbbÉ Huc incidentally mentions also this practice of carrying the produce of the flocks and herds stored in sheep’s paunches, as the present common usage of the Mongolians, and adopted by himself among the provisions for his journeyings among them (vol. ii. chap. iii., and other places).

3. Marmot. The sandy plains of Tibet are frequently inhabited by marmots, who live together in holes, and whose fur is at the present day an important article of the Tibetian trade both with India and China. It is now generally allowed that it must be these beasts which were intended in the marvellous accounts of the old Greek writers of the gold-digging ants. Though the Indians themselves gave them the name of ants, pipÎlika (e. g. Mah BhÂrata, i. p. 375, v. 1860), the description of them would pass exactly for that of this little animal—in size somewhat smaller than a fox, covered with fur, in habits social, living in holes underground in the winter.

4. See note 3 to “The False Friend.”

5. The number five is a favourite number in Buddhistic teaching, ritual and ceremonies. (Wassiljew, quoted by JÜlg.) To Bodhidsarma, the last Indian patriarch, on his removal to China, is ascribed this sentence: “I came to this country to make known the law and to free men from their passions. Every blossom that brings forth fruit hath five petals, and thus have I fulfilled my undertaking.” (Abel Remusat, Mel. As. p. 125.) One of Buddha, or at least, Âdi-Buddha’s titles, particularly in Tibet, is PankagnÂnÂtmaka, or “him possessed of five kinds of gnÂna” or knowledge (Notices of the Religion of the Bouddhas, by B. Hodgson), and this formed the basis of the complicated system of the later Buddhists.

The Brahmans, too, had five sacred observances which they aimed at exercising; the study of their sacred books, to offer sacrifice to the manes, the gods and all creatures, hospitality, and thereby increase as well their own virtue and renown as that of their fathers and mothers. The five necessary things are clothes, food, drink, coverlets for sleeping, and medicine.

The five colours are blue, white, green, yellow, and red. (KÖppen, ii. 307, note 3.)

6. Baling-cakes are figures made of dough or rice paste, generally pyramidal in form, covered with cotton wool or some inflammable material smeared over with brown colour and then set fire to. (JÜlg.)

7. RÂkschasas, Bopp (note to his translation of the Ramajana) calls them giants. In the mythology they are evil demons inimical to man; vampires in human form, generally of hideous aspect, but capable of assuming beautiful appearances in order to tempt and deceive.

There is no doubt, however, it was the Raxasas, the wild people inhabiting the country south of the Vindhja range at the time of the immigration of the Aryan Indians, whose fierce disposition, and cruel treatment of the Brahmans gave rise to the above conception of the word. Consult Lassen, Ind. Altert. i. 535, where passages giving them this character are quoted; also pp. 582, 583.

8. Manggus, Mongolian name for RÂkschasas. (JÜlg.)

9. The present mode of treating the sick in Mongolia would seem much the same. AbbÉ Huc thus describes what he himself witnessed:—“Medicine is exclusively practised by the Lamas. When any one is ill the friends run for a Lama, whose first proceeding is to run his fingers over the pulse of both wrists simultaneously.... All illness is owing to the visitation of a tchatgour or demon, but its expulsion is a matter of medicine.... He next prescribes a specific ... the medical assault being applied, the Lama next proceeds to spiritual artillery. If the patient be poor the tchatgour visiting him can only be an inferior spirit, to be dislodged by an interjectional exorcism ... and the patient may get better or die according to the decree of Hormoustha.... But a devil who presumes to visit an eminent personage must be a potent devil and cannot be expected to travel away like a mere sprite; the family are accordingly directed to prepare for him a handsome suit of clothes, a pair of rich boots, a fine horse, sometimes also a number of attendants.... The aunt of Toukuna was seized one evening with an intermittent fever.... The Lama pronounced that a demon of considerable rank was present. Eight other Lamas were called in, who set about the construction of a great puppet (baling) which they entitled ‘Demon of Intermittent Fevers,’ and which they placed erect by means of a stick in the patient’s tent. The Lamas then ranged themselves in a circle with cymbals, shells, bells, tambourines, and other noisy instruments, the family squatting on the ground opposite the puppet. The chief Lama had before him a large copper basin, filled with millet and some more little puppets.... A diabolical discordant concert then commenced, the chief Lama now and then scattering grains of millet towards the four quarters of the compass ... ultimately he rose and set the puppet on fire. As soon as the flames rose he uttered a great cry, repeated with interest by the rest, who then also rose, seized the burning figure, carried it away to the plain, and consumed it.... The patient was then removed to another tent.... The probability is that the Lamas having ascertained the time at which the fever-fit would recur meet it by a counter excitement.”

10. The respective occupations of men and women seem to remain at the present pretty much the same in Mongolia as here introduced by the tale-repeater. AbbÉ Huc writes: “Household and family cares rest entirely upon the women; it is she who milks the cows and prepares the butter, cheese, &c.; who goes no matter how far to draw water; who collects the argols (dried dung for fuel), dries it and piles it round the tent. The tanning skins, fulling cloth, making clothes, all appertains to her.... Mongol women are perfect mistresses of the needle; it is quite unintelligible how, with implements so rude, they can manufacture articles so durable; they excel, too, in embroidery, which for taste and variety of design and excellence of manipulation excited our astonishment. The occupations of the men are of very limited range; they consist wholly in conducting flocks and herds to pasture. This to men accustomed from infancy to the saddle is a mere amusement. The nearest approach to fatigue they ever incur is in pursuing cattle which escape. They sometimes hunt; when they go after roebucks, deer, or pheasants, as presents for their chiefs, they take their bow and matchlock. Foxes they always course. They squat all day in their tents, drinking tea and smoking. When the fancy takes them they take down their whip, mount their horse, always ready saddled at the door, and dash off across the broad plains, no matter whither. When one sees another horseman he rides up to him; when he sees a tent he puts up at it, the only object being to have a gossip with a new person.”

1. Kun-Snang = “All-enlightening.” (JÜlg.) The Mongolian tale-repeater here gives the Khan a Tibetian name (Tibetian being the learned and liturgical language of Mongolia), making one of the instances of which the tales are full, of their transformation in process of transmission.

2. Sesame-oil is mentioned by Pliny in many places as in use in India for medicinal purposes: as, xiii. 2, 7: xv. 9, 4: xvii. 10, 1, &c.

3. Baling-cakes.—See note 6, and note 9 to Tale IV.

4. The Brahmanical system of re-births was followed to a great extent by Buddhists, notwithstanding that it had been one chief aim and object of ShÂkjamuni’s teaching to provide mankind with a remedy against their necessity. (See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 60, and other places. Burnouf, Introd. À l’Hist. du Buddh. Ind. i. 153.) By its teaching, every living being had to be born again a countless number of times, leading them to higher or lower regions according to their dealings under each earlier form. The gods themselves were not exempt from the operation of this law.

5. Serpent-god. See note 1 to Tale II., and note 4 to Tale XXII.

6. Tiger-year. The Mongols reckon time by a cycle of sixty years, designated by a subdivision under the names of five necessary articles, and twelve beasts with the further adjuncts of male and female. The present cycle began in 1864 and will consequently go on till 1923.

The following may serve as a specimen:—

• 1864, male Wood-mouse-year, Mato khouloukhana po.
• 1865, female Wood-bullock-year, Moto oukhere mo.
• 1866, male Fire-tiger-year, Gal bara po.
• 1867, female Fire-hare-year, Gal tole mo.
• 1868, male Earth-dragon-year, Sheree lou po.
• 1869, female Earth-serpent-year, Sheree Mokhee mo.
• 1870, male Iron-horse-year, Temur mori po.
• 1871, female Iron-sheep-year, Temur knoui mo.
• 1872, male Water-ape-year, Oussou betchi po.
• 1873, female Water-fowl-year, Oussou takia mo.
• 1874, male Wood-dog-year, Moto nokhee po.
• 1875, female Wood-pig-year, Moto khakhee mo.
• 1876, male Fire-mouse-year, Gal khouloukhana po.
• 1877, female Fire-bullock-year, Gal oukhere mo.
• 1878, male Earth-tiger-year, Sheree bara po.
• 1879, female Earth-hare-year, Sheree tolee mo.
• 1880, male Iron-dragon-year, Temur lou po.
• 1881, female Iron-serpent-year, Temur mokhee mo.

And so on to the end. The date always being quoted in connexion with the year of each sovereign reigning at the time, to make the distinction more definite.

7. Nothing can be much more revolting to our minds than the idea of human sacrifices. Nevertheless, one of the grandest episodes of the great epic poem called the Ramajana, is that in which King Ashokja goes all the world over in search of a youth possessing all the marks which prove him worthy to be sacrificed: “wandering through tracts of country and villages, through town and wilderness alike, holy hermitages also of high fame.” When at last he has found one in the person of Sunasepha, son of Ritschika, a great prince of seers, Visvamitra, the great model penitent, calls on his own son to take his place, crying up the honour of the thing in the most ardent language. “When a father desires to have sons,” he says to him, “it is in order that they may adorn the world with their virtue and be worthy of eternal fame. The opportunity for earning that fame has now come to thee.” And when his son refuses the exchange, he pronounces on him the following curse, “Henceforth shalt thou be for many years a wanderer and outcast, and despised like to a dealer in dog’s flesh.”

Concerning the serpent-cultus in general, see note 1, Tale II., and note 4, Tale XXII.

8. Rice is the most ancient and most widespread object of Indian agriculture; it is only not cultivated in those districts where either the heat or the means of natural or artificial irrigation do not suffice for its production; and in easternmost islands of the Archipelago, where the sago-palm replaces it. (Ritter iv. 1, 800.) The name, coming from vrih, to grow, to spread (whence also vrihat, great), suggests, that it was regarded as the principal kind of corn. All the Greek writers on India mention that an intoxicating drink was made from rice, and the custom still prevails.

1. Brschiss. I know not what country it is which is thus designated, unless the word be derived from brizi, the ancient Persian for rice, and is intended to denote a rice-producing territory.

2. Palm-tree. India grows a vast number of varieties of the palm-tree; the general name is trinadruma, “grass-tree” (Ritter iv. 1, 827). The date-palm was only introduced by the Arabians (Lassen, iii. 312). The fan-palm (borassus flabelliformis) is called trinarÂga = “the grass-king,” in Sanskrit also tÂla; the Buddhist priests in Dekhan and also in China and Mongolia use its leaves as fans and sunshades, and hence are often called tÂlapatri, palm-bearers. TÂlÂnka and TÂladhvaga are also titles of Krishna, when he carries a banner bearing a palm-tree in memory of a legend which makes him the discoverer of the means of utilizing the fruit of the cocoa-nut palm. “The mountain GÔvardhana on the banks of the Jamun was thickly grown over with the cocoa-nut palm, but it was kept in guard by a dÆmon, named DhÊnuka, in the form of an ass, at the head of a great herd of asses, so that no one could approach it. Krishna, however, in company with Rama, went through the wood unarmed, but when they would have shaken down the fruit from the trees, DhÊnuka, who was sitting in its branches, kicked them with his hoofs and bit them. Krishna pulled him down from off the tree, and wrestled with him till he had crushed him to death; in the same way he dealt with the whole herd. A lurid light gleamed through the whole wood from the bodies of the dead asses, but from that time forward, all the people had free use of the trees.” (Hari, v. 70, v. 3702 et seq. p. 577.)

3. The brandy spoken of is, probably, koumis, distilled from mare’s milk, and makes a very intoxicating drink. Concerning its preparation, see Pallas, Sammlung historischer Nachrichten Über die Mongolen.

1. Compare note 10, Tale IV.

2. Legends of transformed maidens being delivered from the power of enchantment and married by heroes and knights are common enough, but we less frequently meet with stories presenting a reversed plot. I have met with one, however, nearly identical with that given in the text, attached to a ruined castle of WÂlsch-Tirol.

3. The Buddhist idea of the soul is very difficult to define. In other legends given later in the present volume (e. g. the episode of the burying of VikramÂditja’s body and the action of the fourth youth in “Who invented Women?”) we find it, just as in the present one, spoken of as a quite superfluous and fantastic adjunct without which a man was to all intents and purposes the same as when he had it. Spence Hardy affirms as the result of conversations with Buddhists during half a life passed among them in Ceylon, as well as from the study of their writings, that “according to Buddhism there is no soul.”

4. Compare note 7 to “VikramÂditja’s Birth.”

5. ObÖ. “A heap of stones on which every traveller is expected of his piety to throw one or more as he goes by.” (JÜlg.) AbbÉ Huc describes them thus: “They consist simply of an enormous pile of stones heaped up without any order, surmounted with dried branches of trees, while from them hang other branches and strips of cloth on which are inscribed verses in the Tibet and Mongol languages. At its base is a large granite urn in which the devotees burn incense. They offer besides pieces of money which the next Chinese traveller, after sundry ceremonious genuflexions before the ObÖ, carefully collects and pockets. These ObÖs are very numerous.”

