Note 4 — Chapter III

The three first allegorical omens or signs which, according to the foretelling of the Pounhas, were to be seen and observed hereafter by Phralaong, are designed to mean and express the compound of all miseries attending human existence, from the moment man crosses the threshold of life to that of death. The view of these objects was intended to make him disgusted with a state necessarily accompanied with such an amount of wretchedness. He was soon induced by reflection to hold in contempt the things of this world, and consequently to seek with ardour some means of estranging himself from all visible and material objects. The fourth sign, that is to say, the view of a Rahan, or a contemner of this world, aspiring to perfect disengagement from the trammels of passion, and shaping his course towards Neibban, was the very pattern he had to imitate and follow for arriving to that state of perfection which he felt a strong, though as yet somewhat confused, desire of possessing.

The Nats or Dewatas are the ever-ready ministers for affording to Phralaong the assistance he requires to reach in safety the Buddhaship. They rejoice at the news of his approaching conception in the womb of Maia; they watch over the mother who is to give birth to so blessed a child; they receive the newly-born infant, and hand him over to men; they baffle, by their almost supernatural power, the obstacles which the worldly-minded Thoodaudana tries to throw in the way of his son's vocation; in a word, their angelical ministrations are always at hand to help and protect our Phralaong, and enable him to reach that state wherein he shall be fully qualified for announcing to men the law of deliverance. The belief in the agency of angels between heaven and earth, and their being the messengers of God for conveying, on solemn occasions, his mandates to men, is coeval, according to sacred records, with the appearance of man in this world. Innumerable are the instances of angelical ministrations mentioned in the holy writ. We look upon angels as mere spiritual substances, assuming a human form, when, by the command of God, they have to bring down to men some divine message. In the system of the Buddhists, Nats are described as having bodies indeed, but of such a pure nature, particularly those inhabiting the superior seats, that they are not only not subjected to the miseries inherent in our nature, but are moreover gifted with such superior attainments as almost to enjoy the perfections and qualifications inherent in the nature of spirits. On this occasion the Nats are endeavouring to make virtue triumph over vice; but, in the course of this legend, we will have several opportunities of remarking a counteraction worked up by evil or wicked Nats for upholding the reign of passion or of sin. In this system the two contending elements of good and evil have each its own advocates and supporters. A Hindu Milton might have found two thousand years ago a ready theme for writing, in Sanscrit or Pali, a poem similar to that more recently composed by the immortal English bard.