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Title: Myths of China and Japan
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Author: Donald Alexander Mackenzie
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MYTHS OF CHINA AND
JAPAN ***
MYTHS OF
CHINA AND JAPAN
By
DONALD A. MACKENZIE
With Illustrations in Colour & Monochrome
after Paintings and Photographs
THE GRESHAM PUBLISHING COMPANY LTD.
66 CHANDOS ST. COVENT GARDEN LONDON
PREFACE
This volume deals with the myths of China and Japan, and it is shown
that these throw light on the origin and growth of civilization and the
widespread dissemination of complex ideas associated with certain modes
of life. The Far East does not appear to have remained immune to
outside cultural influences in ancient times. Modern research has
established that the old school of opinions which insisted on the
complete isolation of China can no longer obtain. As Laufer says: “It
cannot be strongly enough emphasized on every occasion that Chinese
civilization, as it appears now, is not a unit and not the exclusive
production of the Chinese, but the final result of the cultural efforts
of a vast conglomeration of the most varied tribes, an amalgamation of
ideas accumulated from manifold quarters and widely differentiated in
space and time.... No graver error can hence be committed than to
attribute any culture idea at the outset to the Chinese, for no other
reason than because it appears within the precincts of their empire.”
Even the Chinese records have to be regarded with caution. It is
impossible nowadays to accept as serious contributions to history the
inflated chronology and the obvious fables compiled and invented by
Chinese scholars for political and other purposes during the Han and
later dynasties. These scholars had really little knowledge of the
early history of their country and people. They were puzzled even by
certain existing customs and religious practices, and provided
ingenious “secondary explanations” which, like their accounts of the
early dynasties, do not accord with the data accumulated by
archæologists and other workers in the scientific field. The complex
religious ideas of the Chinese were obviously not of spontaneous
generation. Many of these resemble too closely the complexes found
elsewhere, and their history cannot be traced within the limits of the
Chinese empire. Indeed, as is shown, some of them are undoubtedly
products of human experiences obtained elsewhere, and they reveal
traces of the influences to which they were subjected during the
process of gradual transmission from areas of origin. Nor, would it
appear, was Chinese civilization nearly as ancient as the native
scholars would have us believe.
When the early Chinese entered China, they found non-Chinese peoples in
different parts of that vast area which they ultimately welded into an
empire. They were an inland people and did not invent boats; they did
not originate the agricultural mode of life but adopted it, using the
seeds and implements they had acquired; nor did they invent the
potter’s wheel with which they were familiar from the earliest times in
China, having evidently become possessed of it, along with the complex
culture associated with it, before they migrated into the province of
Shensi. Nor could an agrarian people like the Chinese have been the
originators of the belief in the existence of “Isles of the Blest” in
the Eastern Ocean; they were not alone in Asia in believing in a
Western Paradise situated among the mountains.
The Chinese, as Laufer demonstrates in his Jade, did not pass through
in China that culture stage called the “Neolithic”. When they first
settled in Shensi, they searched for and found jade, as did the
carriers of bronze who first entered Europe. There was obviously an
acquired psychological motive for the search for jade, and the evidence
of Chinese jade symbolism demonstrates to the full that it had been
acquired from those who had transferred to jade the earlier symbolism
of shells, pearls, and precious metals. In the chapter devoted to jade
it is shown that this view is confirmed by the evidence afforded by
Chinese customs connected with jade, shells, pearls, &c.
In no country in the world are the processes of culture drifting and
culture mixing made more manifest than in China. The Chinese dragon is,
as Professor Elliot Smith puts it, a “composite wonder beast”.
Throughout this volume it is shown to yield, when dissected, remarkable
evidence regarding the varied influences under which it acquired its
highly complex character. The fact that a Chinese dragon charm closely
resembles a Scottish serpent charm is of special interest in this
connection. When, however, it is found that China obtained certain
myths and practices from the area called by its writers “Fu-lin” (the
Byzantine Empire), and that not only Byzantine but Ægean influences are
traceable in the Celtic field, the charm-link between Gaelic Scotland
and China may not, after all, be regarded as “far-fetched”. The same
may be said regarding the curious similarity between the myths and
practices connected with shells, and especially cockle-shells, in Japan
and the Scottish Hebrides. Although the West Highlanders and the
inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun were never brought into
contact, it may be that similar cultural influences drifted east and
west from their area of origin, and that the carriers were the ancient
mariners who introduced the same type of vessel into far-separated
oceans.
As in China, we do not in Japan find a culture of purely native origin,
but rather one which has grown up from a mass of imported elements as
varied as the racial types that compose the present-day population.
Both in China and Japan these imported elements have been subjected to
the influences of time and locality and infused with national ideas and
ideals. The processes of growth and change have not, however, concealed
the sources from which certain of the early ideas emanated in varying
degrees of development.
The early native history of Japan is, like that of China, no more
worthy of acceptance than are the long-discarded English and Scottish
fables regarding Brute and Scota.
The data accumulated in this volume tend to show, although we have no
direct evidence of systematic missionary enterprise earlier than that
of the Buddhists, that the influential religious cults of ancient times
that flourished in Mesopotamia and in the Egyptian Empire (which
included part of Western Asia) appear to have left their impress on the
intellectual life of even far-distant peoples. Apparently modes of
thought were transmitted along direct and indirect avenues of
intercourse by groups of traders. Even before trade routes were opened,
religious beliefs and practices appear to have been introduced into
distant lands by prospectors and by settlers who founded colonies from
which later colonies “budded”. When the same set of complexes are found
in widely separated areas, it is difficult to accept the view that they
originated from the same particular experiences and the same set of
circumstances, especially when it is made manifest that the complexes
in the older centre of culture reflect strictly local physical
conditions, and even the local political conditions that resulted in a
fusion of peoples and of their myths, symbols, and religious beliefs
and practices.
DONALD A. MACKENZIE.
CONTENTS
Chap. Page
I. The Dawn of Civilization 1
II. A Far-travelled Invention 13
III. Ancient Mariners and Explorers 24
IV. The World-wide Search for Wealth 36
V. Chinese Dragon Lore 46
VI. Bird and Serpent Myths 66
VII. Dragon Folk-stories 76
VIII. The Kingdom under the Sea 95
IX. The Islands of the Blest 106
X. The Mother-goddess of China and Japan 131
XI. Tree-, Herb-, and Stone-lore 158
XII. How Copper-culture reached China 189
XIII. The Symbolism of Jade 211
XIV. Creation Myths and the God and Goddess Cults 256
XV. Mythical and Legendary Kings 274
XVI. Myths and Doctrines of Taoism 297
XVII. Culture Mixing in Japan 324
XVIII. Japanese Gods and Dragons 345
XIX. Rival Deities of Life and Death, Sunshine and Storm 357
XX. The Dragon-slayer and His Rival 371
XXI. Ancient Mikados and Heroes 378
LIST OF PLATES
Facing Page
THE GOD OF THUNDER (in colour) Frontispiece
From a Chinese picture in the John Rylands Library, Manchester
POTTER’S WHEEL, SIMLA, INDIA 16
From a sketch by J. Lockwood Kipling in the Victoria and Albert
Museum
A MODERN CHINESE JUNK ON THE CANTON RIVER 24
CHINESE DRAGON-BOAT FESTIVAL 40
From a picture woven in coloured silks and gold thread in the
Victoria and Albert Museum
CHINESE DRAGONS AMONG THE CLOUDS 48
From a painting in the British Museum
CHINESE DRAGON VASE WITH CARVED WOOD STAND 56
(Victoria and Albert Museum)
CARP LEAPING FROM WAVES 81
From a Japanese painting in the British Museum
CHINESE PORCELAIN VASE DECORATED WITH FIVE-CLAWED DRAGONS RISING
FROM WAVES 88
(Victoria and Albert Museum)
RESONANT STONE OF JADE SHOWING DRAGON WITH CLOUD ORNAMENTS,
SUSPENDED FROM CARVED BLACKWOOD FRAME 96
By courtesy of B. Laufer, Field Museum of Natural History,
Chicago
TORTOISE AND SNAKE 104
From a rubbing in the British Museum of a Chinese original
GATHERING FRUITS OF LONGEVITY 112
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
SHOU SHAN (i.e. “HILLS OF LONGEVITY”), THE TAOIST PARADISE 124
From a woven silk picture in the Victoria and Albert Museum
THE CHINESE SI WANG MU (JAPANESE SEIOBO) AND MAO NU 136
From a Japanese painting (by Hidenobu) in the British Museum
MOUNTAIN VIEW WITH SCHOLAR’S RETREAT 140
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
GENII AT THE COURT OF SI WANG MU 152
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
SQUARE BRICK OF THE HAN DYNASTY, WITH MYTHOLOGICAL FIGURES AND
INSCRIPTIONS 160
CHINESE BOWL WITH SYMBOL OF LONGEVITY 168
(Victoria and Albert Museum)
GOATS CROPPING PLANT OF LIFE 172
From the jade sculpture in the Scottish National Museum,
Edinburgh
THE GODDESS OF THE DEW 184
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
AN OFFERING TO THE GODS, PEKING 200
From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.
ANCIENT BRONZE ASTRONOMICAL INSTRUMENTS ON THE CITY WALL, PEKING 208
MORTUARY FISH IN JADE, OF HAN PERIOD 212
FIGURE OF BUTTERFLY IN WHITE AND BROWNISH-YELLOW JADE, TSʼIN OR
HAN PERIOD 212
AMULETS FOR THE DEAD, AND OTHER OBJECTS IN JADE 220
The subjects on pages 212 and 220 are reproduced by courtesy
of B. Laufer, author of “Jade”, Field Museum, Chicago
THE TEMPLE OF HEAVEN, PEKING 228
From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.
THREE SAGES STUDYING SYMBOL OF YIN AND YANG 230
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
KWAN-YIN, THE CHINESE “GODDESS OF MERCY” 271
From a porcelain figure decorated in soft enamels in the Victoria
and Albert Museum
LAO TZE AND DISCIPLES 300
From a Chinese painting in the British Museum
THE MOST FAMOUS PAI-LO (GODDESS SYMBOL) IN CHINA: AT THE MENG
TOMBS, NEAR PEKING 328
From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.
THE FAMOUS OLD TORI-WI (GODDESS SYMBOL), MIYAJIMA, JAPAN 338
From a photograph by H. G. Ponting, F.R.G.S.
THE JAPANESE TREASURE SHIP 352
From a woodcut in the British Museum
SUSA-NO-WO MAKING A COMPACT WITH DISEASE SPIRITS 360
From a Japanese painting (by Hoga) in the British Museum
AMATERÂSU, THE SUN GODDESS, EMERGING FROM HER CAVE 368
From a Japanese painting in the British Museum
SEIOBO (= THE CHINESE SI WANG MU) WITH ATTENDANT AND THREE RISHI 380
From a Japanese painting (by Sanraku) in the British Museum
MYTHS OF CHINA AND JAPAN
CHAPTER I
THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION
Chinese Culture—Had it Independent Origin?—Evolution in Human
Affairs—Stratification Theory—The Mystery of Mind—Man’s First
Philosophy of Life—Influences exercised by Ancient
Civilizations—Culture Mixing—The Idea of Progress—Art in the
Pleistocene Age—Introduction of Agriculture—Birth of Osirian
Civilization—The “Water of Greenness” as “Water of Life”—How
Commerce Began—Introduction of Copper-working—The Oldest Calendar
in the World—The “Kings of Mankind”—Ancient Man and Modern Man.
The destinies of a people are shaped by their modes of thought, and
their real history is therefore the history of their culture. The
Chinese frame of mind has made the Chinese the people they are and
China the country it is. Every section of society has been swayed by
this far-reaching and enduring influence, the sources of which lie in
remote antiquity. It is the force that has even been shaping public
opinion and directing political movements. Emperors and leaders of
thought have been uplifted by it or cast down by it.
To understand China, it is necessary that we should inquire into its
inner history—the history of its culture—so as to get at the Chinese
point of view and look at things through Chinese eyes. That inner
history is in part a record of its early experiences among the nations
of the earth. There was a time when China was “in the making”, when the
little leaven that leavened the whole lump began to move, when that
culture which spread over a vast area was confined to a small centre
and to a comparatively small group of people. Who were this people,
where were they situated, what influences were at work to stir them and
shape their ambitions, and what secret did they learn which gave them
power over the minds and bodies of about a third of the inhabitants of
the globe? In short, how and where did Chinese culture originate, and
how did it spread and become firmly established? Was it a thing of
purely local growth? Did it begin to be quite independently of all
other cultures? Does it owe its virility and distinctiveness among the
cultures of ancient and modern times to the influence of the locality
in which it had “independent origin”? Had it an independent origin?
These queries open up the larger problem as to the origin of
civilization in the world. At this point, therefore, we must decide
whether or not we are to accept the idea of evolution in human affairs.
