Notes.
Reading edition
Preface.
Dedication.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
“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.
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.
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.
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
“Om mani padme houm.”
O the gem in the lotus. Amen.
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.
“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.
Tale I.
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.
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).
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).
Tale II.
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.
4. On the custom adopted by priests of hiding precious objects in the sacred images of the gods, see Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, iii. 351.
Tale III.
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.
According to Abbé Huc’s spelling, Hormoustha.
Tale IV.
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.
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.)
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.
Tale V.
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.
Tale VI.
Tale VII.
Tale VIII.
8. Kun-tschong = all-protecting (Tibetian). (Jülg.)
Tale IX.
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.)
Tale X.
Tale XI.
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.)
Tale XII.
Tale XIII.
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.
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.
Tale XIV.
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.
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.
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 Mahâ 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 Mahâ 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.
Tale XV.
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.
Tale XVI.
Consult Schott, Buddhaismus, pp. 39, 127, and C. F. Köppen, Die Religion des Buddha, i. 373, 550–553, and ii. 292–294.
Tale XVII.
1. Esta fabulilla, Salga bien ó mal, Me he occorrida ahora Por casualidad. 2. Cerca de unos prados Que hay en mi lugar, Passaba un borrico Por casualidad. 3. Una flauta en ellos Halló que un zagal, Se dexó olvidado Por casualidad. 4. Acercóse á olerla, El dicho animal Y dió un resoplido Por casualidad. 5. En la flauta el ayre Se hubo de colar Y sonó la flauta Por casualidad. 6. “O!” dixó el borrico “Que bien sé tocar! Y diran que es mala La musica asnal.” 7. Sin reglas del arte Borriquitos hay Que una vez aciertan Por casualidad! 1. This fablette I know it Is not erudite; It occurr’d to my mind now By accident quite. 2. Through a meadow whose verdure Fresh, seem’d to invite, A donkey pass’d browsing By accident quite. 3. A flute lay in the grass, which A swain over night Had left there forgotten By accident quite. 4. Approaching to smell it This quadruped wight Just happen’d to bray then By accident quite. 5. The air ent’ring the mouthpiece Pass’d through as of right, And gave forth a cadence By accident quite. 6. “Only hear my fine playing!” Cries Moke in delight, “That dull folks vote my braying A nuisance, despite.” 7. It may happen some once, thus Although they can’t write, Human asses may hit off By accident quite!
“Shura means a Hero in Sanscrit, agreeing not only in sense with the Greek word ἥρως, 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.’ Mahâ Bhârata, xi. 2, v. 60.” (Lassen, i. 69.)
Tale XVIII.
Tale XIX.
1. See note 2, Tale XVII.
Tale XX.
Tale XXI.
Tale XXII.
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 bonâ 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.
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.”
Tale XXIII.
“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.
The month Pauscha answers to our December. (Lassen, iii. 819.)
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).
8. Barss-Irbiss, “leopard-tiger.” (Jülg.)
Historical Notice of Vikramâditja.
“O Divine Timour, when will thy great soul revive?
Return! Return! We await thee, O Timour!”
The Boy-King.
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 Vâsavadattâ 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.
The False Friend.
The Pretended Son.
Ardschi-Bordschi discovers Vikramâditja’s Throne.
Vikramâditja’s Birth.
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.
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.
Vikramâditja’s Youth.
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.”
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.
Vikramâditja acquires another Kingdom.
Vikramâditja makes the Silent speak.
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.
The Wise Parrot.
