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 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. Mahâ 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.”