Can the principles of biological evolution be applied to the problems
of ethnology (using the term in its widest sense to include the
physical and cultural history of mankind)? Can we accept the theory
that in isolated quarters of the globe separated communities were
stirred by natural laws to make progress in adapting themselves to
their environments, and that, once a beginning was made, separated
communities developed on similar lines? Did each ancient civilization
have its natural periods of growth and decay? Were separated
communities uninfluenced during these periods by human minds and wills?
Were their destinies shaped by natural laws, or by the cumulative force
of public opinion? Was it a natural law that made men abandon the
hunting and adopt the agricultural mode of life? Did certain
communities of men, influenced by natural laws in ancient times, begin
to shape their religious systems by first worshipping groups of spirits
and ultimately, having passed through a sequence of well-defined
stages, find themselves elevated by these natural laws to the stage of
monotheism? Is it because certain races have, for some mysterious
reason, been prompted to pass through these stages more quickly than
others, that they are deserving of the term “progressive” while others
must be characterized as “backward”?
If these questions are answered in the affirmative, we must assume that
we have solved the riddle of Mind. Those who apply the principles of
biological evolution to human affairs are in the habit of referring to
laws that control the workings of the human mind. But what do we really
know about the workings of the human mind? This question has only to be
asked so that the hazardous character of the fashion of thinking
adopted by extreme exponents of the Evolution School may be emphasized.
It cannot but be admitted that we know little or nothing regarding the
human mind. What happens when we think? How are memories stored in the
brain? How are emotions caused? What is Consciousness? How does the
Will operate? Grave psychological problems have to be solved before we
can undertake the responsibility of discussing with any degree of
confidence the laws that are supposed to govern human thought and
action.
The researches into the early history of man, of about a generation
ago, were believed by some to “have revealed the essential similarity
with which, under many superficial differences, the human mind has
elaborated its first crude philosophy of life”. It was found that
similar beliefs and practices obtained among widely separated
communities, and it was not suspected that the influence exercised by
direct and indirect cultural contact between “progressive” and
“backward” communities extended to such great distances as has since
been found to be the case. Prospecting routes by land and sea were the
avenues along which cultural influences “drifted”. Early man was much
more enterprising as a trader and explorer than was believed in Tylor’s
day. The evidence accumulated of late years tends to show that almost
no part of the globe remained immune to the influences exercised by the
great ancient civilizations, and that these civilizations were never in
a state of “splendid isolation” at any period in their histories. In
the light of this knowledge it is becoming more and more clear that
Victorian ethnologists were inclined to make too much of resemblances,
and failed to take into account the differences that a more intensive
study of local cultures have revealed. There were, of course,
resemblances, which suggest the influence of cultural contact and the
settlement among backward peoples of colonists from progressive
communities, but there were also differences of beliefs and customs
which were of local origin and can hardly be characterized as
“superficial”. One of the results of contact was the process of
“culture mixing”. Customs and fashions of thinking were introduced into
a country and blended with local customs and local modes of thought. In
early China, as will be shown, there was “culture mixing”. The Chinese
frame of mind is the result of compromises effected in remote times.
How, then, did the idea of progress originate? Is there in the human
mind an instinct which stirs mankind to achieve progress? If so, how
does it come about that some peoples have failed to move until brought
into contact with progressive races? Why did the Melanesians, for
instance, remain in the Stone Age until reached by the missionary and
the sandal-wood trader? The missionaries and the traders caused them to
advance in a brief period from the Stone Age to the Age of Steel and
Machinery. Can it be maintained that in ancient days no sudden changes
took place? Did the people, for instance, who introduced bronze-working
into a country introduce nothing else? Did they leave behind their
beliefs, their myths, their customs, and their stories?
When it is asked how progress originated, we can only turn to such
evidence as is available regarding the early history of “Modern Man”.
At a remote period, dating back in Europe to the Pleistocene Age, men
lived in organized communities and pursued the hunting mode of life.
Their culture is revealed by their pictorial art in the prehistoric
cave-dwellings of France and Spain, and their decorative art by their
finely engraved implements and weapons. [1] This art reached a high
state of perfection. In some aspects it compares favourably with modern
art. [2] Evidently it had a long history, and was practised by those
who were endowed with the artistic faculty and had received a training.
These early men, who belonged to the Cro-Magnon races, were traders as
well as hunters. In some of their “inland stations” have been found
shells that had been imported from the Mediterranean coast.
The hunting mode of life prevailed also among the proto-Egyptians in
the Nile valley, an area which was less capable in remote times of
maintaining a large population than were the wide and fertile plains of
Europe. Egypt was thinly peopled until the agricultural mode of life
was introduced. Someone discovered how to make use of the barley that
grew wild in the Nile valley and western Asia. In time the seeds were
cultivated, and some little community thus provided itself with an
abundant food-supply. Men’s minds were afterwards engaged in solving
the problem how to extend the area available for cultivation in the
narrow Nile valley. Nature was at hand to make suggestions to them.
Each year the River Nile came down in flood and fertilized the parched
and sun-burnt wastes. The waters caused the desert to “blossom like the
rose”. Intelligent observers perceived that if the process of
water-fertilization were maintained, as in the Delta region, they could
extend their little farms and form new ones. The art of irrigation was
discovered and gradually adopted, with the result that the narrow river
valley, which had been thinly peopled during the Hunting Period, became
capable of maintaining a large population.
In what particular area the agricultural mode of life was first
introduced, it is impossible to say. Some favour southern Palestine and
some southern Mesopotamia. Those who favour Egypt [3] can refer to
interesting and important evidence in support of their view. It is the
only ancient country, for instance, in which there are traditions
regarding the man [4] who introduced the agricultural mode of life.
This was Osiris, a priest-king [5] who was deified, or a god to whom
was credited the discovery, made by a man or group of men, of how to
grow corn. Plutarch’s version of the Egyptian legend states: “Osiris,
being now become King of Egypt, applied himself towards civilizing his
countrymen, by turning them from their former indigent and barbarous
course of life; he moreover taught them how to cultivate and improve
the fruits of the earth”. Evidence has been forthcoming that the
pre-Dynastic Egyptians were agriculturists. The bodies of many of them
have been found preserved in their graves in the hot dry sands of Upper
Egypt. “From the stomachs and intestines of these prehistoric people”,
writes Professor G. Elliot Smith, “I was able to recover large
quantities of food materials, in fact, the last meals eaten before
death.” Careful examination was made of the contents of the stomachs.
“Almost every sample contained husks of barley, and in about 10 per
cent of the specimens husks of millet could be identified with
certainty.” The millet found in these bodies is nearly related to the
variety “which is now cultivated in the East Indies”. [6]
Here we have proof that the agricultural mode of life obtained in the
Nile valley over sixty centuries ago, and that the seeds of the
cultivated variety of millet, which grows wild in North Africa and
southern Asia, were carried to far-distant areas by ancient traders and
colonists. These facts have, as will be found, an important bearing on
the early history of Chinese civilization.
Our immediate concern, however, is with the history of early
civilization. In the Nile valley man made progress when he was able to
provide something which he required, by the intelligent utilization of
means at his disposal. No natural law prompted him to cultivate corn
and irrigate the sun-parched soil. He did not become an agriculturist
by instinct. He conducted observations, exercised his reasoning
faculty, made experiments, and a great discovery was forthcoming. The
man whose memory is enshrined in that of Osiris was one of the great
benefactors of the human race. When he solved the problem of how to
provide an abundant supply of food, he made it possible for a large
population to live in a small area. It is told of Osiris that “he gave
them (the Egyptians) a body of laws to regulate their conduct by”. No
doubt the early hunters observed laws which regulated conduct in the
cave-home as well as on the hunting-field. The fact that a great
pictorial art was cultivated by Aurignacian man in western Europe,
about 20,000 years ago, indicates that the social organization had been
sufficiently well developed to permit of certain individuals of a
class—possibly the priestly class—devoting themselves to the study of
art, while others attended to the food-supply. Aurignacian art could
never have reached the degree of excellence it did had there not been a
school of art—apparently religious art—and a system of laws that
promoted its welfare.
When, in Egypt, the agricultural mode of life was introduced, and an
abundant supply of food was assured, new laws became a necessity, so
that the growing communities might be kept under control. These laws
were given a religious significance. Osiris “instructed them (the
Egyptians) in that reverence and worship which they were to pay to the
gods”. Society was united by the bonds of a religious organization,
and, as is found, Nilotic religion had a close association with the
agricultural mode of life. It reflected the experiences of the early
farmers; it reflected, too, the natural phenomena of the Nile valley.
Water—the Nile water—was the fertilizing agency. It was the “water of
life”. The god Osiris was closely associated with the Nile; he was the
“fresh” or the “new” water that flowed in due season after the trying
period of “the low Nile”, during which the land was parched by the
burning sun and every green thing was coated by the sand-storms. “Ho,
Osiris! the inundation comes,” cried the priest when the Nile began to
rise. “Horus comes; he recognizes his father in thee, youthful in thy
name of Fresh Water.” [7] The literal rendering is: “Horus comes; he
beholds his father in thee, greenness in thy name of Water of
Greenness”. The reference is to the “new water” which flows quite green
for the first few days of the annual inundation. The “new water”
entered the soil and vegetation sprang up. Osiris was the principle of
life; he was also the ghost-god who controlled the river. As the Nile,
Osiris was regarded as the source of all life—the creator and sustainer
and ruler in one.
When the discovery of how to grow corn was passed from people to people
and from land to land, not only the seeds and agricultural implements
were passed along, but the ceremonies and religious beliefs connected
with the agricultural mode of life in the area of origin. The
ceremonies were regarded as of as much importance as the implements.
It need not surprise us, therefore, to find, as we do find, not only
North African millet in the East Indies, but North African religious
beliefs connected with agriculture in widely separated countries.
Osirian religious ideas and myths were, it would appear, distributed
over wide areas and among various races. There is therefore a germ of
historical truth in the account given by Plutarch of the missionary
efforts of Osiris. “With the same disposition”, we read, “he (Osiris)
afterwards travelled over the rest of the world, inducing the people
everywhere to submit to his discipline.... The Greeks conclude him to
have been the same person with their Dionysos or Bacchus.” [8]
In the process of time the Egyptians found that they were able to
produce a larger food-supply than they required for their own needs.
They were consequently able to devote their surplus to stimulating
trade, so as to obtain from other countries things which were not to be
had in Egypt. They were thus brought into touch with other communities,
and these communities, such as the wood-cutters of Lebanon, were
influenced by Egyptian civilization and stimulated to adopt new modes
of life. Their food-supply was assured by the Egyptian demand for
timber. They received corn from the Nile valley in payment for their
labour. There are references in the Egyptian texts to the exports of
wheat to North Syria and Asia Minor.
When the great discovery was made of how to work copper, the early
agriculturists achieved rapid progress. Boats were built more easily
and in larger numbers, new weapons were produced, and the Upper
Egyptians conquered the Lower Egyptians, with the result that Egypt was
united under a single king. With this union, which was followed by a
period of remarkable activity, begins the history of Ancient Egypt.
The man, remembered as Osiris, who first sowed his little corn patch,
sowed also the seeds from which grew a mighty empire and a great
civilization. His discovery spread from people to people, and from land
to land, and a new era was inaugurated in the history of the world.
Progress was made possible when mankind were led from the wide
hunting-fields to the little fields of the Stone Age [9] farmer, and
shown how they could live pleasant and well-ordered lives in large
communities.
The early Egyptian farmers found it necessary to measure time and take
account of the seasons. A Calendar was introduced and adopted during
the prehistoric (Palæolithic) period, [10] and was used by the
Egyptians for thousands of years. Julius Cæsar adapted this Calendar
for use in Rome. It was subsequently adjusted by Pope Gregory and
others, and is now in use all over the civilized world. Each time we
hang up a new calendar, therefore, we are reminded of the man who
stimulated progress over vast areas by sowing corn, so as to provide
food for his family in a distant land at a far-distant period of time.
When we consider the problem of the origin of progress, let us not
forget him and others like him—those early thinkers and discoverers to
whom all humanity owe a debt of gratitude. The few invent, the many
adopt; the few think and lead, and the many follow.
“No abstract doctrine”, writes Sir James F. Frazer in this connection,
“is more false and mischievous than that of the natural equality of
men.... The experience of common life sufficiently contradicts such a
vain imagination.... The men of keenest intelligence and strongest
characters lead the rest and shape the moulds into which, outwardly at
least, society is cast.... The true rulers of men are the thinkers who
advance knowledge.... It is knowledge which, in the long run, directs
and controls the forces of society. Thus the discoverers of new truths
are the real though uncrowned and unsceptred kings of mankind.” [11]
Progress has its origin in Mind. It has been manifested in the past in
those districts in which the mind of man was applied to overcome
natural obstacles and to develop natural resources. The histories of
the great ancient civilizations do not support the idea of an
evolutionary process which had its origin in human instinct. “There
has”, Professor G. Elliot Smith writes, “been no general or widespread
tendency on the part of human societies to strive after what by
Europeans is regarded as intellectual or material progress. Progressive
societies are rare because it requires a very complex series of factors
to compel men to embark upon the hazardous process of striving after
such artificial advancement.”
