Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/390

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
366
SAGAS FROM THE FAR EAST.

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.)


TALE XI.

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, Budhaismus, 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.