6. The sacred mountain of MeerÛ. See note 4, Tale III.

6. Chotolo has the same meaning as Chamuk, the one in Kalmuck and the other in Tibetian.

7. See note 4 to Tale V., and note 7 to “VikramÂditja’s Birth.”

8. Kun-tschong = all-protecting (Tibetian). (JÜlg.)

1. Heaven-gods, sky-gods, devas. They hold a transition position between men and gods, between human and Buddha nature. Their etherial body enables these lowest of gods, or genii, to withstand the effects of age better than mortals; also they can assume other forms and make themselves invisible, powers seldom allotted to mortals, but they are subject to illusion, sin, and metempsychosis like every other creature. (Schott, Buddhaismus in Hoch-Asien, p. 5, quoted by JÜlg.)

2. GarudÂ.—Garut'man (whence GarudÂ), means the winged one. In the epic mythology of India Garud was son of Kashjapa and VinatÂ, daughter of Daxa, king of the Suparn'a (“beautiful winged ones”), divine birds, whose habitation was in the lower heavens. They were the standing foes of the serpent-gods, on whose flesh they fed. In the VÊda it is spoken of as a bird with beautiful golden wings. A Gaudharba of high degree, bearing shining weapons, was placed over the higher heaven. It is said that inhaling the balmy vapours, he gave birth to the refreshing rain; and that when gazing through space with his eagle eye he broods over the ocean, the rays of the sun pierce through the third heaven. From this it may be gathered that the Garud originally represented the morning mist preceding the sunrise over land and sea. The GarudÂ, was also the bearer of Vishnu, as the following legend from the MÂha BhÂrata tells:—“MÂtali, Indra’s charioteer, had fixed his eyes on Sumuka, grandson of the serpent-god Arjaka, to make him his son-in-law by marrying his daughter, Gun'aka'shi, to him. GarudÂ, however, had already devoted him for his food, purposing to kill him in a month’s time; but at MÂtali’s request Indra had given promise of long life to Sumukha. When Garud heard this he went and stood before Indra and told him that by such a promise he had destroyed himself and his race; that he GarudÂ, alone possessed the strength to bear him up through all worlds, even as he bore up Vishnu, and that by his means he might become lord of all and as great as Vishnu. But Vishnu made him feel the weight of (only) his left arm, and straightway he fell down senseless before him. After this he acknowledged that he was only the servant of Vishnu, and promised not to talk rebellious words any more.”

The descriptions of him do not give him entirely the form of a bird, but rather of some combination with the human form; in what he resembles a bird he seems to partake of the eagle, the vulture, and the crane. (Schlegel, Ind. Bibl. i. 81.)

1. That the Indians were apt to yield to the temptation of drink is asserted by the Greek writers on India, who also mention that, in spite of the prohibition of their religion, wine was an article of their import trade. See Lassen, ii. 606; iii. 50, and 345, 346.

2. That the wife should give herself to be burned with the body of her husband was a very ancient custom, as it is alluded to as such by the Greek writers on India. Nevertheless it was far from universal.

3. Comp. MÂnu, dh. sh. viii. 29, concerning the punishment of the false witness.

4. Shaving off the hair was reckoned the most degrading of punishments. (Lassen, vi. 344.)

1. Chongschim BÔdhisattva. Chongschim is probably derived from the Chinese, Kuan-schi-in, also by the Mongols, called Chutuku niduber usek tschi (He looking with the sacred eye), the present representative of ShÂkjamuni, the spiritual guardian and patron of the breathing world in general; but, as Lamaism teaches, the Particular Protector of the northern countries of Asia; and each succeeding Dalai Lama is an incarnation of him. (Schott, Buddhaismus, and KÖppen, Die Religion des Buddha, i. 312; ii. 127.) BÔdhisattva, from BÔdhi, the highest wisdom or knowledge, and Sattva, being. It is the last but one in the long chain of re-births. (See Schott, Buddhaismus, quoted by JÜlg.; also KÖppen, i. 312 et seq., 422–426, and ii. 18 et seq.; Wassiljew, p. 6, 106, 134.)

It designates a man who has reached the intelligence of a Buddha and destined to be re-born as such when the actual Buddha dies. This intermediate time some have to pass in the Tushita-heaven, and none of those thus dignified can appear on earth so long as his predecessor lives. (Burnouf, Introduction À l’Histoire du Buddhisme Ind. i. 109.)

2. SuvarnadharÎ (Sanskr.), possessed of gold. (JÜlg.)

3. Chutuktu, holy, consecrated, reverend, honourable—the Mongolian designation of the priesthood in general. (Schott, Buddhaismus, p. 36.)

4. It requires nothing less than the creative power of an Eastern imagination first to see a difficulty in a situation simple enough in itself, and then set to work to remove it by means of a proceeding calculated to create the most actual difficulties: it is a leading characteristic of Indian tales. It would seem much more rational to have made the poor man keep up the original story of Buddha having designated him for the girl’s husband, which the people at the mouth of the stream would have been as prone to believe as those at its source, than to resort to the preposterous expedient of leaving her buried in a box.

1. KÜwÖ^n-ojÔtu, of child intellect. (JÜlg.)

2. Sandal-wood is a principal production of India. The finest grows on the Malabar coast. Among its many names goshirsha is the only one in use in the Buddhistic writings, being derived from a cow’s head, the smell of which its scent was supposed to resemble. (Burnouf, Introd. À l’Hist. du Buddhisme i. 619.) Kandana is the vulgar name. It was also called valguka = beautiful, and bhadrashri = surpassingly beautiful. Its use, both as incense in the temples and for scent in private houses, particularly by spreading a fine powdering of it on damp mats before the windows, is very ancient and widespread.

3. GegÊn uchÂtu, of bright intellect. (JÜlg.)

4. Cap woven of grass. Probably the Urtica (Boehmeria) utilis, which is used for weaving and imported into Europe under the name of China-grass. See Revue Horticole, vol. iv. ann. 1855.

1. Shrikantha, “one whose cup contains good fortune” = born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

2. The merchant class acquired an important position in India at an early date, as the Manu concerns itself with laws for their guidance. The Manu, however, distinctly defines trading as the occupation of the third caste (i. 90), “The care of cattle, sacrifice, reading the VÊda, the career of a merchant, the lending of gold and silver, and the pursuit of agriculture shall be the occupation of the Vaishja.” Similarly in the JalimÂl legend given in Colebrooke’s “Miscellaneous Essays,” it is said “The Lord of Creation viewing them (the various castes) said, ‘What shall be your occupation?’ These replied, ‘We are not our own masters, O God. Command what we shall undertake.’ Viewing and comparing their labours he made the first tribe superior over the rest. As the first had great inclination for the divine sciences (brahmaveda) it was called Brahmana. The protector from ill was Kshatriga (warrior). Him whose profession (vesa) consists in commerce, and in husbandry, and attendance on cattle he called Vaisga. The other should voluntarily serve the three tribes, and therefore he became Sudra.” That a Brahman’s son, therefore, should condescend to engage in trade must be ascribed either to the degeneracy of later times or to the ignorance of or indifference to Brahmanical peculiarities of the Buddhist tale-repeater; or else his parents were of mixed castes.

In legendary tales Banig is a typical merchant, and the name ultimately came to designate the subdivision of the Vaishja caste, in which trading had become hereditary. The word is derived from pani, which means both to buy and to play games of hazard, and ga, born or descended; hence Banig meant, literally, merchant’s son. This designation later became corrupted into Banyan.

It is not possible to learn very much about the merchant’s early status, as the subject of trade would naturally seem unworthy of frequent mention in the great epic poems; nevertheless the Ramajana (ii. 83, v. 11) speaks of “the honourable merchants” (naigamÂh). Mercantile expeditions, especially by sea, however, partook of the heroic, and as such find a place even in the MÂha BhÂrata; and there is a hymn in the VÊda (Rig. V. i. 116, 5) praising Asvin for protecting Bhugju’s hundred-oared ship through the immeasurable, fathomless ocean, and bringing it back safely to land.

3. Apes enter frequently not only into the fables but into the epic poetry of India. The Ramajana, narrating the spreading of the Aryan Indians over the south and far-east, speaks of the country as inhabited by apes, and of Rama taking apes for his allies; also, on one occasion, of his re-establishing an ape-king in possession of his previous dominions. Consult Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 534, 535. Megasthenes mentions various kinds of apes and monkeys, with, however, scarcely recognizable descriptions, in his enumeration of the wild animals of India (Fragm. x. p. 410). Kleitarchos tells that when Alexander had reached a hill in the neighbourhood of the Hydaspes, he came upon a tribe of apes arranged in battle array, looking so formidable that he was about to give the signal for attacking them, but was withheld by the representations of Taxiles, king of the neighbouring country of Taxila, who accompanied him (Fragm. xvi. p. 80). The Pantcha-Tantra contains a fable in which the King of Kamanapura establishes an ape for his bodyguard as more faithful and efficient than man; a thief, however, brings a serpent into the apartment, and at sight of the mortal enemy of his kind, the ape runs away. Another fable of the same collection tells of a Brahman who, having succeeded in rearing a flourishing garden of melons, found them all devoured as soon as ripe by a party of apes, nor was he able by any means to get rid of them. One day he laid himself down hid amid the leafage as if he had been dead, but with a stick in his hand ready to attack them when they approached. At first they indeed took him for dead and were venturing close up to him, when one of them espied the stick and cried to the others, “Dead men do not carry arms,” and with that they all escaped; and it was the same with every trap he laid for them, by their wariness they evaded them all.

4. The Indian world of story abounds in tales in which the low notion of expecting some advantage to accrue in this life is proposed as the object and reward of good actions. Instances will doubtless occur to the reader. The Pantcha-Tantra Collection contains one in which an elephant is caught by a Khan out hunting, by being driven into a deep dyke. He asks advice of a Brahman who passes that way, as to how he is to extricate himself. “Now is the time,” answers the Brahman, “to recall if you have ever done good to any one, and if so to call him to your aid.” The elephant thereupon recalls that he once delivered a number of rats whom a Khan had hunted and caught and shut up in earthen jars by lifting the earthen jars with his trunk and gently breaking them. He accordingly invokes the aid of these rats, who come and gnaw away at the earth surrounding the dyke, till they have made so easy a slope of it that the elephant can walk out.

Christianity fortunately proposes a higher motive for our good actions, and the experience of life would make that derived from results to be expected from gratitude a very poor one.

5. A story, with a precisely similar episode of the recovery of a jewel by ancillary beasts, comes into the legend of another ruin of the Italian Tirol.

6. See note 4 to “VikramÂditja’s Throne discovered.”

1. I know not whether this placing together of lions and tigers is to be ascribed to unacquaintance with their habits, or to idealism. Though both natives of parts of India they have not even the same districts assigned them by nature. So inimical are they also to each other, and so unlikely to herd together, that it has been supposed the tiger has exterminated the lion wherever they have met. (Ritter, Asien, vol. iv. zweite HÄlfte, 689, 703, 723.) Indian fable established the lion as the king of beasts—MrigarÂga. Amara, the Indian Lexicographer, places him at the head of all beasts. The ordinary Sanskrit name is Sinha, which some translate “the killer,” from sibh, to kill. The same word (sinhanÂda) stands for the roaring of the lion and for a war cry. SinhÂsana, literally a lion-seat, stands for a throne; for the lion was the typical ruler. The fables always make him out as powerful, just, temperate, and willing to take the advice of others, but often deceived by his counsellors. The lion also gave its name to the island of Ceylon, which to the Greeks was known as Taprobane, from TÂmbapanni or TÂmrapani, the capital built by Vigaja, its first historical settler (said by the natives to come from tÂmra, red, and pÂni, hand, because he and his companions being worn out with fatigue on their arrival lay down upon the ground and found it made their hands red; but tamra (neut.) means also red sandalwood, and parna is a leaf, which makes a more probable interpretation, but there is also another deriving from “a red swamp”). But this name passed quite out of use both among native and Greek writers in the early part of the first century. Ptolemy calls it Sa????, the Indian word being Sinhala, the Pali, SÎhala = “resting-place of the lion” (i.e. the courageous warriors, the companions of Vigaja). Kosmas has S?e?ed?a = Sinhaladvipa, “the island Sinhala.” In the writings of the Chinese pilgrims it is called Sengkiolo, which they render “lion’s kingdom.” In the southern dialects of India l is often changed into r, and thus in Marcellinus Ammianus we find the name has become Serendivus. Out of this came zeilau and our Ceylon. In our word “Singhalese” we have a plainer trace of the lion’s share in the appellation.

The writers of the time of Alexander do not appear to have come across any authentic account of the tiger, and his people seem to have known it only from its skin bought as merchandize. Nearchos and Megasthenes both quite overstate its size, as “twice as big as a lion,” and “as big as a horse.” Augustus exhibited a tiger in Rome in the year 11 B.C., and that seems the first seen there. Claudius imported four. Pliny remarks on the extreme swiftness and wariness of the tiger and the difficulty of capturing him. His place in the fable world is generally as representative of unmitigated cruelty. The Pantcha-Tantra contains a tale, however, in which a Brahman, wearied of his existence by many reverses, goes to a tiger who has a reputation for great ferocity and begs him to rid him of his life. The tiger in this instance is so moved by the recital of the man’s afflictions that he not only spares his life, but nurtures him in his den, enriching him also with the jewelled spoil of the many travellers who fall victims to his voracity. In the end, however, the inevitable fox comes in as a bad counsellor, and persuades him the Brahman is intending to poison him, and thus overcoming his leniency, induces him to break faith with the Brahman and devour him.