Professor Elliot Smith will have none of what Dr. W. H. R. Rivers
refers to as “crude evolutionary ideas”. “The history of man”, he
writes, “will be truly interpreted, not by means of hazardous and
mistaken analogies with biological evolution, but by the application of
the true historical method. The causes of the modern actions of mankind
are deeply rooted in the past. But the spirit of man has ever been the
same: and the course of ancient history can only be properly
appreciated when it is realized that the same human motives whose
nature can be studied in our fellow-men to-day actuated the men of old
also.” [12]
In the chapters that immediately follow it will be shown that separated
communities were brought into close touch by traders. The term
“trading”, however, refers, especially in early times, chiefly to
prospecting and the exploiting of locally unappreciated forms of
wealth. It was not until after civilization had spread far and wide
that permanent trade routes were established. Some overland routes
became less important when sea routes were ultimately opened.
CHAPTER II
A FAR-TRAVELLED INVENTION
The Potter’s Wheel—An Egyptian Invention—The Wheel in Theology—Clay
Pots and Stone Vessels—Skilled Artisans produce Poor Pottery—The
Yakut Evidence—Female Potters—Pot Symbol of Mother-goddess—Potter’s
Wheel worked by Men—Egyptian “Wheel” adopted in Crete, Babylonia,
Iran, India, and China—No “Wheel” in America—Secular and Religious
Pottery in China, Japan, India, and Rome—Coarse
Grave-Pottery—Potter’s Wheel as Symbol of Creator—Chinese Emperors
as Potters—Culture Heroes—Association of Agriculture with
Pottery—Egyptian Ideas in Far East.
What bearing, it may be asked, have the discoveries made in Egypt on
the early history of China? Is there evidence to show that these
widely-separated countries were brought into contact in remote times?
Did the primitive Chinese receive and adopt Egyptian inventions, and if
so, how were such inventions conveyed across the wide and difficult
country lying between the Mediterranean coast and the Yellow Sea? Is
there any proof that trade routes extended in ancient times right
across Asia? Did prospecting and trading ancient mariners cross the
Indian Ocean and coast round to Chinese waters?
Interesting evidence regarding cultural contact is afforded by the
potter’s wheel. This wonderful machine was invented in Egypt some time
before the Fourth Dynasty (about 3000 B.C.), and in its area of origin
it exercised an influence not only on ceramic craftsmanship but on
religious ideas. It was regarded as a gift of the gods, as in ancient
Scotland bronze weapons, implements, musical instruments, &c., were
regarded as gifts from the fairies. Apparently the invention was first
introduced in Memphis, the ancient capital, the chief god of which was
Ptah, the supreme deity “of all handicraftsmen and of all workers in
metal and stone”. Ptah was already regarded as the creator of the
primeval egg from which the universe was hatched, and of the “sun egg”
and the “moon egg”. He was evidently a deity whose life-history goes
back to primitive times when the mother-goddess was symbolized as the
goose that laid the primeval egg. The problem of whether the egg or the
bird came first was solved by the priests of the Ptah cult of Memphis,
who regarded their deity as the creator of the “egg”. After the
potter’s wheel came into use, they depicted Ptah turning the “egg” upon
it. The manufacture of wheel-made pottery thus came to have religious
associations. It was closely connected with the culture of Egypt which
had its basis in the agricultural mode of life. The arts and crafts
were all stimulated by religious ideas; they were cultivated by the
priestly class in temple workshops, and were essentially an expression
of Egyptian beliefs and conceptions.
Before the potter’s wheel came into use, the potter’s art had
degenerated. Vases, bowls, jars, platters, and other vessels were made
of such costly stones as diorite, alabaster, and porphyry; these were
drilled out with copper implements. Copper vessels were also made. The
discovery of how to work copper had caused the craftsmen to neglect the
potter’s art, and to work with enthusiasm in the hardest stone until
they achieved a high degree of skill. The coarse pottery of the
pre-wheel period is therefore no indication that the civilization had
reached a stage of decadence. This fact should be a warning to those
archæologists who are prone to conclude that if the pottery taken from
a stratum in some particular area is “coarse”, the people who produced
it at the period it represents were necessarily in a backward
condition. The evidence afforded by Yakut products is of special
interest in this connection. The Yakuts are usually referred to as “the
most intelligent and progressive people in Siberia”. They are, however,
poor potters. They never glaze their vessels or use the potter’s wheel.
At the great Russian market of Yakutsk they refuse to purchase
wheel-made crockery, and purchase instead the raw clay with which to
make their own hand-made vessels, which are almost as coarse as those
of the Stone Age. But although the technique displayed in their pottery
is crude, they are famous for their excellent wood-carving and iron
forged-work. [13] A people cannot, therefore, be judged by their
pottery alone. It may be that those ancient peoples who are found to
have been poor potters were skilled and progressive in other spheres of
activity. The Hebrews were poor artisans and never invented anything,
but they have given the world a great religious literature.
After the potter’s wheel was introduced in Memphis, a new era in the
history of pottery was inaugurated. The enclosed baking-furnace came
into use at the same time, and the potter’s art and technique speedily
attained a wonderfully high degree of excellence. But the old crude,
hand-made pottery was still being produced. It was consistently
produced until Egypt ceased to be a great and independent kingdom.
Indeed, it is being manufactured even in our own day.
The reason why good and bad pottery are produced in a single
country—and Egypt is no exception to this rule—is that the manufacture
of hand-made vessels was in ancient times essentially a woman’s
avocation. The potter’s wheel was invented by man, and credited to a
god, and has from the beginning been worked by men only. There was
apparently a religious significance in the connection of the sexes with
the different processes. The clay pot was, in ancient Egypt, a symbol
of the mother-goddess. [14] Pots used in connection with the worship of
the Great Mother were apparently produced by her priestesses. As women
played their part in agricultural ceremonies, so did they play their
part—evidently a prominent one—in producing the goddess’s pot symbols.
The coarse jars in which were stored wines and oils and food-stuffs
were gifts of the Great Mother, the giver of all; she was the
inexhaustible sacred Pot—the womb of Nature. Domestic pottery used by
women was, very properly, the ancient folks appear to have argued,
produced by women.
“It will be noted”, writes O. T. Mason in this connection, “that the
feminine gender is used throughout in speaking of aboriginal potters.
This is because every piece of such ware is the work of woman’s hands.
She quarried the clay, and, like the patient beast of burden, bore it
home on her back. She washed it and kneaded it and rolled it into
fillets. These she wound carefully and symmetrically until the vessel
was built up. She further decorated and burned it, and wore it out in
household drudgery. The art at first was woman’s.” [15]
In many countries the connection of women with hand-made and of men
with wheel-made pottery obtains even in our day. The following
statement by two American scholars, who have produced a short but
authoritative paper on the potter’s art, is the result of a close
investigation of evidence collected over a wide area, and carefully
digested and summarized: [16]
“The potter’s wheel is the creation of man, and therefore is an
independent act of invention which was not evolved from any contrivance
utilized during the period of hand-made ceramic ware. The two processes
have grown out of two radically distinct spheres of human activity. The
wheel, so speak, came from another world. It had no point of contact
with any tool that existed in the old industry, but was brought in from
an outside quarter as a novel affair when man appropriated to himself
the work hitherto cultivated by woman. The development was one from
outside, not from within. All efforts, accordingly, which view the
subject solely from the technological angle, and try to derive the
wheel from previous devices of the female potter, are futile and
misleading. It is as erroneous as tracing the plough back to the hoe or
digging-stick, whereas, in fact, the two are in no historical
interrelation and belong to fundamentally different culture strata and
periods—the hoe to the gardening activity of woman, the plough to the
agricultural activity of man. Both in India and China the division of
ceramic labour sets apart the thrower or wheel-potter, and distinctly
separates him from the moulder. The potters in India, who work on the
wheel, do not intermarry with those who use a mould or make images.
They form a caste by themselves.” [17]
The oldest wheel-made pottery is found in Egypt. There can be no doubt
that the potter’s wheel was invented in that country. It was imported
into Crete, which had trading relations with the merchants of the
ancient Pharaohs, as far back as about 3000 B.C. Before the wheel was
adopted the Cretans made stone vessels, following Egyptian patterns,
but using soft stone instead of hard. Their hand-made pottery
degenerated, as did the Egyptian. “Pottery came again to its own in
both countries”, writes Mr. H. R. Hall, “with the invention of the
potter’s wheel and the baking-furnace.” [18]
The potter’s wheel must have found a ready market in the old days. It
was adopted, in time, in western Europe; it was quickly “taken up” in
Babylonia and in Iran, and was ultimately introduced into India and
China. But only the high Asiatic civilizations were capable of
constructing it, and consequently wheel-made pottery is not found
everywhere. Among the “aboriginal Americans” the wheel was never
employed. It is an interesting fact that the mind of man, which is
alleged to “work” on the same lines everywhere, never “evolved” a
potter’s wheel in Mexico or Peru. [19] Major Gordon tells that in Assam
[20] “the women fashion the pots by hand; they do not use the potter’s
wheel”. Similar evidence is obtainable in various other countries. In
China there are wheel-potters and moulders, and a distinction is drawn
between them by ancient writers. “This clear distinction is accentuated
by Chu Yen in his treatise on pottery. [21] He justly observes also
that the articles made by the wheel-potters were all intended for
cooking, with the exception of the vessel yu, which was designed for
measuring; while the output of the moulders, who made the ceremonial
vessels kuei and tou by availing themselves of the plumb-line, was
intended for sacrificial use. Also here, in like manner as in ancient
Rome, India, and Japan, the idea may have prevailed that a wheel-made
jar is of a less sacred character than one made by hand.” [22] Here
then we touch on another point which must be borne in mind by those who
draw conclusions regarding ancient cultures by means of pottery. In
Britain, for instance, a rather coarse pottery is found in graves. It
is possible that a better pottery was made for everyday use. The
conservatism of burial customs may have caused coarser pottery to be
put into graves than the early folks were capable of producing during
the period at which the burial took place.
The wheel-pottery was as sacred to some cults as the hand-made was to
others. Even the potter’s wheel was sacred. In Egypt the Ptah cult
adopted it, as has been stated; in India it was a symbol of the
Creator; in China (as in ancient Egypt) the idea originally prevailed
that the Creator was a potter who turned on his wheel the sun and the
moon, man and woman, although in time this myth became a philosophical
abstraction. The symbolism of Jeremiah has similarly a history:
“O house of Israel, cannot I do with you as this potter? saith the
Lord. Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in
mine hand, O house of Israel.”—Chapter XVIII, 6.
St. Paul, too, refers to the potter:
“Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the
thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make
one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?” (Romans, ix,
20–21.)
Chinese emperors were compared to potters. They were credited with the
power to control a nation as the potter controlled his wheel. The
ancient peoples who adopted the Egyptian potter’s wheel evidently
learned that it was of divine origin. They adopted the Egyptian beliefs
and myths associated with it. Withal, the wheel was associated with the
agricultural mode of life, having originated in a country of
agriculturists. Ptah, the divine potter, was, like all the other
prominent gods of Egypt, fused with Osiris—the god who was, among other
things, the “culture hero”. The Chinese “culture hero”, Shun, who
became emperor, is said to have “practised husbandry, fishing, and
making pottery jars”. He manufactured clay vessels without flaw on the
river bank. [23]
The Chinese culture hero, Shen-ming (“Divine Husbandman”) “was regarded
as the father of agriculture and the discoverer of the healing property
of plants”. In ancient Chinese lore “we meet a close association of
agriculture with pottery, and an illustration of the fact that
husbandman and potter were one and the same person during the primeval
period”. [24]
Memories of Ptah-Osiris clung to the potter’s wheel. The trade routes
must have hummed with stories about the god who had gifted this
wonderful contrivance to mankind. These stories were localized in
various countries, and they took on the colour of the period during
which the wheel was imported. In Japan, the Ptah legend has been given
a Buddhistic significance. The potter’s wheel is reputed there to be
the invention of the famous Korean monk, Gyõgi (A.D. 670–749). No doubt
the first potter’s wheel reached Japan from Korea, whence came the
conquerors of the Ainus. But there is evidence that it was in use long
before Buddhism “drifted” along the sea route from the mainland in the
sixth century, to become curiously mixed up with Shintoism two
centuries later. The priests of Buddhism, who transformed the Shinto
gods into “avatars” of Buddha, no doubt also identified the far-carried
Ptah-Osiris with their monk—the Japanese “culture hero”.
The earliest pottery in Japan was manufactured by the Ainus and was
“hand-shaped” by the women. A similar pottery was produced in Korea.
The wheel-made variety made its appearance when Chinese culture spread
through Korea during the Silla kingdom period, which began about the
time (A.D. 59) when the earliest Japanese, according to their own
traditions, migrated to the islands that bear their name. No doubt the
traders were active on sea and land long before the Japanese conquered
the islands of the Ainus and the Chinese overran Korea. Great
migrations and conquests in ancient times were indirectly stimulated by
trade. A new culture was introduced into backward communities by the
early prospectors and trading colonists, and these communities in time
acquired weapons, reared the domesticated horse, and took to the sea
after having learned how to build and navigate ships similar to those
introduced by the traders.
