In the same work, vol. iv, p. 492, a magician warned a Prince not to part with the bridle of a mule which was a metamorphosed Queen, but her old mother bought the animal and got the bridle with it. When she removed the bridle and sprinkled water on the mule it became the Queen again at her orders.
In the Kathā Sarit Sāgara, vol. i, p. 420, the Asura Maya showed a King his former Asura body. The King magically re-entered the body, abandoning his own frame, and the dead Asura arose. He embalmed and kept his human body, saying that it might prove useful to him. Apparently this approaches the Egyptian belief in the return of the soul to its body after death. Mr. Tawney referred such ideas in China to Buddhist influence.
In the same work, vol. ii, p. 353, a decrepit old hermit who had magical power left his own body, and entered that of a boy of sixteen years who was brought to be burnt, after which he threw his old abandoned body into a ravine, and resumed his ascetic duties as a youth.
In Dr. De Groot’s The Religious System of China, vol. iv, p. 134 ff, instances are quoted from Chinese writers, of bodies which had been reanimated by souls of others who died, and it is stated that “it is a commonplace thing in China, a matter of almost daily occurrence, that corpses are resuscitated by their own souls returning into them.”
In the Rev. Dr. Macgowan’s Chinese Folk-lore Tales, p. 109, the spirit of a King who was murdered by being pushed into a well three years before, appeared to a monk, gave an account of the murder, and said, “My soul has not yet been loosed from my body, but is still confined within it in the well.” The body was taken out, and revived when a few drops of the Elixir of Life were applied to the lips. (See also the first note on p. 376, vol. ii.)
In Folk-Tales of Kashmir (Knowles), 2nd ed., p. 71, a cord placed round the neck of a Prince by the daughter of a sorceress changed him into a ram; when it was accidentally removed he became a Prince again.
In The Kathākoça (Tawney), p. 38, a Vidyādhara gave a Prince the power of entering another body. When he utilised it, it was given out that he was dead. His spirit returned to his own body by its own volition.
[1] Leaving a red mark like blood, owing to the areka-nut he had chewed. [↑]