2. Dakinis were female evil genii, who committed all sorts of horrible pranks, chiefly among the graves and at night. In this place it is more probably Raginis that are intended, beautiful beings who filled the air with melody. (Schmidt, trans, of sSanang sSetsen, p. 438, quoted by JÜlg.)

3. NÛpuras, gold rings set with jewels, worn by women of rank, and also by dancing girls.

4. The custom of wearing quantities of jewelled ornaments seems to have passed into Rome, along with the jewels themselves, and to such an extent that Pliny tells us (book ix.), that Roman women would have their feet covered with pearls, and a woman of rank would not go out without having so many pearls dangling from her feet as to make a noise as she walked along. The long-shaped pearls of India, too, were specially prized for ear-rings; he particularly mentions their being made to bear the form of an alabaster vase, just as lately revived in Rome. They particularly delighted in the noise of two or more of these pendants together as a token of wealth, and gave it the name of crotalia, which, however, they borrowed from the Greeks. They also wore them pendant from their rings. The Singhalese pearls are the most esteemed. The dangerous fishery of these forms the occupation of a special division of the Parawa or Fisher-Caste of the Southern Indians. The pearl-oysters were said to swim in swarms, led by a king-oyster, distinguished by his superiority in size and colouring. Fishers aimed at capturing the “king,” as then the whole swarm was dispersed and easily caught; as long as the king was free, he knew how to guide the major part of his swarm of subjects out of danger (Pliny, ix. 55, 1). They thought the pearl was more directly under the influence of the heavens than of the sea, so that if it was cloudy at the time of their birth, they grew dull and tinted; but if born under a bright sky, then they were lustrous and well-tinted; if it thundered at the time, they were startled and grew small and stunted. Concerning the actualities of pearl-fishery, see Colebrook’s “Account” of the same in Trans. of R. As. Soc. ii. 452, et seq.

Megasthenes, Diodorus, Arrianus, and others (quoted by Lassen, 1, 649, n. 2), tell a curious legend by which Hercules as he parted from earth gave to his young daughter Pandaia the whole of Southern India for her portion, and that from her sprang the celebrated hero dynasty of the PÂndava; Hercules found a beautiful female ornament called pearls on his travels, and he collected them all and endowed his daughter’s kingdom with them.

5. It is impossible not to be struck by the similarity of construction between this tale and that of the Spanish colonial one I have given in “PatraÑas” with the title of “Matanzas,” thus bringing the sagas of the East and West Indies curiously together.

6. Lama, Buddhist priest: the tale-repeater again grafts a word of his own language on to the Indian tale.

7. TÎrtha, from tri, to cross a river. It denoted originally a ford; then, a bathing-place on the borders of sacred streams; later its use became extended to all manner of pilgrimage-places, but more frequently those situated at the water’s edge. They were the hermitages of Brahmans who gave themselves to the contemplative life before the rise of Buddhism, while to many of them also were attached legends of having been the dwellings of the mysterious Rishi, similarly before the rise of Brahmanism. The fruits of the earth and beasts brought to them as offerings at these holy places, as also the mere visiting such spots, was taught to be among the most meritorious of acts. “From the poor can the sacrifice, O king, not be offered, for it needs to have great possessions, and to make great preparations. By kings and rich men can it be offered. But not by the mean and needy and possessing nothing. But hear, and I will tell thee what is the pious dealing which is equal in its fruits to the holy sacrifice, and can be carried out even by the poorest. This is the deepest secret of the Rishi. Visits paid to the tÎrtha are more meritorious than even offerings” (made elsewhere). “He who has never fasted for three nights, has never visited a tÎrtha, and never made offerings of gold and cows, he will live in poor estate” (at his next re-birth). “But so great advantage is not gained by the Agnishtoma or other most costly sacrifice as by visiting tÎrthas.” (TirthagÂtrÂ, iii. 82, v. 4055 et seq.) In other places it is prescribed that visits paid to some one particular tÎrtha are equal to an offering of one hundred cows; to another, a thousand. To visiting another, is attached the reward of being beautiful at the next rebirth; a visit to another, cleansed from the stain of murder, even the murder of a Brahman; that to the source of the Ganges, brings good luck to a whole generation. Whoso passes a month at that on the Kanshiki, where Vishvamitra attained the highest perfection, does equivalent to the offering of a horse-offering and obtains the same advantage (phala = fruit). Several spots on the Indus or Sindhu, reckon among the holiest of tÎrthas pointing to the course of the immigration of the Aryan race into India. Uggana on its west bank is named as the dwelling-place of the earliest Rishis and the scene of acts of the gods. A visit to Gandharba at its source, or SindhÛttama the northern-most tÎrtha on its banks, was equivalent to a horse-offering.

The Puranas are full of stories and legends concerning tÎrthas noteworthy for the deeds of ancient kings and gods. They tell us of one on the Jumna, where Brahma himself offered sacrifice. At the VÂrÂha-tÎrtha Vishnu had once appeared in the form of a wild boar. The Mah BhÂrata and other epic poems speak of these visits being made by princes as a matter of constant occurrence, as well as of numbers of Brahmans making the occasion of their visits answer the purpose of an armed escort, to pay their devotions at the same time without incurring unnecessary danger by the way. The Manu also contains prescriptions concerning these visits. In consequence of the amount of travelling they entailed the tÎrthÂnusartri or tÎrtha-visitor was quoted as a geographical authority.

The Horse-sacrifice mentioned above was part of the early Vedic religion. In the songs of Dirghatamas, Rig-Veda i. 22, 6 and 7, it is described with great particularity. And instances are mentioned of horse-sacrifices being performed, in the Ramajana, i. 13, 34, and Mah BhÂrata, xiv. 89 v. 2644. There is also a medal existing struck by a king of the Gupta dynasty, in the 3rd century of our era, commemorative of one at that date. There do not appear altogether to be many instances named however. The Zendavesta (quoted by Burnouf, Yacna, i. p. 444) mentions that it was common among the Turanian people, on the other hand, to sacrifices horses to propitiate victory.

1. “Diamond kingdom.” It is probably Magadha (now Behar) that is here thus designated (JÜlg.); though it might stand for any part of Central India: “Diamonds were only found in India of all the kingdoms of antiquity” (Lassen, iii. 18), and (Lassen i. 240), “in India between 14° and 25°;” a wide range, but the fields are limited in extent and sparsely scattered. The old world only knew the diamond through the medium of India. In India itself they were the choicest ornaments of the kings and of the statues of the gods. They thus became stored up in great masses in royal and ecclesiastical treasuries; and became the highest standard of value. The vast quantities of diamonds made booty of during the Muhammedan invasion borders on the incredible. It was thus that they first found their way in any quantity to the West of Europe. Since the discovery of the diamond-fields of Brazil, they have been little sought for in India. In Sanskrit, they were called vag’ra, “lightning;” also abhÊdja, “infrangible.” It would appear, however, that the Muhammedans were not the first to despoil the Eastern treasuries, for Pliny (book ix.) tells us that Lollia, wife of Claudius, was wont to show herself, on all public occasions, literally covered from head to foot with jewels, which her father, Marcus Lollius, had taken from the kings of the East, and which were valued at forty million sesterces. He adds, however, this noteworthy instance of retribution of rapacity, that he ended by taking his own life to appease the Emperor’s animosity, which he had thereby incurred.

Hiuen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim who visited India about A.D. 640, particularly mentions that in MalÁva and Magadha were chief seats of learned studies.

2. Abaraschika; magic word of no meaning. (JÜlg.)

3. Astrologers. Colebrooke (“Miscellaneous Essays,” ii. 440) is of opinion that astrology was a late introduction into India. Divination by the relative position of the planets seems to have been in part at least of foreign growth and comparatively recent introduction among the Hindus; (he explains this to refer to the Alexandrian Greeks). “The belief in the influence of the planets and stars upon human affairs is with them indeed remotely ancient, and was a natural consequence of their early creed making the sun and planets gods. But the notion that the tendency of that supposed influence and the manner in which it is to be exerted, may be foreseen by man, and the effect to be produced by it foretold through a knowledge of the position of the planets at a given moment, is no necessary result of that belief; for it takes from beings believed divine their free agency.” See also Weber, “Geschichte der Indischen Astrologie,” in his Indische Studien, ii. 236 et seq.

1. Tabun Minggan = “containing five thousand.” (JÜlg.) The tale-repeater again gives a name of his own language to a town which he places in India.

2. Cows and oxen were always held in high estimation by the ancient Indians. The same word that stood for “cow” expressed also “the earth,” and both stand equally in the VÊda for symbols of fruitfulness and patient labouring for the benefit of others. The ox stands in the Manu for “uprightness” and “obedience to the laws.” In the Ramajana (ii. 74, 12) Surabhi, the cow-divinity (see the curious accounts of her origin in Lassen, i. 792 and note), is represented as lamenting that over the whole world her children are made to labour from morning to night at the plough under the burning sun. Cows were frequently devoted to the gods and left to go whithersoever they would, even in the midst of towns, their lives being held sacred (Lassen, i. 298). KÜhn (Jahrbuch f. w. K. 1844, p. 102) quotes two or three instances of sacrifices of cows but they were very rare; either as sacrifices to the gods or as rigagna (“sacrifices to the living”) i. e. the offerings of hospitality to the living. The ox was reckoned peculiarly sacred to Shiva, and images were set up to him in the temples (see Lassen, i. 299). Butter was the most frequent object of sacrifice (ib. 298). The Manu (iii. 70) orders the HÔma or butter-sacrifice to be offered daily to the gods, and the custom still subsists (see Lassen, iii. 325). Other names for the cow were Gharmadhug = “giver of warm milk;” and Aghnj = “the not to be slain;” also KÂmadhÊnu or KÂmaduh = “the fulfiller of wishes,” and (in the Mah BhÂrata) NandunÎ = “the making to rejoice” (Lassen, i. 721). See also the story of Sabala, the heavenly cow of the Ramajana, in note 8 to “VikramÂditja’s Youth.” Oxen were not only used for ploughing, but also for charioteering and riding, and were trained to great swiftness. Ælianus (De Nat Anim. xv. 24) mentions that kings and great men did not think it beneath them to strive together in the oxen-races, and that the oxen were better racers than the horses, for the latter needed the spur while the former did not. An ox and a horse, and two oxen with a horse between them were often harnessed together in a chariot. He also mentions that there was a great deal of betting both by those whose animals were engaged in the race and by the spectators. The Manu, however (d. p. c. ix. 221—225), forbids every kind of betting under severe penalties. Ælianus mentions further the KÂmara, the long-haired ox or yak, which the Indians received from Tibet.

3. The “Three Precious Treasures” or “jewels” of Buddhism are Adi-buddha, Dharma, and Sangha, which in later Buddhism became a sort of triad, called triratna, of supreme divinities; but, at the first, were only honoured according to the actual meaning of the words (Schmidt, Grundlehre der Buddhaismus, in Mem. de l’Ac. des Sciences de S. Petersbourg, i. 114), viz. Sangha, sacred assembly or synod; Dharma, laws (or more correctly perhaps, necessity, fate, Lassen, iii. 397), and Buddha, the expounder of the same. (Burnouf, Introd. À l’Hist. du Budd. i. 221.)

Consult Schott, Buddhaismus, pp. 39, 127, and C. F. KÖppen, Die Religion des Buddha, i. 373, 550–553, and ii. 292–294.

4. See note 2, Tale IV.

5. AbbÉ Huc describes the huts of the Tibetian herdsmen as thus constructed with a hole in the roof for the smoke. The Mongolians live entirely in tents which, if more primitive, seem cleaner and altogether preferable.

1. Probably it was some version of this story that had travelled to Spain, which suggested to Yriarte the following one of his many fables directed against ignorant writers and bad critics.

2. The woman invents a name to frighten, and also as a trap for, her husband. “SÛrja, is Sanskrit, and Bagatur, Mongolian for a ‘Hero.’ Such combinations are not infrequent.” (JÜlg.)

“Shura means a Hero in Sanscrit, agreeing not only in sense with the Greek word ????, but also in derivation; thus revealing a primeval agreement in the estimation in which hero-nature was held. It is more properly written Sura, because it comes from Svar, heaven, and means literally ‘heavenly.’ It is used in that form as an appellation of the Sun. Heroes are so called, because when they fell in battle, Svarga, the heaven of deified kings, was given them for their dwelling-place. ‘Indra shall give to those who fall in battle the world where all wishes are fulfilled, for their portion. Neither by sacrifices, nor offerings to the Brahmans, nor by contemplation, nor knowledge can mortals attain to Svarga as securely as do heroes falling in battle.’ Mah BhÂrata, xi. 2, v. 60.” (Lassen, i. 69.)

3. “The women of Tibet are not indeed taught the use of the bow and the matchlock, but in riding they are as expert and fearless as the men, yet it is only on occasion that they mount a horse, such as when travelling; or when there chances to be no man about the place to look after a stray animal.” (AbbÉ Huc’s “Travels in China and Tibet,” vol. i. ch. iii.)