When the potter’s wheel was introduced into Korea, the clay vessels
were shaped in imitation of Chinese pottery. There can remain no doubt,
therefore, as to whence the wheel came. China was the chief centre of
early civilization in the Far East, and its influence spread far and
wide. There are some who think that Burma was during its early period
in closer touch with China than with India; but more evidence than is
yet available is required to establish this theory. The earliest
civilization in southern China of which we have knowledge was of Indian
origin. The sea traders who had crossed the Indian Ocean reached the
Burmese coast several centuries before the Christian era, as the
archaic character of Burmese river boats suggests. It may be, however,
that the potter’s wheel was carried along the mid-Asian trade routes
long before the shippers coasted round to Chinese waters. There can be
no doubt that the potter’s wheel was introduced into China at a very
remote period. Investigators are unable to discover any native legends
regarding its origin. Nor are there any traditions regarding female
potters. The culture heroes of China who made the first pots appear to
have used the wheel, and the Chinese potter’s wheel is identical with
the Egyptian.
When the wheel was introduced into Japan, hand-made pottery was in use
for religious purposes, and for long afterwards the vessels used at
Shinto shrines were not turned on the wheel. In India, hand-made
pottery was similarly reserved for religious worship after the
wheel-made variety came into use. [25] The wheel did not reach southern
India until its Iron Age. [26] When the southern India Iron Age began
is uncertain. It was not, of course, an “Age” in the real sense, but a
cultural “stage”. Iron was known and apparently in use during the
Aryo-Indian Vedic period in the north. [27]
The potter’s wheel was introduced into Babylonia at a very remote
period. From Babylonia it was carried into Persia. The Avestan word for
kiln is tanura, which is believed, according to Laufer, to be a loan
word from Semitic tanur.
There are, of course, no records regarding the introduction of the
potter’s wheel into Babylonia, India, or China. All that we know
definitely is that it first came into use in Egypt, and that it was
afterwards adopted in the various ancient centres of civilization from
which cultural influences “flowed” to various areas. With the wheel
went certain religious ideas and customs. These are not found in the
areas unreached by the potter’s wheel.
China appears to have been influenced at the dawn of its history by the
culture represented by the Egyptian wheel.
CHAPTER III
ANCIENT MARINERS AND EXPLORERS
The Chinese Junk—Kufas—The Ancient “Reed Float” and Skin-buoyed
Raft—“Two floats of the Sky”—Dug-out Canoes—Where Shipping was
developed—Burmese and Chinese Junks resemble Ancient Egyptian
Ships—Cretan and Phœnician Mariners—Africa circumnavigated—Was
Sumeria colonized by Sea-farers?—Egyptian Boats on Sea of
Okhotsk—Japanese and Polynesian Boats—Egyptian Types in
Mediterranean and Northern Europe—Stories of Long Voyages in Small
Craft—Visit of Chinese Junk to the Thames—Solomon’s Ships.
Further important evidence regarding cultural contact in early times is
afforded by shipping. How came it about that an inland people like the
primitive Chinese took to seafaring?
The question that first arises in this connection is: Were ships
invented and developed by a single ancient people, or were they
invented independently by various ancient peoples at different periods?
Were the Chinese junks of independent origin? Or were these junks
developed from early models of vessels—such foreign vessels as first
cruised in Chinese waters?
Chinese junks are flat-bottomed ships, and the largest of them reach
about 1000 tons. The poops and fore-castles are high, and the masts
carry lug-sails, generally of bamboo splits. They are fitted with
rudders. Often on the bows appear painted or inlaid eyes. These eyes
are found on models of ancient Egyptian ships.
During the first Han dynasty (about 206 B.C.) junks of “one thousand
kin” (about 15 tons) were regarded as very large vessels. In these
boats the early Chinese navigators appear to have reached Korea and
Japan. But long before they took to the sea there were other mariners
in the China sea.
The Chinese were, as stated, originally an inland people. They were
acquainted with river kufas (coracles) before they reached the
seashore. These resembled the kufas of the Babylonians referred to by
Herodotus, who wrote:
“The boats which come down the river to Babylon are circular, and made
of skins. The frames, which are of willow, are cut in the country of
the Armenians above Assyria, and on these, which serve for hulls, a
covering of skins is stretched outside, and thus the boats are made,
without either stem or stern, quite round like a shield.” [28]
These kufas are still in use in Mesopotamia. They do not seem to have
altered much since the days of Hammurabi, or even of Sargon of Akkad.
The Assyrians crossed rivers on skin floats, and some of the primitive
peoples of mid-Asia are still using the inflated skins of cows as river
“ferry-boats”. But such contrivances hardly enter into the history of
shipping. The modern liner did not “evolve” from either kufa or skin
float. Logs of wood were, no doubt, used to cross rivers at an early
period. The idea of utilizing these may have been suggested to ancient
hunters who saw animals being carried down on trees during a river
flood. But attempts to utilize a tree for crossing a river would have
been disastrous when first made, if the hunters were unable to swim.
Trees are so apt to roll round in water. Besides, they would be useless
if not guided with a punting-pole, expertly manipulated. Early man must
have learned how to navigate a river by using, to begin with, at least
two trees lashed together. In Egypt and Babylonia we find traces of his
first attempts in this connection. The reed float, consisting of two
bundles of reeds, and the raft to which the inflated skins of animals
were attached to give it buoyancy, were in use at an early period on
the Rivers Nile and Euphrates. A raft of this kind had evidently its
origin among a people accustomed, as were the later Assyrians, to use
skin floats when swimming across rivers. There are sculptured
representations of the Assyrian soldiers swimming with inflated skins
under their chests.
The reed float was in use at a very early period on the Nile. Professor
Breasted says that the two prehistoric floats were “bound firmly
together, side by side, like two huge cigars”, and adds the following
interesting note: “The writer was once without a boat in Nubia, and a
native from a neighbouring village at once hurried away and returned
with a pair of such floats made of dried reeds from the Nile shores. On
this somewhat precarious craft he ferried the writer over a wide
channel to an island in the river. It was the first time that the
author had ever seen this contrivance, and it was not a little
interesting to find a craft which he knew only in the Pyramid texts of
5000 years ago still surviving and in daily use on the ancient river in
far-off Nubia.”
In the Pyramid texts there are references to the reed floats used by
the souls of kings when being ferried across the river to death. The
gods “bind together the two floats for this King Pepi”, runs a Pyramid
text. “The knots are tied, the ferry-boats are brought together”, says
another, and there are allusions to the ferryman (the prehistoric
Charon) standing in the stern and poling the float. Before the Egyptian
sun-god was placed in a boat, he had “two floats of the sky” to carry
him along the celestial Nile to the horizon. [29]
The “dug-out” canoe was probably developed from the raft. Men who
drifted timber down a river may have had the idea of a “dug-out”
suggested to them by first shaping a seat on a log, or a “hold” to
secure the food-supply for the river voyage. Pitt Rivers suggests that
after the discovery was made that a hollowed log could be utilized in
water, “the next stage in the development of the canoe would consist in
pointing the ends”. [30]
In what locality the dug-out canoe was invented it is impossible to say
with absolute certainty. All reliable writers on naval architecture
agree, however, that Egypt was the “cradle” of naval architecture. [31]
“For the development of the art of shipbuilding,” says Chatterton, “few
countries could be found as suitable as Egypt.... The peacefulness of
the waters of the Nile, the absence of storms, and the rarity of calms,
combined with the fact that, at any rate, during the winter and early
spring months, the gentle north wind blew up the river with the
regularity of a Trade Wind, so enabling the ships to sail against the
stream without the aid of oars—these were just the conditions that many
another nation might have longed for. Very different, indeed, were the
circumstances which had to be wrestled with in the case of the first
shipbuilders and sailormen of Northern Europe.” [32]
The early Egyptians were continually crossing the river. When they
began to convey stones from their quarries, they required substantial
rafts. Egyptian needs promoted the development of the art of navigation
on a river specially suited for experiments that led to great
discoveries. The demand for wood was always great, and it was
intensified after metal-working had been introduced, because of the
increased quantities of fuel required to feed the furnaces. It became
absolutely necessary for the Egyptians to go far afield in search of
timber. The fact that they received supplies of timber at an early
period from Lebanon is therefore of special interest. Their experiences
in drifting rafts of timber across the Mediterranean from the Syrian
coast apparently not only stimulated naval architecture and increased
the experiences of early navigators, but inaugurated the habit of
organizing seafaring expeditions on a growing scale. “Men”, says
Professor Elliot Smith, “did not take to maritime trafficking either
for aimless pleasure or for idle adventure. They went to sea only under
the pressure of the strongest incentives.” [33]
The Mediterranean must have been crossed at a very early period.
Settlements of seafarers took place in Crete before 3000 B.C. [34] On
the island have been found flakes of obsidian that were imported at the
dawn of its history from the Island of Melos. No doubt obsidian
artifacts were used in connection with the construction of vessels
before copper implements became common.
The earliest evidence of shipbuilding as an organized and important
national industry is found in the Egyptian tomb pictures of the Old
Kingdom period (c. 2400 B.C.). Gangs of men, under overseers, are seen
constructing many kinds of boats, large and small. There are records of
organized expeditions dating back 500 years earlier. Pharaoh Snefru
built vessels “nearly one hundred and seventy feet long”. He sent “a
fleet of forty vessels to the Phœnician coast to procure cedar logs
from the slopes of Lebanon”. [35] Expeditions were also sent across the
Red Sea. Vessels with numerous oars, and even vessels with sails, are
depicted on Egyptian prehistoric pottery dating back to anything like
6000 B.C. In no other country in the world was seafaring and
shipbuilding practised at such a remote period.
The earliest representations of deep-sea boats are found in Egypt. One
is seen in the tomb of Sahure, of the Fifth Dynasty (c. 2600 B.C.). A
great expedition sailed to Punt (Somaliland) during the reign of Queen
Halshepsut (c. 1500 B.C.). Five of the highly-developed vessels are
depicted in her temple at Deir-el-Bahari. It is of interest to compare
one of these vessels with a Chinese junk. “Between the Chinese and
Burmese junks of to-day and the Egyptian ships of about six thousand
years ago there are”, writes E. Kebel Chatterton, “many points of
similarity.... Until quite recently, China remained in the same state
of development for four thousand years. If that was so with her arts
and life generally, it has been especially so in the case of her
sailing craft.” Both the Chinese junk and the ancient Egyptian ship
“show a common influence and a remarkable persistence in type”. [36]
“Are we to believe”, a reader asks, “that the ancient Egyptian
navigators went as far as China? Is there any proof that they made long
voyages? Were the ancient Egyptians not a people who lived in isolation
for a prolonged period?” [37]
It is not known definitely how far the ancient Egyptian mariners went
after they had begun to venture to sea. But one thing is certain. They
made much longer voyages than were credited to them a generation ago.
The Phœnicians, who became the sea-traders of the Egyptians, learned
the art of navigation from those Nilotic adventurers who began to visit
their coast at a very early period in quest of timber; they adopted the
Egyptian style of craft, as did the Cretans, their predecessors in
Mediterranean sea trafficking. By the time of King Solomon the
Phœnicians had established colonies in Spain, and were trading not only
from Carthage in the Mediterranean, but apparently with the British
Isles, while they were also active in the Indian Ocean. They were
evidently accustomed to make long voyages of exploration. At the time
of the Jewish captivity, Pharaoh Necho (609–593 B.C.) sent an
expedition of Phœnicians from the Red Sea to circumnavigate Africa.
They returned three years later by way of Gibraltar. But their voyage
excited no surprise in Egypt. [38] It had long been believed by the
priests that the world was surrounded by water. Besides, these priests
preserved many traditions of long voyages that had been made to distant
lands.
There are those who believe that the early Egyptian mariners, who were
accustomed to visit British East Africa and sail round the Arabian
coast, founded the earliest colony in Sumeria (ancient Babylonia) at
the head of the Persian Gulf. The cradle of Sumerian culture was Eridu,
“the sea port”. The god of Eridu was Ea, who had a ship with pilot and
crew. According to Babylonian traditions, he instructed the people, as
did Osiris in Egypt, how to irrigate the land, grow corn, build houses
and temples, make laws, engage in trade, and so on. He was remembered
as a monster—a goat-fish god, or half fish, half man. Apparently he was
identical with the Oannes of Berosus. It may be that Ea-Oannes
symbolized the seafarers who visited the coast and founded a colony at
Eridu, introducing the agricultural mode of life and the working of
copper. Early inland peoples must have regarded the mariners with whom
they first came into contact as semi-divine beings, just as the Cubans
regarded Columbus and his followers as visitors from the sky. The
Mongols of Tartary entertained quaint ideas about the British “foreign
devils” after they had fought in one of the early wars against China.
