Sagas from the Far East Part 32

4. On the custom adopted by priests of hiding precious objects in the sacred images of the G.o.ds, see La.s.sen, Indische Alterthumskunde, iii. 351.

TALE III.

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

2. Schimnu or Schumnu (in Sanskrit, Kama or Mara) is the Buddhist Devil, or personified evil. He is also the G.o.d 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 ent.i.tled "The Ill-tempered Princess," in "Patranas,"

though so unlike in the denouement.

4. I have had occasion to speak in another place of the early Indian's belief in the dwelling of the G.o.ds being situated among the inaccessible heights which bound his sight and his fancy. The mountain of Meeru was a spot so sacred that it was fabled the sun might not pa.s.s it. Consult La.s.sen, i. 847, &c. &c.

5. Churmusta = Indra. The ruler of the lower G.o.ds, king of the earth and of the spirits of the air; his heaven is the place of earthly pleasures. Daemons 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 Ma.s.sang to fight the Schimnu-Khan for him.

According to Abbe Huc's spelling, Hormoustha.

TALE IV.

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 Abbe 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 pa.s.sed that way. The animals having devoured all the gra.s.s 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 gopa, gopala, originally a cowherd, for a prince), and the hymns of the Rig-Veda 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 La.s.sen, i. 494, 685, 815, &c.

2. Abbe 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, pipilika (e. g. Maha Bharata, i. p. 375, v. 1860), the description of them would pa.s.s 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. (Wa.s.siljew, quoted by Julg.) 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 pa.s.sions. 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, adi-Buddha's t.i.tles, particularly in Tibet, is Pankagnanatmaka, or "him possessed of five kinds of gnana" 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 G.o.ds 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. (Koppen, 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. (Julg.)

7. Rakschasas, 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 a.s.suming 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 La.s.sen, Ind. Altert. i. 535, where pa.s.sages giving them this character are quoted; also pp. 582, 583.

8. Manggus, Mongolian name for Rakschasas. (Julg.)

9. The present mode of treating the sick in Mongolia would seem much the same. Abbe 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 a.s.sault 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 ent.i.tled '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, sh.e.l.ls, 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 compa.s.s ... 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. Abbe Huc writes: "Household and family cares rest entirely upon the women; it is she who milks the cows and prepares the b.u.t.ter, 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 amus.e.m.e.nt. 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."

TALE V.

1. Kun-Snang = "All-enlightening." (Julg.) 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 Shakjamuni's teaching to provide mankind with a remedy against their necessity. (See La.s.sen, Indische Alterthumskunde, ii. 60, and other places. Burnouf, Introd. a 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 G.o.ds themselves were not exempt from the operation of this law.

5. Serpent-G.o.d. 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 p.r.o.nounces 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 princ.i.p.al kind of corn. All the Greek writers on India mention that an intoxicating drink was made from rice, and the custom still prevails.