4. A very similar story may be found in Barbazan’s, “Fabliaux et Contes des PoÈtes FranÇais des XI–XV SiÈcles,” in 4 vols., Paris 1808, vol. iv. pp. 287–295. (JÜlg.)

1. Shanggasba is possibly a Tibetian word, bsang, grags, pa = “of good fame,” but more probably it is compounded from the Mongolian sSang, “treasure.” (JÜlg.)

2. GarudÂ: see note 2, Tale I. The allusion in this place is to an image of him over a shrine.

3. Silk was cultivated in India at a very early date, probably much earlier than any records that remain to us can show; there are twelve indigenous species of silkworm. That of China was not introduced into India before the year 419 of our era (Ritter, vol. vi. pt. 1, 698). The indigenous silkworms fed upon other trees besides the mulberry and notably on the ficus religiosa. The Greeks would seem to have learnt the use of silk from the Indians, or at least from the Persians. Nearchos is the first Greek writer in whom mention of it is found; he describes it as like the finest weft of cotton-stuff, and says it was made from fibre scraped from the bark of a tree; an error in which he was followed by other writers; others again wrote that the fibres were combed off the leaf of a tree; yet Pausanias had mentioned the worm as the intermediary of its production (C. MÜller, Pref. to his Edition of Strabo, and notes). The Romans also carried on a considerable trade in silk with India, and Pliny, vi. 20, 2, mentions one kind of Indian silk texture that was so fine and light, you could see through it, “ut in publico matrona transluceat.” Horace also alludes to the same, Sat. i. 2, 101. Pliny also complains of the luxury whereby this costly stuff was used, not only for dresses, but for coverings of cushions.65 Vopiscus, in his life of the Emperor Aurelian, tells us that at that time a pound weight of silk was worth a pound weight of gold. In India itself the luxurious use of silk has restrictions put upon it in the Manu. It was also prescribed that when men devoted themselves to the hermit life in the jungle, they should lay aside their silken clothing; and we find RÂma (RÂmajana, ii. 37, 14) putting on a penitential habit over his silken robe. The MÂha BhÂrata (ii. cap. 50) contains a passage in which among the objects brought in tribute to Judhishthira is kÎtaga, or the “insect-product,” a word used to designate both silk and cochineal.

4. A similar episode occurs in a tale collected in the neighbourhood of Schwaz in North Tirol which I have given under the name of “Prince Radpot” in “Household Stories from the Land of Hofer.” The rest of the story recalls that called “The three Black Dogs” in the same collection, but there is much more grace and pathos about the Tirolean version.

1. See note 2, Tale XVII.

2. The fox plays a similar part in many an Eastern fable. The first book of the Pantscha Tantra Collection is entitled Mitrabheda, or the Art of Mischief-making. A lion-king who has two foxes for his ministers falls into great alarm one day, because he hears for the first time in his life the roaring of an ox, which some merchants had left behind them because it was lame and sick. The lion consults his two ministers in this strait, and the two while laughing at his fears determine to entertain them in order to enhance their own usefulness. First they visit the ox and make sure he is quite infirm and harmless, and then they go to the lion, and tell him it is the terrible Ox-king, the bearer of Shiva, and that Shiva has sent him down into that forest to devour all the animals in it small and great. The lion is not surprised to hear his fears confirmed and entreats his ministers to find him a way out of the difficulty. The foxes pretend to undertake the negotiation and then go back to the ox and tell him it is the command of the king that he quit the forest. The ox pleads his age and infirmities and desolate condition, and the foxes having made him believe in the value of their services as intermediaries bring him to the lion. Both parties are immensely grateful to the ministers for having as each thinks softened the heart of the other, but the foxes begin to see they have taken a false step in bringing the ox to the lion, as they become such fast friends, that there is danger of their companionship being no longer sought by their master. They determine, therefore, the ox must be killed; but how are they to kill so disproportioned a victim? They must make the lion do the execution himself. But how? they are such sworn friends. They find the lion alone and fill his mind with alarm, assure him the ox is plotting to kill him. They hardly gain credit, but the lion promises to be on his guard; while they are on the watch also for any accident which may give colour to their design. Meantime, they keep up each other’s courage by the narration of fables showing how by perseverance in cunning any perfidy may be accomplished. At last it happens one day that a frightful storm comes on while the ox is out grazing. He comes galloping back to seek the cover of the forest, shaking his head and sides to get rid of the heavy raindrops, tearing up the ground with his heavy hoofs in his speed, and his tail stretched out wildly behind. “See!” say the foxes to the lion; “see if we were not right. Behold how he comes tramping along ready to devour thee; see how his eyes glisten with fury, see how he gnashes his teeth, see how he tears up the earth with his powerful hoofs!” The lion cannot remain unconvinced in presence of such evidence. “Now is your moment,” cry the foxes; “be beforehand with him before he reaches you.” Thus instigated the lion falls upon the ox. The ox surprised at this extraordinary reception, and already out of breath, is thrown upon the defensive, and in his efforts to save himself the lion sees the proof of his intention to attack. Accordingly he sets no bounds to his fury, and has soon torn him in pieces. The foxes get the benefit of a feast for many days on his flesh, besides being reinstated in the full empire over their master. In one of the fables, however, the tables are cleverly turned on Reynard by “the sagacity of the bearded goat.” An old he-goat having remained behind on the mountains, one day, when the rest of the herd went home, found himself suddenly in presence of a lion. Remembering that a moment’s hesitation would be his death, he assumed a bold countenance and walked straight up to the lion. The lion, astonished at this unwonted procedure, thinks it must be some very extraordinary beast; and instead of setting upon it, after his wont, speaks civilly to it, saying, “Thou of the long beard, whence art thou?” The goat answered, “I am a devout servant of Shiva to whom I have promised to make sacrifice of twenty-one tigers, twenty-five elephants, and ten lions; the tigers and the elephants have I already slain, and now I am seeking for ten lions to slay.” The lion hearing this formidable declaration, without waiting for more, turned him and fled. As he ran he fell in with a fox, who asked him whither he ran so fast. The lion gives a ridiculous description of the goat, dictated by his terror; the fox recognizes that it is only a goat, and thinking to profit by the remains of his flesh perfidiously urges him to go back and slaughter him. He accordingly goes back with this intention, but the goat is equal to the occasion, and turning sharply upon the fox, exclaims, “Did I not send thee out to fetch me ten lions for the sacrifice? How then darest thou to appear before me having only snared me one?” The lion thinking his reproaches genuine, once more turns tail and makes good his escape. It has much similarity with the episode of the hare and the wolf in the next tale.

3. Svarga. See note 2, Tale XVII.

1. HiranjavatÎ, “the gold-coloured river,” also called Svarnavati, “the yellow river,” both names occurring only in Buddhist writers: one of the northern tributaries of the Ganges, into which it falls not far from Patna, and the chief river of Nepaul. Its name was properly GandakavatÎ = “Rhinoceros-river,” or simply Gan’da’kÎ, whence its modern name of the Goondook, as also that of Kondochates, into which it was transformed by the Greek geographers. In its upper course it often brings down ammonite petrifactions, which are believed to be incarnations or manifestations of Vishnu, hence it has a sacred character, and on its banks are numerous spots of pilgrimage.

2. Concerning such distributions of alms, see Koppen, i. 581 et seq.

3. The story affords no data on which to decide whether this cynical speech is supposed to be a serious utterance representing the actual motives on which the mendicant life was actually adopted under the teaching of Buddhism, affording a strong contrast from those which have prompted to it under Christianity, or whether it is intended as a satire on the Bhixu. (For Bhixu, see pp. 330, 332.)

4. I know not how the tufts of wool could have got caught off the sheeps’ backs on to ant-heaps, unless it be that the marmots being as we have already seen (note 3, Tale IV.) called ants, the tale-repeater takes it for granted there are marmot-holes in Nepaul like those familiar to him in Mongolia, which AbbÉ Huc thus describes (vol. i. ch. ii.), “These animals construct over the opening of their little dens a sort of miniature dome composed of grass artistically twisted, designed as a shelter from wind and rain. These little heaps of dried grass are of the size and shape of mole-hills. Cold made us cruel, and we proceeded to level the house-domes of these poor little animals, which retreated into their holes below, as we approached. By means of this Vandalism we managed to collect a sackful of efficient fuel, and so warmed the water which was our only aliment that day.”

5. “Though there is so much gold and silver there is great destitution in Tibet. At Lha-Ssa, for instance, the number of mendicants is enormous. They go from door to door soliciting a handful of tsamba (barley-meal), and enter any one’s house without ceremony. The manner of asking alms is to hold out the closed hand with the thumb raised. We must add in commendation of the Tibetians that they are generally very kind and compassionate, rarely sending the mendicant away unassisted.” (AbbÉ Huc, vol. ii. ch. v.)

6. Indian tales often remind one of the frequent web of a dream in which one imagines oneself starting in pursuit of a particular object, but another and another fancy intervenes and the first purpose becomes altogether lost sight of. This was particularly observable in the tale entitled “How the Schimnu-Khan was slain,” in which, after many times intending it, Massang never goes back to thank his master at last. The present is a still more striking instance, in its consequence and repeated change of purport. In pursuing the mendicant’s life, the search for the man’s parents is forgotten; and the man and his wife are themselves lost sight of in the episode of the lamb.

7. Concerning the combination of the Moon and the hare, see Liebrecht, in Lazarus and Steinthal, Zeitschrift, vol. i. pt. 1. The Mongols see in the spots in the moon the figure of a hare, and imagine it was placed there in memory of ShÂkjamuni having once transformed himself into a hare out of self-sacrifice, that he might serve a hungry wayfarer for a meal. (Bergman, Nomadische Streifereien unter den KalmÜken, in 1802–3, quoted by JÜlg.)

8. See note 5, Tale III.

1. Compare this story with the “Wunderharfe” in the “MÄhrchensaal” of Kletke. (JÜlg.) Its similarity with the story of King Midas will strike every reader.

2. Chara Kitad = Black China; the term designates the north of China.

3. Daibang (in Chinese, Tai-ping = peace and happiness), the usual Mongolian designation for the Chinese Emperor. (JÜlg.)

4. See note 9, Tale IV.

1. Bagatur-Ssedkiltu, “of heroic capacity.” (JÜlg.) See Note 2, Tale XVII.

2. The Three Precious Treasures, see note 3, Tale XVI.

3. Pearls. Arrianus (Ind. viii. 8) quotes from Megasthenes, a legend in which the discovery of pearls is ascribed to Crishna. The passage further implies that the Greek name a??a??t?? was received from an Indian name, which may be the case through the Dekhan dialect, though there is nothing like it in Sanskrit, unless it be traced from markarÂ, a hollow vessel. The Sanskrit word for pearls is muktÁ, “dropt” or “set free,” “dropt by the rain-clouds.” (See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 244 n. 1. See also note 4, Tale XIV.) How the Preserver of mother-o’-pearl shells comes to live up a river, I know not, unless in his royal character he was supposed to have an outlying country-villa. However Megasthenes (quoted by Lassen, ii. 680, n. 2) tells us not only that there were many crocodiles and alligators in the Indus, but also that many fishes and molluscs came up the stream out of the sea as far as the confluence of the Akesines, and small ones as far as the mountains. Onesikritos mentions the same concerning other rivers.

4. The serpent-gods are spoken of sometimes as if they were supposed to wear a human form and as often as in their reptile form. In the present place in the text there is a strange confusion between the two ideas, the “son” whom the White Serpent king comes to seek evidently wore a reptile form, as when he was in the owl’s mouth he resembled the Tamer’s girdle, yet the king himself and his companion are said to be riding on horses; as it is also said they come out of the water it was probably a crocodile that the story-teller had in his mind’s eye, and which might fancifully be conceived to be a serpent riding on horseback, as a centaur represents a man on horseback. The serpent-gods generally would seem to be more properly termed reptile-gods, as not only ophidians and saurians seem to belong to their empire, but batrachians also; in this very story the gold frog is reckoned the actual daughter of the White Serpent-king, probably even emydians also, though I do not recall an example. Water-snakes, however, are common in Asia, and there is also there a group of batrachians called cÆliciÆ, which are cylindrical in form, without feet and moving like serpents, and considered to form a link between that family and their own. I do not know if this in any way explains the symbolism whereby a creature that had any right to be reckoned a frog could be called the daughter of a serpent-king.

When the stories of encounters of heroes with huge malevolent serpents, or crocodiles, passed into the mythology of Europe, these were generally replaced by “dragons,” or monsters, such as “Grendel” in our Anglo-Saxon “Lay of Beowulf.” There are some, however, in which a bon fide serpent figures. In parts of Tirol, a white serpent is spoken of as a “serpent-queen” and as more dangerous than the others; various are the legends in which the release of a spell-bound princess depends on the deliverer suffering himself to be three times encircled, and the third time, kissed by a serpent; the trial frequently fails at the third attempt. Sir Lancelot, if I remember right, accomplished it in the end.