M. Huc, the French missionary priest of the congregation of St.
Lazarus, who travelled through Tartary, Tibet, and China during 1844–6,
had once an interesting conversation with a Mongol, who “had been told
by the Chinese what kind of people, or monsters rather, these English
were”. The story ran that the Englishmen “lived in the water like fish,
and when you least expected it, they would rise to the surface and cast
at you fiery gourds. Then as soon as you bend your bow to send an arrow
at them, they plunge again into the water like frogs.” [39]
Those who suppose that the Sumerians coasted round from the Persian
Gulf to the Red Sea, landed on the barren African coast, and, setting
out to cross a terrible desert, penetrated to the Nile valley along a
hitherto unexplored route of about 200 miles, have to explain what was
the particular attraction offered to them by prehistoric Egypt if,
according to their theory, it was still uncultivated and in the
“Hunting Age”. How came it about that they knew of a river which ran
through desert country?
It is more probable that the Nilotic people penetrated to the Red Sea
coast, and afterwards ventured to sea in their river boats, and that,
in time, having obtained skill in navigation, they coasted round to the
Persian Gulf. In pre-Dynastic times the Egyptians obtained shells from
the Red Sea coast.
At what period India was first reached is uncertain. When Solomon
imported peacocks from that country (the land of the peacock), the sea
route was already well known. It is significant to find that all round
the coast, from the Red Sea to India, Ceylon, and Burma, the Egyptian
types of vessels have been in use from the earliest seafaring periods.
The Burmese junks on the Irawadi resemble closely, as has been
indicated, the Nile boats of the ancient Egyptians. [40] The Chinese
junks were developed from Egyptian models. More antique Egyptian boats
than are found on the Chinese coast are still being used by the Koryak
tribe who dwell around the sea of Okhotsk. Mr. Chatterton says that the
Koryak craft have “important similarities to the Egyptian ships of the
Fourth and Fifth Dynasties (c. 3000–2500 B.C.). Thus, besides copying
the ancients in steering with an oar, the fore-end of the prow of their
sailing boats terminates in a fork through which the harpoon-line is
passed, the fork being sometimes carved with a human face which they
believe will serve as a protector of the boat. Instead of rowlocks they
have, like the early Egyptians, thong-loops through which the oar or
paddle is inserted. Their sail, too, is a rectangular shape of dressed
reindeer skins sewed together. But it is their mast that is especially
like the Egyptians and Burmese.” This mast is made of three poles “set
up in the manner of a tripod”. The double mast was common in ancient
Egypt, but Mr. Chatterton notes that Mr. Villiers Stuart “found on the
walls of a tomb belonging to the Sixth Dynasty (c. 2400 B.C.) at Gebel
Abu Faida, the painting of a boat with a treble mast made of three
spars arranged like the edges of a triangular pyramid”. [41] Thus we
find that vessels of Egyptian type (adopted by various peoples) not
only reached China but went a considerable distance beyond it. Japanese
vessels still display Egyptian characteristics. In the Moluccas and
Malays the ancient three-limbed mast has not yet gone out of fashion.
Polynesian craft were likewise developed from Egyptian models. William
Ellis, the missionary, [42] noted “the peculiar and almost classical
shape of the large Tahitian canoes”, with “elevated prow and stern”,
and tells that a fleet of them reminded him of representations of “the
ships in which the Argonauts sailed, or the vessels that conveyed the
heroes of Homer to the siege of Troy”.
Various writers have called attention to the persistence of Egyptian
types in the Mediterranean and in northern Europe. “In every age and
every district of the ancient world”, wrote Mr. Cecil Torr, the great
authority on classic shipping, “the method of rigging ships was
substantially the same; and this method is first depicted by the
Egyptians.” [43]
The Far Eastern craft went long distances in ancient days. Ellis tells
of regular voyages made by Polynesian chiefs which extended to 300 and
even 600 miles. A chief from Rurutu once visited the Society Islands in
a native boat built “somewhat in the shape of a crescent, the stem and
stern high and pointed and the sides deep”. [44] Sometimes
exceptionally long voyages were forced by the weather conditions of
Oceania. “In 1696”, Ellis writes, “two canoes were driven from Ancarso
to one of the Philippine Islands, a distance of 800 miles.” He gives
other instances of voyages of like character. A Christian missionary,
travelling in a native boat, was carried “nearly 800 miles in a
south-westerly direction”. [45] Reference has already been made to the
long and daring voyage made by the Phœnicians who circumnavigated
Africa. Another extraordinary enterprise is referred to by Pliny the
elder, [46] who quotes from the lost work of Cornelius Nepos. This was
a voyage performed by Indians who had, before 60 B.C., embarked on a
commercial voyage and reached the coast of Germany. It is uncertain
whether they sailed round the Cape of Good Hope and up the Atlantic
Ocean, or went northward past Japan and discovered the north-east
passage, skirting the coast of Siberia, and sailing round Lapland and
Norway to the Baltic. They were made prisoners by the Suevians and
handed over to Quintus Metellus Celer, pro-consular governor of Gaul.
In 1770 Japanese navigators reached the northern coast of Siberia and
landed at Kamchatka. They were taken to St. Petersburg, where they were
received by the Empress of Russia, who treated them with marked
kindness. In 1847–8 the Chinese junk Keying sailed from Canton to the
Thames and caused no small sensation on its arrival. This vessel
rounded the Horn and took 477 days to complete the voyage.
Solomon’s ships made long voyages: “Once every three years came the
navy of Tarshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and
peacocks”. [47]
As in the case of the potter’s wheel, cultural elements were
distributed far and wide by the vessels of the most ancient of
mariners. Before tracing these elements in China, it would be well to
deal with the motives that impelled early seafarers to undertake long
and adventurous voyages of exploration and to found colonies in distant
lands.
CHAPTER IV
THE WORLD-WIDE SEARCH FOR WEALTH
Religious Incentive of Quest of Wealth—Sacredness of Precious
Metals and Stones—Gold and the Sky Deities—Iron as the Devil’s
Metal—Chinese Dragons and Metals—Gold good and Silver bad in
India—Dragons and Copper—Sulphuret of Mercury as “Dragon’s Blood”
and Elixir of Life—Dragons and Pearls—The “Jewel that grants all
Desires”—Story of Buddhist Abbot and the Sea-God—“Jewels of Flood
and Ebb”—Japan and Korea—Sea-god as “Abundant Pearl Prince”—Pearl
Fishers—Early History of Sea-trafficking—Traders and Colonists—Cow,
Moon, Shells, and Pearls connected with Mother-goddess—The Sow
Goddess—Shell Beliefs—Culture Drifts and Culture Complexes.
There can be no doubt as to the reasons why Solomon sought to emulate
the maritime activities of the Phœnicians who had been bringing
peacocks from India, silver from Spain, and gold from West Africa and
elsewhere long before his day.
“And King Solomon made a navy of ships in Ezion-geber, which is
beside Eloth, on the shore of the Red Sea, in the land of Edom. And
Hiram sent in the navy his servants, shipmen that had knowledge of
the sea, with the servants of Solomon. And they came to Ophir, and
fetched from thence gold, four hundred and twenty talents, and
brought it to King Solomon.” [48]
When the Queen of Sheba visited Jerusalem she was accompanied by
“camels that bare spices, and very much gold, and precious stones”.
[49] About seven centuries before Solomon’s day, Queen Hatshepsut of
Egypt, to whom reference was made in the last chapter, had emulated the
feats of her ancestors by sending a fleet to Punt (Somaliland or
British East Africa) to bring back, among other things, myrrh trees for
her new temple. The myrrh was required “for the incense in the temple
service”. [50] Ancient mariners set out on long voyages, not only on
the quest of wealth, but also of various articles required for
religious purposes. Indeed, the quest of wealth had originally
religious associations. Gold, silver, copper, pearls, and precious
stones were all sacred, and it was because of their connection with the
ancient deities that they were first sought for. The so-called
“ornaments” worn by our remote ancestors were charms against evil and
ill luck. Metals were similarly supposed to have protective qualities.
Iron is still regarded in the Scottish Highlands as a charm against
fairy attack. In China it is a protection against dragons. The souls of
the Egyptian dead were “charmed” in the other world by the amulets
placed in their tombs. When the Pharaoh’s soul entered the boat of the
sun-god he was protected by metals. “Brought to thee”, a Pyramid text
states, “are blocks of silver and masses of malachite.” [51] Gold was
the metal of the sun-god and silver of the deity of the moon. Horus had
associations with copper, and Ptah, the god of craftsmen, with various
metals. Iron was “the bones of Set”, the Egyptian devil. In Greece and
India the mythical ages were associated with metals, and iron was the
metal of the dark age of evil (the Indian “Kali Yuga”).
In China the metals have similarly religious associations. The
dragon-gods of water, rain, and thunder are connected with gold of
various hues—the “golds” coloured by the alchemists by fusion with
other metals. Thus we have Chinese references to red, yellow, white,
blue, and black gold, as in the following extract:
“When the yellow dragon, born from yellow gold a thousand years
old, enters a deep place, a yellow spring dashes forth; and if from
this spring some particles (fine dust) arise, these become a yellow
cloud.
“In the same way blue springs and blue clouds originate from blue
dragons, born from blue gold eight hundred years old; red, white,
and black springs and clouds from red, white, and black dragons
born from gold of same colours a thousand years old.” [52]
In Indian Vedic lore gold is a good metal and silver a bad metal. One
of the Creation Myths states in this connection:
“He (Prajapati) created Asuras (demons). That was displeasing to
him. That became the precious metal with the bad colour (silver).
This was the origin of silver. He created gods. That was pleasing
to him. That became the precious metal with the good colour (gold).
That was the origin of gold.” [53]
The dragon of the Far East is associated with copper as well as gold.
In the Japanese Historical Records the story is told how the Emperor
Hwang brought down a dragon so that he might ride on its back through
the air. He first gathered copper on a mountain. Then he cast a tripod.
Immediately a dragon, dropping its whiskers, came down to him. After
the monarch had used the god as an “airship”, no fewer than seventy of
his subjects followed his example. Hwang was the monarch who prepared
the “liquor of immortality” (the Japanese “soma”) by melting cinnabar
(sulphuret of mercury, known as “dragon’s blood”). Chinese dragons,
according to Wang Fu in ’Rh ya yih, dread iron and like precious
stones. In Japan the belief prevailed that if iron and filth were flung
into ponds the dragons raised hurricanes that devastated the land. The
Chinese roused dragons, when they wanted rain, by making a great noise
and by throwing iron into dragon pools. Iron has “a pungent nature” and
injures the eyes of dragons, and they rise to protect their eyes.
Copper has, in China, associations with darkness and death. The “Stone
of Darkness” is hollow and contains water or “the vital spirit of
copper”. [54] Dragons are fond of these stones and of beautiful gems.
[55]
The dragon-shaped sea-gods of India and the dragon-gods of China and
Japan have close associations with pearls. In a sixth-century Chinese
work, [56] it is stated that pearls are spit out by dragons. Dragons
have pearls “worth a hundred pieces of gold” in their mouths, under
their throats, or in their pools. When dragons fight in the sky, pearls
fall to the ground. De Groot [57] makes reference to “thunder pearls”
that dragons have dropped from their mouths. These illuminate a house
by night. In Wang Fu’s description of the dragon it is stated that a
dragon has “a bright pearl under its chin”.
A mountain in Japan is called Ryushuho, which means “Dragon-Pearl
Peak”. It is situated in Fuwa district of Mino province, and is
associated in a legend with the Buddhist temple called “Cloud-Dragon
Shrine”. When this temple was being erected, a dragon, carrying a pearl
in its mouth, appeared before one of the priests. Mountain and
sanctuary were consequently given dragon names.
The “jewel that grants all desires” is known in India, China, and
Japan. A Japanese story relates that once upon a time an Indian
Buddhist abbot, named Bussei (Buddha’s vow), set out on a voyage with
purpose to obtain this jewel (a pearl) which was possessed by “the
dragon king of the ocean”. In the midst of the sea the boat hove to
while Bussei performed a ceremony and repeated a charm, causing the
dragon-king to appear. The abbot, making a mystic sign, then demanded
the pearl; but the dragon deceived him and nullified the mystic sign.
Rising in the air, “the King of the Ocean” caused a great storm to
rage. The boat was destroyed and all on board it, except Bussei, were
drowned. Bussei afterwards migrated from southern India to Japan,
accompanied by Baramon (“Wall-gazing Brahman”).
The “Jewels of Flood and Ebb” were jewels that granted desires. In
Japanese legend these were possessed by the dragon king (Sagara), whose
kingdom, like that of the Indian Naga monarch and that of the Gaelic
ruler of “Land Under-Waves”, is situated at the bottom of the sea. The
white jewel is called “Pearl of Ebb”, and the blue jewel “Pearl of
Flood”.