Every collection of mediÆval legends contains stories of combats with dragons, the groundwork probably brought from the East, and the detail made to fit the hero of some local deliverance; the mythology of Tirol is particularly rich in this class, almost every valley has its own; at Wilten, near Innsbruck, the sting of a dragon is shown as of that killed by the Christian giant Haymon; the one I have given in “Zovanin senza paura,” from the Italian Tirol (p. 348, “Household Stories from the Land of Hofer”), has this similarity with Tales II. and V., that it is actually the water supply of the infested district which is stopped by the dragon. There is this great difference, however, between the Eastern and later Western versions of serpent myths. The Indians having deified the serpent, their heroic tales have no further aim than that of propitiating him. On the other hand, it was not long before the religious influence under which the Christian myths were moulded had connected and by degrees identified the serpent-exterior, under the parable of which they set forth their local plague, with that under which the adversary of souls is named in the sacred story of the garden of Eden; and thus it became a necessity of the case that the Christian hero should destroy or at least vanquish it.

Though the Indian serpent-gods seem to have been generally feared and hated, we have instances—and that even in this little volume—of their harmlessness also and even beneficence. An innocuous and benevolent phase of dragon-character seems to have been adopted also in the early heathen mythology of Europe. Nork (Mythologie der Volkssagen) tells us the dragon was held sacred to Wodin, and its image was placed over houses, town-gates, and towers, as a talisman against evil influences; and I have met with a popular superstition lingering yet in Tirol that to meet a crested adder (the European representative, I believe, of the Cobra di capello, which is, as we have seen, the species specially worshipped in India) brings good luck. I have said I do not remember an instance in Indian mythology in which any member of the emydian family comes under the empire of the serpent-god; I should expect there are such instances, however, as the counterpart exists in Tirol, where there are stories of mysterious fascination exercised by sacred shrines upon the little land-tortoises and which have in consequence been regarded by the peasantry as representing wandering souls waiting for the completion of their purgatorial penance. See also concerning the serpent-gods, note 1 to Tale II.

5. Mirjalaktschi. JÜlg says, “Fettmacher” (fat-maker) is the best equivalent he can give, but he is not convinced of its correctness, and then exposes what he understands by “Fettmacher” by two German expressions, one, meaning “pot-bellied,” and the other not renderable in English to ears polite. It would seem more in accordance with the use of the name in the text to understand his own word Fettmacher, as “he giving abundance,” “he making fat.”

6. GambudvÎpa. I have already (page viii.) had occasion to explain this native name of India; otherwise spelt DschambudvÎpa and JambudvÎpa and JambudÎpa. But as I only there spoke of the actual species of the gambu-tree, one of the indigenous productions of India, I ought further to mention that the name is rather derived from a fabulous specimen of it, supposed to grow on the sacred mountain of Meru. Spence Hardy (“Legends and Theories of the Buddhists,” p. 95) quotes the following description of it from one of the late commentaries of the Sutras: “From the root to the highest part is a thousand miles; the space covered by its outspreading branches is three thousand miles in circumference. The trunk is one hundred and fifty miles round, and five hundred miles in height from the root to the place where the branches begin to extend; the four great branches of it are each five hundred miles long, and from between these flow four great rivers. Where the fruit of the tree falls, small plants of gold arise which are washed into one of the rivers.” Earlier descriptions are less exaggerated; details remaining in this one suggest that it has not been invented without aid from some lingering remnant of an early tradition of the Tree of Life and the four rivers of Paradise, “the gold of” one of which “is good.”

The great continent of India being called an island is explained in a parable from the JinÂlankÂra, given at p. 87 of the same work, likening the outer Sakwala ridge or boundary of the universe to the rim of a jar or vessel; the vessel filled with sauce representing the ocean and the continents, like masses of cooked rice floating in the same.

At p. 82, he quotes from the first-mentioned commentary a description of the mountain of MÉru itself, illustrative of the habitual exaggeration of the Indian sacred writers. “Between Maha MÉru and the Sakwala ridge are seven circles of rocks with seven seas between them. They are circular because of the shape of Maha MÉru. The first or innermost, Yugandhara, is 210,000 miles broad; its inner circumference is 7,560,000 miles, and its outer, 8,220,000 miles; from Maha MÉru to Yugandhara is 840,000 miles. Near Maha MÉru, the depth of the sea is 840,000 miles, &c.,” the seven circles being all described with analogous dimensions. Also p. 42, “Buddha knows how many atoms there are in Maha MÉru, although it is a million miles in height.”

1. “The five colours,” see note 5, Tale IV.

“The seven precious things,” are variously stated. Sometimes they are gold, silver, lapis lazuli, crystal, red pearls, diamond and coral. Sometimes gold and silver are left out of the reckoning, and rubies and emeralds substituted. See KÖppen, i. 540 et seq. The extravagant and incongruous description in the text is not artistic.

2. The month Pushja. Before the time of VikramÂditja astronomy was not studied in India as a science; the course of the heavenly bodies was observed, but only for the sake of determining the times and seasons of feasts and sacrifices. The moon was the chief subject of observation and of the more correct results of the same. Her path was divided into twenty-eight “houses” or “mansions” called naxatra. This division was invented by the Chinese, and India received it from them about 1100 B.C. The naxatravidj or the knowledge of the moon-mansions, is set down in one of the oldest Upanishad as a special kind of knowledge. In the oldest enumeration extant of the moon-mansions only twenty-seven are mentioned, and the first of them is called KrittikÂ, and Abhigit, which is the 20th, according to the latest enumeration, is wanting; other lists have other discrepancies. It is worthy of notice that Kandramas, the earliest name by which the moon is invoked in the VÊda, is composed of kandra, “shining,” and mas, “to measure,” because the moon measured time, and the various names of the moon in all the so-called Indo-European languages are supposed to come from this last word. There were also four moon-divinities invoked, as KuhÛ, Sinivali, RÂkÂ, and Anumati, in the Rig VÊda hymns; these are all feminine deities. Soma, the later moon-divinity, however, was masculine, and had twenty-seven of the fifty daughters of Daxa for his wives. Kandramas was also a male divinity. The worship of the four goddesses I have named was afterwards superseded by four (also feminine) deifications of the phases of the moon. There seems a little difficulty, however, about fitting their names to them. Pushja, with which we are more particularly concerned, would properly imply “waxing,” but she presided nevertheless over the last quarter; Krita, meaning the “finished” course, over the new moon; the appellations of the others fit better. Drapura (derived from dva, two) designated the second quarter, and KhÂrvÂ, “the beginning to wane,” the full moon. In the list given by Amarasinha of the moon-mansions, Pushja is the name of the eighth, in the Mah BhÂrata it stands for the sixth.

The month Pauscha answers to our December. (Lassen, iii. 819.)

3. We have many early proofs that India possessed an indigenous breed of hunting-dogs of noble and somewhat fierce character. They were much esteemed as hunting-dogs by the Persians, and formed an important article of commerce. Herodotus (i. 192) mentions their being imported into Babylon; whether the mighty hunter Nimrod had a high opinion of them, there is perhaps no means of ascertaining. Strabo (xv. i. § 31) says they were not afraid to hunt lions. In the Ramajana, (ii. 70, 21) Ashvapati gives Rama a present of “swift asses and dogs bred in the palace, large in stature, with the strength of tigers, and teeth meet to fight withal.” Alexander found them sufficiently superior to his own to take with him a present of them offered him by Sopeithes. Aristobulos, Megasthenes, and Ælianus mention their qualities with admiration. Their strength and courage led to the erroneous tradition that they were suckled by tigers (see Pliny, viii. 65, I). Plutarch (De Soc. Anim. x. 4) quotes a passage from an earlier Greek writer, saying they were so noble, that though when they caught a hare they gladly sucked his blood, yet that if one lay down exhausted with the course, they would not kill it, but stood round it in a circle, wagging their tails to show their enjoyment was not in the blood, but in the victory.

The house-dog and herd-dog, however, was rather looked down upon; it and the ass were the only animals the Kandala or lowest caste were allowed to possess (Manu, x. 51), and it is still called Paria-dog (Bp Heber’s “Journey,” i. 490).

4. A functionary invented by the Mongolian tale-repeater. The idea evidently borrowed from his knowledge of the paramount authority of the TalÉ Lama of Tibet, leading him to suppose there must exist a corresponding dignity in India.

5. Barin Tschidaktschi Erdekctu, “The mighty one at taking distant aim.” (JÜlg.)

6. Gesser Khan, the great hero of Mongolian tales; called also “The mighty Destroyer of the root of the seven evils in the seven places of the earth.” (JÜlg.)

7. Tschin-tÂmani, Sanskrit, “Thought-jewel,” is a jewel possessing the magic power of producing whatever object the possessor of it sets his heart upon. (BÖhtlingk and Roth, Sanskrit Dict.) See infra, note 2, to “The False Friend,” and note 8 to “VikramÂditja’s Youth.”

8. Barss-Irbiss, “leopard-tiger.” (JÜlg.)

1. Professor Wilson.

2. Reinaud, Fragments relatifs À l’Inde.

3. See a most extraordinary instance of this noticed in note 11 of the Tale in this volume entitled “VikramÂditja makes the Silent Speak.”

4. Thus Reinaud (MÉmoire GÉographique sur l’Inde, p. 80) speaks of a king of this name who governed Cashmere A.D. 517, as if he were the original VikramÂditja.

5. The honour of being the first to work this mine of information belongs to H. Todd; see his “Account of Indian Medals,” in Trans. of As. Soc.

6. The art of coining at all was, in all probability, introduced by the Greeks.—Wilson, Ariana Antiqua, p. 403; also Prinsep, in Journ. of As. Soc. i. 394.

7. In the list of kings given by Lassen, iv. 969, 970, there are eight kings called VikramÂditja, either as a name or a surname, between A.D. 500 and 1000.

8. The kingdom of MalÂva answers to the present province of Malwa, comprising the table-land enclosed between the Vindhja and HaravatÎ ranges. The amenity of its climate made it the favourite residence of the rulers of this part of India, and we find in it a number of former capitals of great empires. It lay near the commercial coast of Guzerat, and through it were highways from Northern India over the Vindhja range into the Dekhan. It is also well watered; its chief river, the Kharmanvati (now Kumbal), rises in the Vindhja mountains, and falls into the Jumna. At its confluence with the SiprÂ, a little tributary, was situated Uggajini = “the Victorious,” now called Uggeni, Ozene, and Oojein, and still the first meridian of Indian astronomers. It also bore the name of AvantÎ = “the Protecting,” from the circumstance of its having given refuge to this VikramÂditja in his infancy.

9. This length of reign is actually ascribed to him in the Chronological Table out of the Kalijuga-RÂgakaritra, given in Journ. of the As. Soc. p. 496.

10. This resolution was quite in conformity with the prevailing religious teaching. In the collection of laws and precepts called the ManÛ, many rules are laid down for this kind of life, and were followed to a prodigious extent both by solitaries and communities; e.g. “When the grihastha = ‘father of the house,’ finds wrinkles and grey hairs coming, and when children’s children are begotten to him, then it is time for him to forsake inhabited places for the jungle.” It is further prescribed that he should expose himself there to all kinds of perils, privations, and hardships. He is not to shrink from encounters with inimical tribes; he is to live on wild fruits, roots, and water. In summer he is to expose himself to the heat of fierce fires, and in the rainy season to the wet, without seeking shelter; in the coldest winter he is to go clothed in damp raiment. By these, and such means, he was to acquire indifference to all corporeal considerations, and reach after union with the Highest Being. ManÛ, v. 29; vii. 1–30; viii. 28; x. 5; xi. 48, 53; xvii. 5, 7, 24; xviii. 3–5, &c., &c. It is impossible not to be struck, in studying such passages as these, with a reflection of the inferiority which every other religious system, even in its sublimest aims, presents to Christianity. If, indeed, there were a first uniform limit appointed to the hand of death at the age of threescore years and ten, then it might be a clever rule to fix the appearance of wrinkles, grey hairs, and children’s children as the period for beginning to contemplate what is to come after it; but, as the number of those who are summoned to actual acquaintance with that futurity before that age is pretty nearly as great as that of those who surpass it, the maxim carries on the face of it that it is dictated by a very fallible, however well-intentioned, guide. Christianity knows no such limit, but opens its perfect teaching to the contemplation of “babes;” while, practically, experience shows that those who are called early to a life of religion are far more numerous than those in advanced years.

11. Given in W. Taylor’s Orient. Hist. MSS., i. 199.

12. “The Indians have no actual history written by themselves.” (Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 357, note 1.)

13. Klaproth, WÜrdigung der Asiatischen Geschichtschreiber.

14. Indien, p. 17.

15. Examen Critique, p. 347.

16. But only committed to memory. See supra, p. 333.

17. Burnouf, Introduction À l’Hist. du Buddh., vol i.

18. Concerning the late introduction of this idea, see supra, pp. 337–8.

19. Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 839.

20. Lassen, iii., p. 44.

21. Mommsen (History of Rome, book iv., ch. viii.), writing of Mithridates Eupator, who died within a few years of the date ascribed to VikramÂditja’s birth, says, “Although our accounts regarding him are, in substance, traceable to written records of contemporaries, yet the legendary tradition, which is generated with lightning expedition in the East, early adorned the mighty king with many superhuman traits. These traits, however, belong to his character just as the crown of clouds belongs to the character of the highest mountain peaks; the outline of the figure appears in both cases, only more coloured and fantastic, not disturbed or essentially altered.”

22. The legend from which the following is gathered has been given by Wilford, in a paper entitled “VikramÂditja and SalivÂhÂna, their respective eras.”

23. See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 49–56.

24. Wilson, in Mackenzie Collection, p. 343.

25. A vetÂla is a kind of sprite, not always bad-natured, usually carrying on a kind of weird existence in burial-places. “They can possess themselves of the forms of those who die by the hand of justice, and assume them. By the power of magic men can make them obedient, and use them for all manner of difficult tasks above their own strength and sufficiency.” Brockhaus’ Report of the R. Saxon Scientific Soc. Philologico-historical Class, 1863, p. 181. “The VetÂlas were a late introduction among the gods of popular veneration.” (Lassen, iv. 570.) “They came also to be regarded as incarnations of both Vishnu and Shiva.” (Lassen, iv. 159.)

26. Two interesting instances of the way in which traditionary legends become attached to various persons as they float along the current of time, have been brought to my notice while preparing these sheets for the press. I cannot now recall where I picked up the story of “The Balladmaker and the Bootmaker,” which I have given in “PatraÑas,” but I am sure it was told of a wandering minstrel, and as occurring on Spanish soil, as I have given it. I have since met it in “The Hundred Novels” of Sacchetti (written little after the time of Boccacio) as an episode in a no less celebrated life than that of Dante, thus: “... Going out and passing by Porta S. Piero (Florence), he (Dante) heard a blacksmith beating on his anvil, and singing ‘Dante’ just as one sings a common ballad; mutilating here, and mixing in verses of his own there; by which means Dante perceived that he sustained great injury. He said nothing, however, but went into the workshop, to where were laid ready many tools for use in the trade. Dante first took up the hammer and flung it into the road; took up the pincers and flung them into the road; took up the scales and flung them out into the road. When he had thus flung many tools into the road, the blacksmith turned round with a brutal air, crying out, ‘Che diavol’ fate voi? Are you mad?’ But Dante said, ‘And thou; what hast thou done?’ ‘I am busied about my craft,’ said the blacksmith; ‘and you are spoiling my gear, throwing it out into the road like that.’ Said Dante, ‘If you don’t want me to spoil your things, don’t you spoil mine.’ Said the smith. ‘What have I spoilt of yours?’ Said Dante, ‘You sing my book, and you say it not as I made it; poem-making is my trade, and you have spoilt it.’ Then the blacksmith was full of fury, but he had nothing to say; so he went out and picked up his tools, and went on with his work, And the next time he felt inclined to sing, he sang Tristano and Lancellotte, and left Dante alone.” “... Another day Dante was walking along, wearing the gorget and the bracciaiuola, according to the custom of the time, when he met a man driving an ass having a load of street sweepings, who, as he walked behind his ass, ever and anon sang Dante’s book, and when he had sung a line or two, gave the donkey a hit, and cried ‘Arrri!’ Dante, coming up with him, gave him a blow on his shoulder with his armlet (‘con la bracciaiuola gli diede una grande batacchiata,’ literally ‘bastonnade:’ bracciaiuola stands for both the armour covering the arm, and for the tolerably formidable wooden instrument, fixed to the arm, with which pallone-players strike the ball), saying, as he did so, ‘That “arrri” was never put in by me.’ As soon as the ass-driver had got out of his way, he turned and made faces at Dante, saying, ‘Take that!’ But Dante, without suffering himself to be led into an altercation with such a man, replied, amid the applause of all, ‘I would not give one of mine for a hundred of thine!’” (2.) It was lately mentioned to me that there is a narrow mountain-pass in the Lechthal, in Tirol, which is sometimes called Mangtritt (or St. Magnus’ step), and sometimes Jusalte (Saltus Julii, the leap of Julius), because one tradition says Julius CÆsar leapt through it on horseback, and another that it opened to let St. Magnus pass through when escaping from a heathen horde.

27. Quoted by W. Taylor, in Journ. of As. Soc. vii. p. 391.

28. Quoted by Wilford, as above.

29. Quoted in Wilford’s “Sacred Isles of the West.”

30. Lassen.

31. Roth, Extrait du Vikrama-Charitram, p. 279.

32. Lassen, ii. p. 1154.

33. Lassen, ii. 1122–1129.

34. AbbÉ Huc narrates how enthusiastically the young Mongol toolholos, or bard, sang to him the Invocation of Timour, of which he gives the refrain as follows:—“We have burned the sweet-smelling wood at the feet of the divine Timour. Our foreheads bent to the earth, we have offered to him the green leaf of tea, and the milk of our herds. We are ready: the Mongols are on foot, O Timour!

35. See Note 11 to “VikramÂditja makes the Silent Speak.”

1. Ardschi-Bordschi is a Mongolian corruption of King Bhoga. (JÜlg.)

The name of Bhoga (also written Noe, Nauge, and Noza; the N having entered from a careless following of the Persian historian Abulfazl, n and b being only distinguished by a point in Persian writing; and the z through the Portuguese, who habitually rendered the Indian g thus) seems to have been almost as favourite an appellation as that of VikramÂditja itself, and pretty equally surrounded with confusion of fabulous incident.

The Bhoga were one of the mightiest dynasties of ancient India, and the name was given to the family on account of their unbounded prosperity; being derived from bhug = enjoyment. The most celebrated king of the race bore a name which in our own day has become associated with prosperous rule, Bhoga Bismarka, or Bhismarka, is celebrated in ancient Sagas for his resistless might in the field, and was also accounted the type of a prudent and far-sighted sovereign. Many glories are fabled of him which I have not space to narrate, and even he only reigned over a fourth part of the Bhoga.

The individual Bhoga, however, who is probably the subject of the present story, and the details of whose virtues and wisdom present particular analogies with the life of VikramÂditja is, comparatively speaking, modern, as he reigned from A.D. 1037 to 1093 according to some, or from 997 to 1053 according to others. He was likewise originally King of MalÁva or Malwa, and fabulous conquests and extensions of dominion are likewise ascribed to him.

He was the greatest king of the PrÂmÂra dynasty, one of the four so-called Agnikula, or “from-the-god-Agni-descended,” or “fire-born” tribes, and traced up his pedigree to a certain ParamÂra, “The destroyer of adversaries,” born at the prayer of the Hermit Rishi Vasichta on the lofty mountain of Arbuda (Arboo).

The story of this Bhoga is contained in two somewhat legendary accounts, called (1) the Bhogaprabandha, or poetical narrative concerning Bhoga; and (2) the Bhogakaritra, or the deeds of Bhoga. The first was written or collected by the Pandit Vallabha about 1340. The first part relates the circumstances concerning Bhoga’s mounting the throne, and the second part is a history of the poets and learned men who flocked from all parts of India to his court. It tells an intricate fable about his having been persecuted in youth by a treacherous uncle who preceded him on the throne, but who afterwards came to repentance, while a supernatural interposition delivered Bhoga from all his machinations and made him master of Gauda or Bengal, and many other parts of India. Other legends mention his discovery of the throne of VikramÂditja, and make the figures on the steps Apsarasas, or nymphs, who were delivered and set free by him when he took possession of it and removed it to Dhara, whither he had transferred his capital from Uggajini. An Inscription (given at length, viii. 5, 6, in Journ. of As. Soc. of Bengal, v. p. 376) speaks thus of him:—“The most prosperous king Bhogadeva was the most illustrious of the whole generation of the PrÂmÂra. He attained to glory as great as that of the destroyer (Crishna) and traversed the universe to its utmost boundaries. His fame rose like the moonbeams over the mountains and rivers of the regions of the earth, and before it the renown of the inimical rulers faded away as the pale lotus-blossom is closed up.” The Persian historian Abulfazl testifies in somewhat more sober language, that he greatly extended the frontiers of his kingdom.

His career was not one of unchecked prosperity however. According to an Inscription he was at last subdued by his enemy, and it thus gently tells the tale of his reverse:—“After he had attained to equality with VÂsava (Indra) and the land was well watered with streams, his relation UdajÂditja became Ruler of the earth.” His adversary being a relation, and a PrÂmÂra like himself, the feud between them was considered a scandal, and the inscription avoids perpetuating the details of it. A legend in the Bhogakaritra supplies some. A hermit had been rather severely judged by King Bhoga for a misdemeanour, and condemned to ride through the streets of the capital on an ass. To punish the king for this scandal he went into Cashmere till he had acquired the power of making the soul of a man pass into another body. Then he came back and constrained the soul of the king to pass into the body of a parrot while he made his own soul pass into the king’s body; then he issued a decree commanding the slaughter of all the parrots in the kingdom. The royal parrot, however, who was the object of the decree, effected his escape and came to the court of Kandrasena, where he became the pet bird of the princess his daughter; to her he revealed the story of his transformation. At her instigation the hermit-king was persuaded to come to Kandrasena’s court to sue for her hand, and there, by means of an intrigue of hers he was put to death. Bhoga thus regained his original form and his kingdom.

Abulfazl celebrates his moderation and uprightness, as well as his liberality and the encouragement he gave to men of learning, of whom he had not less than five hundred at one time lodged in his palace. This similarity of pursuits helped so to foster the tendency of which I have already spoken, to confuse the deeds of one hero with another, that one poet at least (Vararuki by name), who flourished under Bhoga, is reckoned among the nine “jewels” of VikramÂditja’s court! Kalidasa, who was not very much, if at all later, is also put among the protÉgÉs of Bhoga in the Bhogaprabandha. The actual writers of any note belonging to Bhoga’s age, whose names and works have come down to us are chiefly Subandhu and VÂna, authors of two poems entitled respectively VÂsavadatt and KÂdambarÎ, of which a reprint was issued at Calcutta in 1850. Dandi, who wrote a celebrated drama called DashakumÂrakaritra, affording a useful picture of the manners prevailing in Hindustan and the Dekhan in his time; he also left a treatise on the art of poetry, called KÂvjadarshÂ. Another poet of this date, named Shankara, has often been confounded with a philosophical writer of the same name in the eighth century. The Harivansha, a mythological poem in continuation of the MÂha BhÂrata, also belongs to this reign. Among numerous other works ascribed to it, many of which have not yet been examined into by Europeans, are several treatises of mathematics and astronomy. Bhoga himself is entered in a list of the astronomers of his time, and he was said to be the author of a treatise on medicine, called Vriddha Bhoga, and of one on jurisprudence, called SmritishÂstra.

2. Boddhisattva. See p. 342 and p. 365.

1. Compare this story with that given Nights 589–593 of Arabian Nights. (JÜlg.)

2. That the jewel-merchant had no written proof of the trust he had committed to his friend would appear quite in conformity with actual custom, at least in primitive times. Megasthenes has left testimony (Strabo xv. i. 53, p. 709), quoted by Schwanbeck (Megas. Ind. p. 113), in favour of the general uprightness of the Indians and their little inclination to litigation, which he bases on the fact that it was the custom to take no acknowledgment under seal or writing of money or jewels entrusted to another, or even to call witnesses to the fact; that the word of the man who had entrusted another with such sufficed; also Ælianus, V. H. iv. i. This, notwithstanding that the Manu (dh. c. viii. 180) contains provisions for regulating such transactions in due form and order; the man accordingly does not think of denying that he received the jewel, which would seem the easier way of concealing his fraud, because he knew the word of the jewel-merchant would be taken against his.

3. Stupa, a shrine; often a natural cave; often one artificially hewn; containing relics, or commemorating some incident considered sacred in the life of a noted Buddhist teacher. We read of stupas instituted at a spot where there was a tradition ShÂkjamuni had left a foot-print; and another at Kapilvastu, his native place, over the spot where, as we saw in his life, he was led to devote himself to serious contemplations by meeting a sick man, &c. When of imposing proportion it was called a mÂhastÛpa. When such monuments on the other hand were put together with stones (usually pyramidal in form) they were called dhÂtugopa, whence Europeans give them the name of Dagobas. The word Pagoda, with which we are familiar, is probably derived from the Sanskrit bhÂgavata = “Worthy to be venerated.” The syllable ava was transformed in Prakrit into o, and the ta into da. The Portuguese took the word as applied to religious edifices as distinguished from the kaitja66, or rock-hewn temples. The word pagoda, however, is usually reserved for Brahmanical temples. The word stupa has now become corrupted into tope, by which word you will find it designated by modern writers on India. The etymology of the word makes it mean much the same as tumulus, but kaitja conveys further the meaning that it was a sacred place.

4. The notion of jewels being endowed with talismanic properties is common in Eastern story. Ktesias (Fragm. lvii. 2, p. 79) mentions a celebrated Indian magic jewelled seal-ring called Pantarba, which had the property when thrown into the water of attracting to it other jewels, and that a merchant once drew out one hundred and seventy-seven other jewels and seals by its means.