A Japanese story relates that the Empress Jingo obtained from a sea-god
a “jewel that grants all desires”. During her reign a great fleet went
to Korea to obtain tribute. The Korean fleet went out to meet it, but
when it was drawn up for battle, a Japanese god cast into the sea the
“Pearl of Ebb”, and immediately the waters withdrew, leaving both
fleets stranded. The resolute King of Korea, not to be daunted, leapt
on to the dried sea-bed, and, marshalling his troops there, advanced at
the head of them to attack and destroy the Japanese fleet. Then the
Japanese god flung the “Pearl of Flood” into the sea. No sooner was
this done than the waters returned and drowned large numbers of
Koreans. Then a tidal wave swept over the Korean shore, while the
troops prayed for their lives in vain. Not until the “Pearl of Ebb” was
thrown once again into the sea did the waters retreat from the land.
After these miraculous and disastrous manifestations, the King of Korea
was glad to make peace, and sent out three vessels laden with tribute
to the empress, who had conquered the enemy without the loss of a
single Japanese soldier or sailor, or even a single drop of Japanese
blood.
Other names of the Japanese sea-god Sagara [58] are Oho-watatsumi (“sea
lord, or sea snake”), and Toyo-tama hiko no Mikoto (“Abundant Pearl
Prince”), and he has a daughter named Toyo-tama-bime (“Abundant Pearl
Princess”). [59] During storms, sailors threw jewels into the sea to
pacify the dragon king.
Chinese emperors, like the Egyptian Pharaohs, had dragon boats which
were used in connection with religious rain-getting ceremonies. They
had also the bird boats called “yih”. Mr. Wells Williams refers to the
yih as “a kind of sea-bird that flies high, whose figure is gaily
painted on the sterns of junks, to denote their swift sailing”. He adds
that “the descriptions are contradictory, but its picture rudely
resembles a heron”. [60]
It will be gathered from the evidence summarized above that the
seafaring activities of the Chinese and Japanese had close associations
with the search for precious metals and stones and pearls on the part
of those who introduced the Egyptian type of vessels into their waters.
With these ships went many customs and beliefs that became mixed with
local customs and beliefs. New modes of life were introduced, and, with
these, new modes of thought. Nothing persists like immemorial customs,
myths, and religious beliefs associated with a particular mode of life.
Before the culture-complexes of China and Japan are investigated, so
that local elements may be sifted out from the overlying mass of
imported elements, it would be well to deal with the history of the
search for wealth across the oceans of the world.
It is necessary, therefore, to turn back again to the cradle of
shipbuilding and maritime enterprise—to ancient Egypt with its
wonderful civilization of over 3000 years that sent its influences far
and wide. Whether or not the Egyptians ever reached China or Japan, we
have no means of knowing. Pauthier’s view in this connection has come
in for a good deal of destructive criticism. He referred to a Chinese
tradition that about 1113 B.C. the Court was visited by seafarers from
the kingdom of “Nili”, and suggested that they came from the Nile
valley. [61] The “Nili”, “Nēlē”, or “Nērē” folk, according to others,
came from the direction of Japan or from beyond Korea. References to
them are somewhat obscure. It does not follow that because Egyptian
ships reached China, they were manned by Egyptians. Ships were, like
potter’s wheels, adopted by folks who may never have heard of Egypt. A
culture flows far beyond the areas reached by those who have given it a
definite character, just as the Bantu dialects have penetrated to areas
in Africa far beyond Bantu control.
What motives, then, stimulated maritime enterprise at the dawn of the
history of sea-trafficking? What attracted the ancient mariners? If it
was wealth, what was “wealth” to them?
The answer to the last query is that wealth was something with a
religious significance. Gold was searched for, but not, to begin with,
for the purpose of making coins. There was no coinage. Gold was a
precious metal in the sense that it brought luck, and to the ancient
people “luck” meant everything they yearned for in this world and the
next.
As far back as the so-called “Palæolithic period” in western Europe,
there was, as has been noted, a systematic search for wealth in the
form of sea-shells. The hunters in central Europe imported shells from
the Mediterranean coast and used them as amulets. These imported shells
are found in their graves. In Ancient Egypt, shells were carried from
the Red Sea coast, as well as from the Mediterranean coast, long before
the historical period begins. The evidence of the grave-finds shows
that Red Sea pearl-shell and Red Sea cowries were in use for religious
purposes. “Millions of them”, as Maspero has noted, have been found in
Ancient Egyptian graves. In time, pearls came into use, not only pearls
from Nile mussels, but from oysters found in the southern part of the
Gulf of Aden. As shipping developed, the pearl-fishers went farther and
farther in search of pearls. The famous ancient pearl area in the
Persian Gulf was discovered and drawn upon at some remote period. No
doubt the pearls worn by Assyrian and Persian monarchs came, in part,
from the Persian Gulf. At what period Ceylon pearls were first fished
for it is impossible to say. Of one thing we can be certain, however.
They were fished for by men who used the Egyptian type of vessel.
The migrating and trading pearl-fishers carried their beliefs with them
from land to land. Almost everywhere are found the same beliefs and
practices connected with shells and pearls. These beliefs and practices
are of a highly complex character—so complex, indeed, that they must
have had an area of origin in which they reflected the beliefs and
customs of a people with a history of their own. The pearl, for
instance, was connected with the moon, with the goddess who was the
Great Mother, and with the sun and the sun-god. Venus (Aphrodite) was
sea-born. She was lifted from the sea, by Tritons, seated on a shell.
She was the pearl—the vital essence of the magic shell, and she was the
moon, the “Pearl of Heaven”. The pearl, like the moon, was supposed to
exercise an influence over human beings. In Egypt, the Mother Goddess
was symbolized by a cow, and cow, moon, pearl, and shell were connected
in an arbitrary way.
In those areas in which the Mother Goddess was symbolized by the sow,
the shell was likewise connected with her. The Greeks applied to the
cowry a word that means “little pig”; this word had a special reference
to the female sex. The Romans called the shell “porci”, and porcelain
has a like derivation. [62] As has been shown, women were connected
with hand-made pottery, and the pot was a symbol of the Great Mother.
In Scotland, certain shells are still referred to as “cows” and “pigs”.
They were anciently believed to promote fertility and bring luck. The
custom of placing shells on window-sills, at doors, in fire-places, and
round garden plots still obtains in parts of England, Scotland, and
Ireland. Some low-reliefs of mother goddesses with baskets of fruit,
corn, &c., surviving from the Romano-British period, which have been
found in various parts of Britain, have shell-canopies. The Romans
“took over” the goddesses of the peoples of western Europe on whom they
imposed their rule, as they took over the Greek pantheon.
Following the clues afforded by the evidence of ships, it is found that
the early pearl-fishers coasted round from the Red Sea to the Persian
Gulf, round India to the Bay of Bengal, round the Malay Peninsula to
the China Sea, northwards to the Sea of Okhotsk, and on to the western
coast of North America. Oceania was peopled by the ancient mariners,
who appear to have reached by this route the coast of South America. As
we have seen, Africa was circumnavigated. Western and north-western
Europe and the British Isles were reached at a very early period.
The ancient seafarers searched not only for pearls and pearl-shell, but
also for gold, silver, copper, tin, and other metals and for precious
stones. They appear to have founded trading colonies that became
centres from which cultural influences radiated far and wide. From
these colonies expeditions set out to discover new pearling grounds and
new mineral fields. The search for wealth, having a religious
incentive, caused, as has been said, the spread of religious ideas. In
different countries, imported beliefs and customs became mingled with
local beliefs and customs, with the result that in many countries are
found “culture complexes” which have a historical
significance—reflecting as they do the varied experiences of the
peoples and the influences introduced into their homelands at various
periods.
In the next chapter it will be shown how the dragon of China has a
history that throws much light on the early movements of explorers and
traders who carried the elements of complex cultures into far distant
lands.
CHAPTER V
CHINESE DRAGON LORE
Dragon Rain-god and Tiger-god of Mountains and Woods—Thunder-gods
of East and West—Shark-gods as Guardians of Treasure—Dragon and
Whale—Fish Vertebræ as Charms—Dragon and Dugong, Crocodile, Eel,
&c.—Polynesian Dragon as “Pearl-mother”—Chinese Dragon and “Stag of
the Sky”—Babylonian Sea-god and the Antelope, Gazelle, Stag, and
Goat—Babylonian Dragon-slayers—Egyptian Gazelle- and
Antelope-gods—Osiris as a Sea-god—African Antelope and Asiatic
Dragon—The Serpent as “Water Confiner” in Egypt and India—Chinese
Dragon has “Nature of Serpent”—Ancient Attributes of Far-Eastern
Dragon—Dragon Battles—Dragons in East and West—Stones as “Dragon
Eggs”—Dragon Mother and World Dragon—Dragons and Emperors.
The Chinese dragon is a strange mixture of several animals. Ancient
native writers like Wang Fu inform us that it has the head of a camel,
the horns of a stag, the eyes of a demon, the ears of a cow, the neck
of a snake, the belly of a clam, the scales of a carp, the claws of an
eagle, and the soles of a tiger. On its head is the chiʼih muh lump
that (like a “gas-bag”) enables it to soar through the air. The body
has three jointed parts, the first being “head to shoulders”, the
second, “shoulders to breast”, and the third, “breast to tail”. The
scales number 117, of which 81 are imbued with good influence (yang)
and 36 with bad influence (yin), for the dragon is partly a Preserver
and partly a Destroyer. Under the neck the scales are reversed. There
are five “fingers” or claws on each foot. The male dragon has whiskers,
and under the chin, or in the throat, is a luminous pearl. There is no
denying the importance and significance of that pearl.
A male dragon can be distinguished from a female one by its undulating
horn, which is thickest in the upper part. A female dragon’s nose is
straight. A horned dragon is called kʼiu-lung and a hornless one
chʼi-lung. Some dragons have wings. In addition there are
horse-dragons, snake-dragons, cow-dragons, toad-dragons, dog-dragons,
fish-dragons, &c., in China and Japan. Indeed, all hairy, feathered,
and scaled animals are more or less associated with what may be called
the “Orthodox Dragon”. The tiger is an enemy of the dragon, but there
are references to tiger-headed dragons. The dragon is a divinity of
water and rain, and the tiger a divinity of mountains and woods. [63]
The white tiger is a god of the west.
Like the deities of other countries, the Chinese dragon-god (and the
Japanese dragon) may appear in different shapes—as a youth or aged man,
as a lovely girl or an old hag, as a rat, a snake, a fish, a tree, a
weapon, or an implement. But no matter what its shape may be, the
dragon is intimately connected with water. It is a “rain lord” and
therefore the thunder-god who causes rain to fall. The Chinese dragon
thus links with the Aryo-Indian god Indra and other rain- and
thunder-gods connected with agriculture, including Zeus of Greece,
Tarku of Asia Minor, Thor of northern Europe, the Babylonian Marduk
(Merodach), &c. There are sea-dragons that send storms like the
wind-gods, and may be appeased with offerings. These are guardians of
treasure and especially of pearling-grounds. Apparently the early
pearl-fishers regarded the shark as the guardian of pearls. It seized
and carried away the “robbers” who dived for oysters. The chief sea-god
of China sometimes appeared in shark form—an enormous lion-headed
shark.
Procopius, a sixth-century writer, says in this connection: “Sea-dogs
are wonderful admirers of the pearl-fish, and follow them out to
sea.... A certain fisherman, having watched for the moment when the
shell-fish was deprived of the attention of its attendant sea-dog ...
seized the shell-fish and made for the shore. The sea-dog, however, was
soon aware of the theft, and, making straight for the fisherman, seized
him. Finding himself thus caught, he made a last effort, and threw the
pearl-fish on shore, immediately on which he was torn to pieces by its
protector.” [64]
In Polynesia the natives have superstitious ideas about the shark.
“Although”, says Ellis, “they would not only kill but eat certain kinds
of shark, the large blue sharks, Squalus glaucus, were deified by them,
and, rather than attempt to destroy them, they would endeavour to
propitiate their favour by prayers and offerings. Temples were erected,
in which priests officiated, and offerings were presented to the
deified sharks, while fishermen, and others who were much at sea,
sought their favour.” [65] Polynesian gods, like Chinese dragons,
appeared in various shapes. “One, for instance,” writes Turner, “saw
his god in the eel, another in the shark, another in the turtle,
another in the dog, another in the owl, another in the lizard; and so
on throughout all the fish of the sea, and birds, and four-footed
beasts and creeping things. In some of the shell-fish, even, gods were
supposed to be present.” [66] Here we meet again with the shell
beliefs. The avatars of dragons had pearls. In an old Chinese work the
story is told of a dragon that appeared in the shape of a little girl
sitting at the entrance of a cave and playing with three pearls. When a
man appeared, the child fled into the cave, and, reassuming dragon
form, put the pearls in its left ear. [67] As the guardian of pearls,
the Chinese dragon links with the shark-god of the early pearl-fishers.