1. Schimnu. See supra, note 2, Tale III.

2. Diamond, Sanskrit, vadschra, originally the thunderbolt, Indra’s sceptre; then the praying-sceptre of the priests; the symbol of durability, immovability, and indestructibility. (KÖppen i. 251, and ii. 271, quoted by JÜlg.) It was permitted to none but kings to possess them. (Lassen, iii. 18.) See also note 1, Tale XV.

1. We read of a silver statue in one of the many temples founded by LalitÂditja, King of Cashmere, whose bright golden cuirass “gave forth a stream of light like a river of milk.” Mentioned in Lassen, iii. p. 1000, and iv. 575.

2. It will be perceived the story is not without a certain meaning. It inculcates regard for the example and experience of the ancient and wise—the wisdom of the hero VikramÂditja (typified by his throne) was to be the model and guide of other kings and dynasties.

3. Sounding of trumpet-shells. The shankha or concha seems to have been the earliest form of trumpet used in war. It often finds mention in the heroic poems. Crishna used one in his warrior character; and Vishnu, from bearing one, had the appellation shankha and shankhin. To the present day it is used in announcing festivals in Mongolia.

4. SÛta, bard. To this order it is that we are indebted for the preservation of so many myths and heroic tales. He was also the charioteer of the kings.

5. The six classes, states, or stages of living beings, by passing through which Buddhahood was to be attained—(1) Pure spirit or the devas gods (Skr. SurÂs; Mongolian, Tegri; Kalm. Tenggeri); (2) the unclean spirits, enemies of the gods (Skr. AsurÂs); (3) men; (4) beasts; (5) PretÂs, monsters surrounding the entrance of hell; (6) the hell-gods. (KÖppen, i. 238, et seq., quoted by JÜlg.)

1. UdsesskÜlengtu-GÔa-Chatun, a heaping up of synonyms of which we had an example, note 2, Tale XVII. Both words mean “beautiful,” “charming.” Go is a Mongolian expression by which royal women are called (as also chatun). Thus we sometimes meet with UdsesskÜleng, sometimes UdsesskÜlengtu (the adjunct tu forming the adjective use of the word); UdsesskÜlengtu-Goa, UdsesskÜlengtu-Chatun, or UdesskÜleng-GÔa-Chatun. (JÜlg.)

2. Kaitja or Chaitga is a sacred grotto where relics were preserved, or marking a spot where some remarkable event of ancient date had taken place. We are told that King Ashokja (246 B.C.) caused kaitjas to be built, or rather hewn, in every spot in his dominions rendered sacred by any act of ShÂkjamuni’s life67; as also over the relics of many of the first teachers (p. 390). The number of these is fabled in the MahÂvansha (v. p. 26) to have been not less than 84,000! He opened seven of the shrines in which the relics of ShÂkjamuni were originally placed, and divided them into so many caskets of gold, silver, crystal, and lapis lazuli, endowing every town of his dominion with one, and building a kaitja over it. These were all completed by one given day at one and the same time, and the authority of the Dharma (law) of Buddha was proclaimed in all. In process of time great labour came to be spent on their decoration, till whole temples were hewn out of the living stone, forming almost imperishable records of the earliest architecture of the country, and to some extent of its history and religion too. The most astonishing remains are to be seen of works of this kind, with files of columns and elaborate bas-reliefs sculptured out of the solid rock.

3. AbbÉ Huc tells us that the Mongolians prepare their tea quite differently from the Chinese. The leaves, instead of being carefully picked as in China, are pressed all together along with the smaller tendrils and stalks into a mould resembling an ordinary brick. When required for use a piece of the brick is broken off, pulverized, and boiled in a kettle until the water receives a reddish hue, some salt is then thrown in, and when it has become almost black milk is added. It is a great Tartar luxury, and also an article of commerce with Russia; but the Chinese never touch it.

4. An accepted token of veneration and homage. (JÜlg.)

5. Sesame-oil. See note 2, Tale V.

6. Kalavinka = Sanskrit, Sperling, belongs to the sacred order of birds and scenes, in this place to be intended for the Kokila. (JÜlg.)

The Kokila, or India cuckoo, is as favourite a bird with Indians as the nightingale is with us. For a description of it see “A Monograph of Indian and Malayan Species of CuculidÆ,” in Journal of As. Soc. of Bengal, xi. 908, by Edward Blyth.

7. You are not to imagine that by “four parts of the universe” is meant any thing like what we have been used to call “the four quarters of the globe.” The division of the Indian cosmogony was very different and refers to the distribution of the (supposed) known universe between gods of various orders and men, to the latter being assigned the fourth and lowest called GambudvÎpa68.

8. Concerning such religious gatherings, see KÖppen, i. 396, 579–583; ii. 115, 311.

At such a festival held by AravÂla, King of Cashmere, on occasion of celebrating the acceptance of the teaching of ShÂkjamuni as the religion of his dominion, it is said in a legend that there were present 84,000 of each order of the demigods, 100,000 priests, and 800,000 people.

9. The parrot naturally takes a prominent place in Indian fable, both on account of his sagacity, his companionable nature, and his extraordinary length of days. He did not fail to attract much notice on the part of the Greek writers on India; and Ktesias, who wrote about 370 B.C., seems to have caught some of the peculiar Indian regard for his powers, when he wrote that though he ordinarily spoke the Indian’s language, he could talk Greek if taught it. Ælianus says they were esteemed by the Brahmans above all other birds, and that the princes kept many of them in their gardens and houses.

10. Bodhisattva. See p. 346 and note 1, Tale XI.

11. Concerning the serpent-gods, see supra, note 1 to Tale II.; and note 4, Tale XXII.

12. A legend containing curiously similar details is told in the MahÂvansha of ShishunÂga, founder of an early dynasty of Magadha (Behar). The king had married his chief dancer, and afterwards sent her away. Partly out of distress and partly as a reproach she left her infant son exposed on the dunghill of the royal dwelling. A serpent-god, who was the tutelar genius of the place, took pity on the child, and was found winding its body round the basket in which it was cradled, holding its head raised over the same and spreading out its hood (it was the Cobra di capello species of serpent, which was the object of divine honours) to protect him from the sun. The people drove away the serpent-god (NÂga) with the cry of Shu! Shu! whence they gave the name of ShishunÂga to the child, who, on opening the basket, was found to be endowed with qualities promising his future greatness. In this case, however, the serpent-god seems to have borne his serpent-shape, and in that of VikramÂditja, the eight are spoken of as in human form.

1. NirvÂna. See supra, p. 330, note, p. 334, and p. 343. The word is sometimes used however poetically, simply as an equivalent for death.

2. KÜtschun Tschindaktschi = “One provided with might.” (JÜlg.)

3. “The custom of requiring women to go abroad veiled was only introduced after the Mussulman invasion, and was nearly the only important circumstance in which Muhammedan influenced Indian manners.” See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, iii. p. 1157. In Mongolia, however, AbbÉ Huc found that women have completely preserved their independence. “Far from being kept down as among other Asiatic nations they come and go at pleasure, ride out on horseback, and pay visits to each other from tent to tent. In place of the soft languishing physiognomy of the Chinese women, they present in their bearing and manners a sense of power and free will in accordance with their active life and nomad habits. Their attire augments the effect of their masculine haughty mien.”

In chapter v. of vol. ii., however, he tells of a custom prevailing in part of Tibet of a much more objectionable nature than the use of a veil:—“Nearly 200 years ago the Nome-Khan, who ruled over Hither-Tibet, was a man of rigid manners.... To meet the libertinism prevailing at his day he published an edict prohibiting women from appearing in public otherwise than with their faces bedaubed with a hideous black varnish.... The most extraordinary circumstance connected with it is that the women are perfectly resigned to it.... The women who bedaub their faces most disgustingly are deemed the most pious.... In country places the edict is still observed with exactitude, but at Lha-Ssa it is not unusual to meet women who set it at defiance, ... they are, however, unfavourably regarded. In other respects they enjoy great liberty. Instead of vegetating prisoners in the depths of their houses they lead an active and laborious life.... Besides household duties, they concentrate in their own hands all the retail trade of the country, and in rural districts perform most of the labours of agriculture.”

4. SchalÛ. In another version of the legend he is called Sakori, the soothsayer, because he made these predictions. (Journal of As. Soc. of Bengal, vi. 350, in a paper by Lieut. W. Postans.)

5. The wolf-nurtured prince has a prominent place in Mongolian chronicles. Their dynasty was founded by BÜrte-Tschinoa = the Wolf in winter-clothing. See I. J. Schmidt’s Die VÖlker Mittel-Asiens, vorzÜglich die Mongolen und Tibeter, St. Petersburg, 1824, pp. 11–18, 33 et seq.; 70–75; and sSanang sSetsen, 56 and 372.

6. I cannot forbear reference to notices of such sudden storms and inundations in Mongolia made from personal experience by AbbÉ Huc “Travels in China and Tartary,” chapters vi. and vii.

7. The persistent removal of the child after such tender entreaties and such faithful unrequited service carries an idea of heartlessness, but in extenuation it should be mentioned that while the Indians honoured every kind of animal by reason of their doctrine of metempsychosis, the wolf was just the only beast with which they seem to have had no sympathy, and they reckoned the sight of one brought ill-luck, a prejudice probably derived from the days of their pastoral existence when their approach was fraught with so much danger to their flocks. In Mongolia, where the pastoral mode of life still continues in vogue, the dread of the wolf was not likely to have diminished. Thus AbbÉ Huc says, “Although the want of population might seem to abandon the interminable deserts of Tartary to wild beasts, wolves are rarely met, owing to the incessant and vindictive warfare the Mongolians wage against them. They pursue them every where to the death, regarding them as their capital enemy on account of the great damage they may inflict upon their flocks. The announcement that a wolf has been seen is a signal for every one to mount his horse ... the wolf in vain attempts to flee in every direction; it meets horsemen from every side. There is no mountain so rugged that the Tartar horses, agile as goats, cannot pursue it. The horseman who has caught it with his lasso gallops off, dragging it behind, to the nearest tent; there they strongly bind its muzzle, so that they may torture it securely, and by way of finale skin it alive. In summer the wretched brute will live in this condition several days; in winter it soon dies frozen.” The wolf seems fully to return the antipathy, for (chapter xi.) he says, “It is remarkable wolves in Mongolia attack men rather than animals. They may be seen sometimes passing at full gallop through a flock of sheep in order to attack the shepherd.”

8. Tschin-tÂmani, Sanskrit, “thought-jewel,” a jewel having the magic power of supplying all the possessor wishes for. Indian fable writers revel in the idea of the possession of a talisman which can satisfy all desire. The grandest and perhaps earliest remaining example of it occurs in the Ramajana, where King Visvamitra = the universal friend, who from a Xatrija (warrior caste) merited to become a Brahman, visits Vasichtha, the chief of hermits, and finds him in possession of Sabala, a beautiful cow, which has the quality of providing Vasichtha with every thing whatever he may wish for. He wants to provide a banquet for Visvamitra, and he has only to tell Sabala to lay the board with worthy food, with food according to the six kinds of taste and drinks worthy of a king of the world. She immediately provides sugar, and honey, and rice, maireja or nectar, and wine, besides all manner of other drinks and various kinds of food heaped up like mountains; sweet fruits, and cakes, and jars of milk; all these things Sabala showered down for the use of the hosts who accompanied Visvamitra. Visvamitra covets the precious cow, and offers a hundred thousand cows of earth in barter for her. But Vasichtha refuses to part with her for a hundred million other cows or for fulness of silver. The king offers him next all manner of ornaments of gold, fourteen thousand elephants, gold chariots with four white steeds and eight hundred bells to them, eleven thousand horses of noble race, full of courage, and a million cows. The seer still remaining deaf to his offers the king carries her off by force.

The heavenly cow, however, in virtue of her extraordinary qualities, helps herself out of the difficulty. It is her part to fulfil her master’s wishes, and as it is his wish to have her by him she gallops back to him, knocking over the soldiers of the earthly king by hundreds in her career. Returned to her master, the Brahman hermit, she reproaches him tenderly for letting her be removed by the earthly king. He answers her with equal affection, explaining that the earthly king has so much earthly strength that it is vain for him to resist him. At this Sabala is fired with holy indignation. She declares it must not be said that earthly power should triumph over spiritual strength. She reminds him that the power of Brahma, whom he represents, is unfailing in might, and begs him only to desire of her that she should destroy the Xatrija’s host. He desires it, and she forthwith furnishes a terrible army, and another, and another, till Visvamitra is quite undone, all his hosts, and allies, and children killed in the fray. Then he goes into the wilderness and prays to MahÂdeva, the great god, to come to his aid and give him divine weapons, spending a hundred years standing on the tips of his feet, and living on air like the serpent. MahÂdeva at last brings him weapons from heaven, at sight of which he is so elated that “his heroic courage rises like the tide of the ocean when the moon is at the full.” With these burning arrows he devastates the whole of the beautiful garden surrounding Vasichta’s dwelling. Vasichta, in high indignation at this wanton cruelty, raises his vadschra, the Brahma sceptre or staff, and all Visvamitra’s weapons serve him no more. Then owning the fault he has committed in fighting against Brahma he goes into the wilderness and lives a life of penance a thousand years or two, after which he is permitted to become a Brahman.

9. Those who can see one and the same hero in the Sagas of Wodin, the Wild Huntsman, and William Tell69, might well trace a connexion between such a legend as this and the working of the modern law of conscription. There is no country exposed to its action where such scenes as that described in the text might not be found. There have been plenty such brought under my own notice in Rome since this “tribute of blood,” as the Romans bitterly call it, was first established there last year.

10. I have spoken elsewhere in these pages of the question of rebirth in the Buddhist system. Though not holding so cardinal a place as in Brahmanism the necessity for it remained to a certain extent. All virtues were recommended in the one case as a means to obtaining a higher degree at the next re-birth, and in the other the same, but less as an end, than as a means to earlier attaining to NirvÂna. Of all virtues the most serviceable for this purpose was the sacrifice of self for the good of the species.

11. SinhÂsana, lit. Lion-throne; a throne resting on lions, as before described in the text.

12. At the exercise of such heaven-given powers nature was supposed to testify her astonishment, and thus we are told of sacrifices and incense offered for the pacification of the same. (JÜlg.)

1. Concerning such sacrifices, see KÖppen, i. 246 and 560, and Trans. of sSanang sSetzen, p. 352.

1. The Kalmucks make the 8th, 15th, and 30th of every month fast-days; the Mongolians, the 13th, 14th, and 15th. (KÖppen, i. 564–566; ii. 307–316, quoted by JÜlg.)

2. Dakini. See note 2, Tale XIV., infra.

3. Dakini Tegrijin Naran = the Dakini sun of the gods. (JÜlg.)

4. AramÂlÂ, a string of beads used by Buddhists in their devotions.

5. AbbÉ Huc mentions frequently meeting with such wayside shrines, furnished just as here described.

6. Chatun. See note 1 to “VikramÂditja’s Birth.”

7. This beautiful story, which does not profess to be original, but a reproduction of one of the sagas of old, is to be found under various versions in many Indian collections of myths.

8. Compare note 3, Tale VII.

9. This story also holds a certain place among Indian legends, but is not so popular as the last.

10. Cup. No one travels or indeed goes about at all in Tibet and Mongolia without a wooden cup stuck in his breast or in his girdle. At every visit the guest holds out his cup and the host fills it with tea. AbbÉ Huc supplies many details concerning their use. They are so indispensable that they form a staple article of industry; their value varies from a few pence up to as much as 40l.

11. Tai-tsing = the all-purest, the name of the Mandschu or Mantschou dynasty (or Mangu, according to the spelling of Lassen, iv. 742), who, from being called in by the last emperor of the Ming dynasty to help in suppressing a rebellion, subsequently seized the throne (1644). This dynasty has reigned in China ever since, while the Mantchou nationality has become actually forced on the Chinese.

Previously, however, the Mantchous were a tribe of Eastern Tartars long formidable to the Chinese. The introduction of a king of the Mantchous, therefore, as identical with VikramÂditja, presents the most remarkable instance that could be met with of what may be called the confusion of heroes, in the migration of myths.

12. Tsetsen Budschiktschi = the clever dancer. (JÜlg.)

1. “At any former time,” i. e. in a previous state of existence, according to the doctrine of metempsychosis.

2. “The day will come”—similarly on occasion of a subsequent rebirth.

3. Tsoktu Ilagukssan = brilliant majesty. (JÜlg.)

4. Naran Gerel = sunshine. (JÜlg.)

5. Ssaran = moon. (JÜlg.)

1 Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 67, 68.

2 Mahavansha, ii. v. 11.

3 Now called Gaya, still an important town in the province of Behar. Vihara, whence Behar (for B and V are allied sounds in Sanskrit), is the Buddhist word for a college of priests, and the substitution of Behar for Magadha, the more ancient name of the province, points to a time when Buddhism flourished there and had many such colleges (see Wilson in Journal of As. Soc. v. p. 124).

4 Benares.

5 Burnouf, Introd. À l’Hist. du Buddhisme, i. 157.

6 In the far east of India and in Ceylon, where it is not indigenous, we have historical evidence that it was introduced by the Buddhists; also in Java. Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 257; also p. 260, note 1, where he gives the following comparative descriptions of the two species, though he also points out that in ancient descriptions the characteristics of the two trees are often confused. The ficus indica or banian (it received the name of banyan from the Indian merchants, Banjans, by whose means it was propagated), is called in Bengal NjagrÔdha and Vata (the Dutch call it “the devil’s tree”). The ficus religiosa is called ashvattha, and pippala. They plant the one by the side of the other with marriage ceremonies in the belief that otherwise the banian would not complete its peculiar mode of growth. Hence arises a most pleasing contrast between the elegant lightness of the shining foliage of the ficus religiosa and the solemn grandeur of the ficus indica with its picturesque trunks, its abundant leafage, its spangling of golden fruits, its pendulous roots, enabling it to reproduce itself after the fashion of a temple with countless aisles. It affords cool salubrious shade, a single one forming in time a forest to itself, and sufficing to house thousands of persons. The leaves of both supply excellent food for elephants, and birds and monkeys delight in its fruit, which, however, is not edible by man, nor is its wood of much use as timber. The pippala does not grow to nearly so great a size as the other, never attaining so many stems, but nothing can be more graceful than its appearance when, overgrowing from a building or another tree; its leaves tremble like those of the aspen (Lassen, i. 255–261, and notes). Under its overarching shade altars were erected and sacrifice offered up. To injure it wilfully was counted a sin (an instance is mentioned in Bp. Heber’s “Journey,” i. 621). A most prodigious Boddhi-tree, or rather five such growing together, still exists in Ceylon, which tradition says was transplanted thither with most extraordinary pomp and ceremonies at the time of the introduction of Buddhism into the island. They grow upon the fourth terrace of an edifice built up of successive rows of terraces, forming the most sacred spot in the whole island. Upon the above supposition this Boddhi-grove would be something like 2000 years old. Several very curious legends concerning it are given in a paper called “Remarks on the Ancient City of AnarÂjapura,” by Captain Chapman, in Trans. of R. As. of Gr. Br. i. and iii. The Brahmans honoured it as well as the Buddhists, and made it a parable of the universe, its stem typifying the connexion of the visible world with a divine invisible spirit, and the up and-down growth of the branches and roots the restless striving of all creatures after an unattainable perfection; but it was the Buddhists for whom it became in the first instance actually sacred by reason of the conviction said to have been received by ShÂkjamuni while observing its growth (reminding forcibly of the tradition about Sir I. Newton and the apple), that the perpetual struggles of this changeful life could only find ultimate satisfaction in that reunion with the source whence they emanated, which he termed NirvÂna.

7 Burnouf, i. 295.

8 Burnouf, p. 194.

9 NirvÂna means literally in Sanskrit “the breathing out,” “extinction”—extinction of the flame of life, eternal happiness, united with the Deity. BÖhtlingk and Roth’s Sanskrit Dictionary, iv. 208. In Buddhist writings, however, it is difficult to make out any idea of it distinct from annihilation. Consult Schmidt’s Trans. of sSanang sSetzen, pp. 307–331; Schott. Buddhaismus, p. 10 and 127; KÖppen, i. 304–309. “Existence in the eye of Buddhism is nothing but misery.... Nothing remained to be devised as deliverance from this evil but the destruction of existence. This is what Buddhists call Nirwana.” (Alwis’ Lectures on Buddhism, p. 29.)

10 Concerning the locality of the Malla people, see Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 549.

11 This word is a favourite with Buddhist writers, and means literally “him of the rolling wheel,” primarily used to denote a conqueror riding on his chariot. See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, i. 810, n. 2.

12 Lassen, ii. 52, n. 1, and 74, n. 6; and i. 356, n. 1.

13 Professor Wilson seems to have been so much perplexed by these divergencies of chronology, that in a paper by him, published in Journ. of R. As. Soc. vol. xvi. art. 13, he endeavours to show on this (and also on other grounds) that it is possible no such person ever existed at all!

14 See Burnouf, p. 348, n. 3; see also infra, n. 3 to “The False Friend;” also note 2 to “VikramÂditja’s Birth.”

15 Supra, Notice of VikramÂditja, pp. 238, 239.

16 “Only about a hundred years elapsed between the visit of Fa-Hian to India and that of Soung-yun, and in the interval the absurd traditions respecting SÂkya-Muni’s life and actions would appear to have been infinitely multiplied, enlarged, and distorted.” (Lieut.-Col. Sykes’ Notes on the Religious, Moral, and Political State of Ancient India, in Journ. of R. As. Soc. No. xii. p. 280.)

17 Turnour, in Journ. of As. Soc. of Bengal, 722.

18 Lassen, ii. 440.

19 Lassen, ii. 453, 454.

20 Burnouf, Introd. a l’Hist. du Buddh. i. 137.

21 Burnouf, Introd. &c. i. 131 et seq.

22 “There is no reference even in the earlier VÊda to the Trimurti: to Donga, Kali, or Rama.” (Wilson, Rig-VÊda SanhÎta.)

23 Burnouf, i. 90, 108.

24 Lassen, ii. 426, 454, 455 and other places.

25 “No hostile feeling against the Brahmans finds utterance in the Buddhist Canon.” (Max MÜller, Anc. Sanskr. Literature.)

26 Lassen, iv. 644, 710.

27 Lassen, ii. 440.

28 Lassen, iv. 646–709.

29 As. Rec. i. 285.

30 Genesis iii. 15.

31 Rig-VÊda, bk. x. ch. xi.

32 Burnouf, Introd. i. 618.

33 See infra, Note 8 of this “Dedication;” on the word “Bede,” p. 346.

34 VeritÀ della Religione Cristiana-Cattolica sistematicamente dimostrata, da Monsignor Francesco Nardi U. di S. Rota. Roma, 1868.

35 Lassen, ii. 1107.

36 Lassen, i. 488.

37 A great number of early authorities are quoted in Butler’s “Lives,” vol. xii., pp. 329–334. The subject has also been handled by Gieseler, Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte; Wilson’s “Sketch of the Religious Sects of the Hindus;” Swainson’s “Memoir of the Syrian Christians;” most ably by A. Weber, and by many others.

38 In note 2 of p. 182, vol. iv., Lassen quotes several authors on the meaning of the word and its identity with the triratna, as Wilson calls the Buddhist Trinity of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha. See also infra, n. 1, Tale XVII.

39 At the same time it presents also, of course, many frightful divergencies, and of these it may suffice to mention that the number of wives ascribed to Crishna is not less than 16,000. Lassen, vol. i. Appendix p. xxix.

40 Indische Studien, i. 400–421, and ii. 168.

41 The very earliest, however, do not go very far back; he was never heard of at all till within 200 B.C., and seems then to have been set up by certain Brahmans to attract popular worship, and to counteract the at that period rapidly-spreading influence of the Buddhists. See Lassen, i. 831—839. See also note 1, p. 335, supra.

42 Lassen, iv. 575.

43 Lassen, p. 576.

44 “On trouvera plus tard que l’extension considÉrable qu’a prise le culte du Krishna n’a ÉtÉ qu’une rÉaction populaire contre celui du Buddha; rÉaction qui a ÉtÉ dirigÉe, ou pleinement acceptÉe par les Brahmanes.” Burnouf, Introd. i. p. 136, n. 1.

45 Lassen, iv. 815–817.

46 Lassen, iv. 576.

47 The best account of his life and teaching is given by S. Wassiljew, of St. Petersburg, “Der Buddhismus; aus dem Russischen Übersetzt,” to which I have not had access.

48 See supra, p. 332.

49 See infra, Note 1, Tale XI.

50 See supra, p. 330.

51 Concerning Serpent-worship see infra, Note 1, Tale II.

52 Travelling Buddhist teacher. Lassen.

53 Burnouf, Introduction À l’Histoire du Buddhisme, ii. 359.

54 “Southward in Bede.” See Note 8.

55 Spence Hardy, “Legends and Theories of the Buddhists,” p. 243, when mentioning this circumstance, makes the strange mistake of confounding Behar with Berar.

56 See Note 4, “VikramÂditja’s Throne discovered.”

57 See supra, p. 241.

58 According to AbbÉ Huc’s spelling, Tchen-kis Khan.

59 According to AbbÉ Huc’s spelling, Tale Lama.

60 See the story in Note 8 to “VikramÂditja’s Youth.”

61 See Note 4 to “VikramÂditja’s Throne discovered.”

62 Consult C. F. KÖppen, Die Lamaische Hierarchie.

63 According to Huc’s version of his history he was not born in a Lamasery, but in the hut of a herdsman of Eastern Tibet, in the county of Amdo, south of the Kouku-Noor.

64 This elaborate derivation, however, has been disputed, and it is more probable the name is derived from two words, signifying “the Indian ox.” In Tibet it has no name but “great ox.”

65 Virgil, Georg. ii. 121, “Velleraque ut foliis depectant tenuia Seres;” and Pliny, H. N. vi. 20, 2, “Seres, lanicio silvarum nobiles, perfusam aqua depectentes frondium canitiem.” Also 24, 8; and xi. 26, 1.

66 See infra, note 2 to “VikramÂditja’s Birth.”

67 Burnouf, i. 265.

68 See supra, p. 351 and p. 385.

69 See Max MÜller’s “Chips from a German Workshop.”