There were varieties of these sea-gods. In Polynesia “they had”, Ellis
has recorded, “gods who were supposed to preside over the fisheries,
and to direct to their coasts the various shoals by which they were
periodically visited.” The Polynesians invoked their aid “either before
launching their canoes, or while engaged at sea”. It is of interest to
find in this connection that the dragon had associations with the
whale. Ancient mariners reverenced the whale. The Ligurians and Cretans
carried home portions of the backbones of whales. [68] The habit of
placing spines of fish in graves is of great antiquity in Europe. The
early seafarers who reached California during its prehistoric age
perpetuated this very ancient custom. Beuchat gives an illustration of
a kitchen-midden grave in California in which a whale’s vertebra is
shown near the human skeleton. [69] The swashtika appears among the
pottery designs of early American pottery. [70] The ancient Peruvians
worshipped the whale, and the Maori dragon was compared to one. [71] In
Scottish folk-lore witches sometimes assume the forms of whales.
The dolphin, the bluish dugong [72] (probably the “semi-human whale”
referred to by Ælian), and other denizens of the sea were regarded as
deities by ancient seafarers. De Groot, in his The Religious System of
China, quoting from the Shan hai King, relates that in the Eastern Sea
is a “Land of Rolling Waves”. In this region dwell sea-monsters that
are shaped like cows and have blue bodies. They are hornless and
one-legged. Each time they leave or enter the waters, winds arise and
rain comes down. Their voice is that of thunder and their glare that of
sun and moon.
The reference to the single leg may have been suggested by the fact
that when the dugong dives the tail comes into view. This interesting
sea-animal has been “recklessly and indiscriminately slaughtered” in
historic times.
Classical writers referred to some of the strange monsters seen by
their mariners as “sea-cows”. In like manner the Chinese have connected
denizens of the deep with different land animals.
The religious beliefs associated with various sea and land animals
cling to that composite god the dragon. In dealing with it, therefore,
we cannot ignore its history, not only in China but in those countries
that influenced Chinese civilization, while attention must also be paid
to countries that, like China, were influenced by the early sea and
land traders and colonists.
In Polynesia the dragon is called mo-o and mo-ko. “Their (the
Polynesian) use of this word in traditions”, says W. D. Westervelt,
[73] “showed that they often had in mind animals like crocodiles and
alligators, and sometimes they referred the name to any monster of
great mythical powers belonging to the man-destroying class. Mighty
eels, immense sea-turtles, large fish of the ocean, fierce sharks, were
all called mo-o. The most ancient dragons of the Hawaiians are spoken
of as living in pools or lakes.” Mr. Westervelt notes that “one dragon
lived in the Ewa lagoon, now known as ‘Pearl Harbour’. This was
Kane-kua-ana, who was said to have brought the pipi (oysters) to Ewa.
She [74] was worshipped by those who gather the shell-fish. When the
oysters began to disappear about 1850, the natives said the dragon had
become angry and was sending the oysters to Kahiki, or some far-away
foreign land.” It is evident that such a belief is of great antiquity.
The pearl under the chin of the Chinese dragon has, as will be seen, an
interesting history.
But, it may be asked here, what connection has a mountain stag with the
ancient pearl-fishers? As Wang Fu reminds us, the pearl-guarding
Chinese dragon has “the horns of a stag”. It was sometimes called, De
Groot states, [75] “the celestial stag”—the “stag of the sky”. This was
not merely a poetic image. The sea-god Ea of ancient Babylonia was in
one of his forms “the goat fish”, as some put it. Professor Sayce says,
in this connection, “Ea was called ‘the antelope of the deep’, ‘the
antelope the creator’, ‘the lusty antelope’. He was sometimes referred
to as ‘a gazelle’. Lubin, ‘a stag’, was a reduplicated form of elim, ‘a
gazelle’. Both words were equivalent to sarru, ‘king’.” [76] Whatever
the Ea land animal was—whether goat, gazelle, antelope, or stag—it was
associated with a sea-god who, according to Babylonian belief, brought
the elements of culture to the ancient Sumerians, who were developing
their civilization at the seaport of Eridu, then situated at the head
of the Persian Gulf, in which pearls were found. Ea was depicted as
half a land animal and half a fish, or as a man wrapped in the skin of
a gigantic fish as Egyptian deities were wrapped in the skins of wild
beasts. One of Ea’s names was Dagan, which was possibly the Dagon
worshipped also by the Philistines and by the inhabitants of Canaan
before the Philistines arrived from Kaphtor (the land of Keftiu, i.e.
Crete).
Ea was associated with the dragon Tiamat, which his son Marduk
(Merodach) slew. It is stated in Babylonian script that Ea “conferred
his name” on Marduk. In other words, Marduk supplanted Ea and took over
certain of his attributes, and part of his history. He was the god of
Babylon, which supplanted other cities, formerly capitals; he therefore
supplanted the chief gods of these cities.
Ea was originally the slayer of the dragon Tiamat and the conqueror of
the watery abyss over which he reigned, supplanting the dragon. [77] He
became the dragon himself—the “goat fish” or “antelope of the deep”—the
composite deity connected with animals deified by ancient hunters and
fishers whose beliefs were ultimately fused with those of others with
whom they were brought into close association in centres of culture.
Ea, who had a dragon form, was connected with the serpent, or “worm”,
as well as with the fish.
In Egypt Horus, Osiris, and Set were associated with the gazelle.
Osiris was, in one of his forms, the River Nile. He was not only the
Nile itself, but the controller of it; he was the serpent and soul of
the Nile, and he was the ocean into which the Nile flowed, and the
leviathan of the deep. In the Pyramid texts Osiris is addressed: “Thou
art great, thou art green, in thy name of Great-green (sea); lo, thou
art round as the Great Circle (Okeanos); lo, thou art turned about,
thou art round as the circle that encircles the Hauneba (Ægeans)”. [78]
Osiris was thus the serpent (dragon) that, lying in the ocean,
encircled the world. His son Horus is at one point in the Pyramid texts
(Nos. 1505–8) narrative “represented as crossing the sea”. [79] Horus
was sometimes depicted riding on the back of a gazelle or antelope. The
Egyptian antelope-god was in time fused with the serpent or dragon of
the sea. Referring to the evidence of Frobenius [80] in this
connection, Professor Elliot Smith says that “in some parts of Africa,
especially in the west, the antelope plays the part of the dragon in
Asiatic stories”. [81] When we reach India, it is found that the
wind-god, Vayu, rides on the back of the antelope. Vayu was fused with
Indra, the slayer of the dragon that controlled the water-supply, and,
indeed, retained it by enclosing it as the Osiris serpent of Egypt, or
the serpent-mother of Osiris, enclosed the water in its cavern during
the period of “the low Nile”, before the inundation took place. [82]
After Osiris, as the water-confining serpent (dragon) was slain, the
river ran red with his blood and rose in flood. Osiris, originally “a
dangerous god”, [83] was the “new” or “fresh” water of the inundation.
“The tradition of his unfavourable character”, Breasted comments,
“survived in vague reminiscences long centuries after he had gained
wide popularity.” Osiris ultimately became “the kindly dispenser of
plenty”, and his slayer, Set, originally a beneficent deity, was made
the villain of the story and fused with the dragon Apep, the symbol of
darkness and evil. This change appears to have been effected after the
introduction of the agricultural mode of life. The Nile, formerly the
destroyer, then became the preserver, sustainer, and generous giver of
“soul substance” and daily bread.
When the agricultural mode of life was introduced into China the
horned-dragon, or horned-serpent (for the dragon, Chinese writers
remind us, has “the nature of a serpent”), became the Osiris
water-serpent.
How a snake becomes a dragon is explained in the Shu i ki, which says:
“A water-snake after 500 years changes into a kiao, a kiao after 1000
years changes into a lung; [84] a lung after 500 years changes into a
kioh-lung, [85] and after 1000 years into a ying-lung. [86]” In Japan
is found, in addition, the pʼan-lung (“coiled dragon”), which has not
yet ascended to heaven. [87] The “coiled dragon” is evidently the
water-retaining monster.
The Chinese dragon is as closely connected with water as was the
serpent form of Osiris with the Nile in ancient Egypt, and as was Indra
with the “drought dragon” in India. The dragon dwells in pools, it
rises to the clouds, it thunders and brings rain, it floods rivers, it
is in the ocean, and controls the tides and causes the waters to ebb
and flow as do its magic pearls (the “Jewels of Flood and Ebb”), and it
is a symbol of the emperor. The Egyptian Pharaoh was an “avatar” of
Osiris, or Horus, [88] and the Chinese emperor was an “avatar” or
incarnation of the dragon. As water destroys, the dragon is a
destroyer; as water preserves and sustains, the dragon is a preserver
and sustainer.
The dragon, as has been indicated, is essentially the Chinese
water-god. “The ancient texts ... are short,” says de Visser, “but
sufficient to give us the main conceptions of old China with regard to
the dragon. He was in those early days, just like now, the god of
water, thunder, clouds, and rain, the harbinger of blessings, and the
symbol of holy men. As the emperors are the holy beings of earth, the
idea of the dragon being the symbol of imperial power is based upon
this ancient conception.” [89]
The Chinese “dragon well” is usually situated inside a deep mountain
cave. It was believed that the well owed its origin to the dragon. De
Visser quotes, in this connection, from an ancient sage, who wrote:
“When the yellow dragon, born from yellow gold a thousand years old,
enters a deep place, a yellow spring dashes forth, and if from this
spring some particles (fine dust) arise, these become a yellow cloud”.
A famous dragon well is situated at the top of Mount Pien, in Hu-cheu.
It flows from a cave, and is called “Golden Well Spring”. The cave is
known as the “Golden Well Cave”, and is supposed to be so deep that no
one can reach the end of it. There was a dragon well near Jerusalem.
[90] Other dragon wells are found as far west as Ireland and Scotland.
A cave with wells, called the “Dropping Cave”, at Cromarty, has a demon
in its inner recesses. The Corycian cave of the Anatolian Typhoon is
one of similar character. According to Greek legend, this
hundred-headed monster, from whose eyes lightning flashes, will one day
send hail, floods, and rivers of fire to lay waste Sicilian farms. [91]
The floods of the River Rhone were supposed to be caused by the “drac”.
In Egypt Set became the “roaring serpent”, who crept into a hole in the
ground, “wherein he hid himself and lived”. He had previously taken the
shapes of the crocodile and the hippopotamus to escape Horus, the
Egyptian “dragon slayer”.
In China the season of drought is winter. The dragons are supposed to
sleep in their pools during the dry spell, and that is why, in the old
Chinese work, Yih Lin, it is stated that “a dragon hidden in water is
useless”. The dragons are supposed to sleep so that they may “preserve
their bodies”. They begin to stir and rise in spring. Soon they fight
with one another, so that there is no need for a Horus, a Merodach, or
an Indra to compel them, by waging battle, to bring benefits to
mankind. The Chinese welcome what they called a “dragon battle” after
the dry season. Thunder-storms break out, and rain pours down in
torrents. If a number of dragons engage in battle, and the war in the
air continues longer than is desired, the rivers rise in flood and
cause much destruction and loss of life. As the emperor was closely
connected with the chief dragon-god, social upheavals and war might
result, it was anciently believed, in consequence of the failure of the
priests and the emperor (the holiest of priests) to control the
dragons. The dynasty might be overthrown by the indignant and ruined
peasantry.
Among the curious superstitions entertained in China regarding dragon
battles, is one that no mortal should watch them. It was not only
unlucky but perilous for human beings to peer into the mysteries. De
Visser quotes a Chinese metrical verse in this connection:
When they fight, the dragons do not look at us;
Why should we look at them when they are fighting?
If we do not seek the dragons,
They also will not seek us. [92]
In Gaelic Scotland the serpent, which is associated with the goddess
Bride, sleeps all winter and comes forth on 1st February (old style),
known as “Bride’s day”. A Gaelic verse tells in this connection:
The serpent will come from the home
On the brown day of Bride,
Though there should be three feet of snow
On the flat surface of the ground. [93]
As in China, a compact was made with the Bride serpent or dragon:
To-day is the Day of Bride,
The serpent shall come from his hole,
I will not molest the serpent,
And the serpent will not molest me.
It is evident that some very ancient belief, connected with the
agricultural mode of life, lies behind these curious verses in such
far-separated countries as Scotland and China. Bride and her serpent
come forth to inaugurate the season of fruitfulness as do the battling
dragons in the Far East.
When Chinese dragons fight, fire-balls and pearls fall to the ground.
Pearls give promise of abundant supplies of water in the future. It is
necessary, if all is to go well with the agriculturist, that the blue
and yellow dragons should prevail over the others. The blue dragon is
the chief spirit of water and rain, and this is the deity that presides
during the spring season.
A glimpse is afforded of the mental habits of the early searchers for
precious or sacred metals and jewels by the beliefs entertained in
China regarding the origin of the dragon-gods. These were supposed to
have been hatched from stones, especially beautiful stones. The colours
of stones were supposed to reveal the characters of the spirits that
inhabited them. In Egypt, for instance, the blue turquoise was
connected with the mother-goddess Hathor, who was, among other things,
a deity of the sky and therefore the controller of the waters above the
firmament as well as of the Nile. She was the mother of sun and moon.
She was appealed to for water by the agriculturists and for favourable
winds by the seafarers. The symbol used on such occasions was a blue
stone. It was a “luck stone” that exercised an influence on the
elements controlled by the goddess. In the Hebrides a blue stone used
to be reverenced by the descendants of ancient sea-rovers. Martin in
his Western Isles tells of such a stone, said to be always wet, which
was preserved in a chapel dedicated to St. Columba on the Island of
Fladda. “It is an ordinary custom,” he has written, “when any of the
fishermen are detained in the isle by contrary winds, to wash the blue
stone with water all round, expecting thereby to procure a favourable
wind, which, the credulous tenant living in the isle says, never fails,
especially if a stranger wash the stone.” Why a “stranger”? Was this
curious custom introduced of old by strangers who had crossed the deep?
Had the washing ceremony its origin in the custom of pouring out
libations practised by those who came from an area in which a complex
religious culture had grown up, and where men had connected a deity,
originally associated with the water-supply and therefore with the
food-supply, with tempests and ocean-tides and the sky?
The Chinese, who called certain beautiful stones “dragon’s eggs”,
believed that when they split, lightning flashed and thunder bellowed
and darkness came on. The new-born dragons ascended to the sky. Before
the dragons came forth, much water poured from the stone. As in the
Hebrides, the dragon stone had, it would appear, originally an
association with the fertilizing water-deity.
The new-born Chinese dragon is no bigger than a worm, or a baby serpent
or lizard, but it grows rapidly. Evidently beliefs associated with the
water-snake deities were fused with those regarding coloured stones.
The snake was the soul of the river. Osiris as the Nile was a snake.
His mother had, therefore, a snake form.
The haunting memory of the goddess-mother of water-spirits clings to
the “dragon mother” of a Chinese legend related by ancient writers, a
version of which is summarized by de Visser. [94] Once, it runs, an old
woman found five “dragon eggs” lying in the grass. When they split (as
in Egypt “the mountain of dawn” splits to give birth to the sun), this
woman carried the little serpents to a river and let them go. For this
service she was given the power to foretell future events. She became a
sibyl—a priestess. The people called her “The Dragon Mother.” When she
washed clothes at the river-side, the fishes, who were subjects of
dragons, “used to dance before her”.
In various countries certain fish were regarded as forms of the
shape-changing dragon. The Gaelic dragon sometimes appeared as the
salmon, and a migratory fish was in Egypt associated with Osiris and
his “mother”.
When the Chinese “Dragon Mother” died, she was buried on the eastern
side of the river. Why, it may be asked, on the eastern side? Was it
because, being originally a goddess, she was regarded as the “mother”
of the sun-god of the east—the mother who was “the mountain of dawn”
and whose influence was concentrated in the blue stone? The Chinese
dragon of the east is blue, and the blue dragon is associated with
spring—the first-born season of the year. But apparently the dragons
objected to the burial of the “Dragon Mother” on the eastern bank. The
legend tells that they raised a violent storm, and transferred her
grave to the western bank. Until the present age the belief obtains
that there is always wind and rain near the “Dragon Mother’s Grave”.
The people explain that the dragons love to “wash the grave”.
Here we find the dragons pouring out libations, as did the worshippers
of the Great Mother who came from a distant land.
The god of the western quarter is white, and presides over the autumn
season of fruitfulness. Just before the “birth” of autumn the Chinese
address their prayers to the mountains and hills.
In ancient Egypt the conflict between the Solar and Osirian cults was a
conflict between the “cult of the east” and the “cult of the west”.
Professor Breasted notes that although Osiris is “First of the
Westerners” (the west being his quarter) “he goes to the east (after
death) in the Pyramid texts (of the solar cult) and the pair, Isis and
Nepthys (the goddess), carry the dead into the east”. The east was the
place where the ascent to the sky was made. In Egyptian solar theology
it combined with the south. The rivalry between the two cults is
reflected in one particular Pyramid text in which “the dead is adjured
to go to the west in preference to the east, in order to join the
sun-god!” But to the solar cult the east was “the most sacred of all
regions”. In the Pyramid texts it is found that “the old doctrine of
the ‘west’ as the permanent realm of the dead, a doctrine which is
later so prominent, has been quite submerged by the pre-eminence of the
east”. [95]
This east-and-west theological war, then, had its origin in Egypt. How
did it reach China, there to be enshrined in the legend of the Dragon
Mother? Can it be held that it was “natural” the Chinese should have
invented a legend which had so significant and ancient a history in the
homeland of the earliest seafarers?
The dragon-gods that presided over the seasons and the divisions of the
world were five in number. At the east was the blue (or green) god
associated with spring, at the west the white god associated with
autumn, at the north the black god associated with winter (the Chinese
season of drought), and at the south were two gods, the red and the
yellow; the red god presided during the greater part of summer, the
rule of the yellow god being confined to the last month.
The dragons were life-givers not only as the gods who presided over the
seasons and ensured the food-supply, but as those who gave cures for
diseases. The “Red Cloud herb” and other curative herbs were found
after a thunderstorm beside the dragon-haunted pools. De Groot [96]
tells that fossil bones were called “dragon bones”, and were used for
medicinal purposes. The dragons were supposed to cast off their bones
as well as their skins. Bones of five colours (the colours of the five
dragons) were regarded as the most effective. White and yellow bones
came next in favour. Black bones were “of inferior quality”. The Shu
King, a famous Chinese historical classic, [97] tells that the dragons’
bones come from Tsin land. It is noted that the five-coloured ones are
the best. The blue, yellow, red, white, and black ones, according to
their colours, correspond with the viscera, as do the five chih
(felicitous plants), the five crystals (shih ying), and the five kinds
of mineral bole (shih chi). De Groot [98] gives the colours connected
with the internal organs as follows:
1. Blue—liver and gall.
2. White—lungs and small intestines.
3. Red—heart and large intestines.
4. Black—kidneys and bladder.
5. Yellow—spleen and stomach.
Apparently the special curative quality of a dragon’s bone was revealed
by its colour. The gods of the various “mansions” influenced different
organs of the human body.
In ancient Egypt the internal organs were placed in jars and protected
by the Horuses of the cardinal points. The god of the north had charge
of the small viscera, the god of the south of the stomach and large
intestines, the god of the west of liver and gall, and the god of the
east of heart and lungs. The Egyptian north was red and symbolized by
the Red Crown, and the south was white and symbolized by the White
Crown.
In Mexico the colours white, red, and yellow were connected with
different internal organs, and black with a disembowelled condition.
It is evident that the sea and land traders carried their strange
stocks of medical knowledge over vast areas. It is not without
significance to find in this connection that, according to Chinese
belief, there was an island on which dragons’ bones were found.
The dragons are not only rain-gods and gods of the four quarters and
the seasons, but also “light-gods”, connected with sun and moon, day
and night. In the Yih lin there is a reference to a black dragon which
vomits light and causes darkness to turn into light. The mountain
dragon of Mount Chung is called the “Enlightener of Darkness”. “When it
opens its eyes it is day, when it shuts its eyes it is night. Blowing
he makes winter, exhaling he makes summer. The wind is its breath.”
[99]
In like manner the Egyptian Ra and Ptah are universal gods, the sun and
moon being their “eyes”. Even Osiris, as far back as the Pyramid
period, was the source of all life and a world-god. He was addressed:
“The soil is on thy arm, its corners are upon thee as far as the four
pillars of the sky. When thou movest the earth trembles.... As for
thee, the Nile comes forth from the sweat of thy hands. Thou spewest
out the wind....” [100] Osiris sent water to bring fertility as do the
dragons, air for the life-breath of man and beast, and also light,
which was, of course, fire (the heat which is life).
The idea of the life-principle being in fire and water lies behind Wang
Fu’s statement: “Dragon fire and human fire are opposite. If dragon
fire comes into contact with wetness, it flames; and if it meets water,
it burns. If one drives it (the dragon) away by means of fire, it stops
burning and its flames are extinguished.” [101] Celestial fire is
something different from ordinary fire. The “vital spark” is of
celestial origin—purer and holier than ordinary fire. Dragon skins,
even when cast off, shine by night. So do pearls, coral, and precious
stones “shine in darkness” in the Chinese myths.
One traces the influence of the solar cult in the idea that the
dragon’s vital spirit is in its eyes. It is because iron blinds a
dragon that it fears that metal. In Egypt the eye of Horus is blinded
by Set, whose metal is iron.
There is a quaint mixture of religious ideas in the Chinese custom of
carrying in procession through the streets, on the 15th of the first
month, a dragon made of bamboo, linen, and paper. In front of it is
borne a red ball. De Groot says that this is the azure dragon, the head
of which rose as a star to usher in spring at the beginning. [102] In
like manner the Egyptian “spring” is ushered in by the star Sirius, the
mother of the sun, from which falls a tear that causes the inundation.
But although the red ball may have been a solar symbol, it is also
connected with the moon. The Chinese themselves call the ball “The
Pearl of Heaven”—that is, “the moon”. An inscription on porcelain
brings this out clearly. Mr. Blacker has translated the text below two
dragons rushing towards a ball as “A couple of dragons facing the
moon”. [103] The dragons were not only moon- and sun-“devourers” who
caused eclipses, but guardians of these orbs in their capacities as
gods of the four quarters.
The all-absorbing dragon appears even as a vampire. A tiger-headed
dragon with the body of a snake seizes human beings, covers them with
saliva, and sucks blood from under their armpits. “No blood is left
when they stop sucking.” [104] In Japanese legends dragons as white
eels draw blood from the legs of horses that enter a river. [105] Evil
or sick dragons send bad rain.
The gods ride on dragons, and therefore emperors and holy men can also
use them as vehicles. Yu, the founder of the Hea Dynasty, had a
carriage drawn by two dragons. Ghosts sometimes appear riding on
dragons and wearing blue hats. The souls of the dead are conveyed to
the Celestial regions by the winged gods. Dragons appear when great men
are born. [106] Emperors had dragon ancestors. The Emperor Yaou was the
son of a red dragon; one Japanese emperor had a dragon’s tail, being a
descendant of the sea-god. [107]
In the next chapter it will be shown that in Chinese dragon-lore it is
possible to detect with certainty the sources of certain “layers” that
were superimposed on primitive conceptions regarding these deities.
CHAPTER VI
BIRD AND SERPENT MYTHS
Culture Complexes in Dragon-lore—Polynesian Dragon Beliefs—Oceanic
and African Fish-gods—Reptile Deities where no Reptiles are
found—Chinese Dragons and Indian Nagas—Dragon-links between India,
Tibet, China, and Japan—Birds and Snakes—Distribution of Egyptian
“Winged Disk”—Horus and the “Secretary Bird”—Indian Mungoose
supplants “Secretary Bird”—Mungoose form of God of Riches and
Death—Bird and Serpent combined in Dragon—Babylonian Dragon was a
combination of Eagle, Serpent, and Lion—Tree Forms of the Chinese
Dragon, the Polynesian Mo-o, and the Indian Nagas—The Dragon, the
Salmon, the Tree, and the “Thunder-bird”.
The intensive study of a country’s beliefs and ideas, as revealed in
its myths and legends, is greatly facilitated by the adoption of the
comparative method. It may not always be found possible to identify
areas in which certain beliefs had origin, but when we detect, as we do
in China, myths similar to those found in other lands, and especially
highly complex myths, that had origin in one particular country and
received additions in another, the imported elements may be sifted out
from a local religious system without much difficulty.
The Chinese dragon has distinct and outstanding Chinese
characteristics, but it is obviously not entirely a Chinese creation.
Attached to the “composite wonder beast” are complex ideas that have a
history outside China, as well as those ideas that reflect Chinese
natural phenomena and Chinese experiences and habits of life and
thought. The fused beliefs, as symbolized by the dragon, have passed
through a prolonged process of local development, but those that were
imported have not, it is found, been entirely divested of their
distinctive characteristics, and remain preserved as flies are in
amber.
Interesting and important evidence that throws light on the history of
the Chinese dragon is found in Polynesia, India, and Babylonia, and
even in Egypt and Europe. The cultural influence of Babylonia, which
radiated over a wide area for a score of centuries or longer, is
traceable in India, and, as is well known, Buddhist India exercised a
strong cultural influence on China. But, as will be shown, Babylonian
influence reached the Shensi province of China long before the Aryans
entered India. Buddhist ideas regarding the pearl-protecting dragon-god
of water and fire were evidently superimposed in China upon earlier
Babylonian ideas regarding the water-dragon, which had no particular
connection with pearls. At any rate, there is no mention of pearls in
the Babylonian myth.
When it is found that many of the ideas connected with the Chinese
dragon were prevalent in Polynesia, what conclusion is to be drawn?
There is no evidence that Chinese culture was an active force in New
Zealand or Hawaii, for instance. It cannot have been from China that
the Polynesians derived their dragon, or their beliefs connected with
the serpent, a reptile unknown to the islanders at first hand. The only
reasonable conclusion that can be drawn is that the Chinese and the
Polynesians were influenced at an early period by intruders from other
lands. The Polynesian intruders must necessarily have been sea-traders.
Of course, the Polynesians may themselves have imported their dragon
beliefs from their homeland. That homeland, however, was certainly not
China.
The Polynesian Mo-o or Mo-ko (dragon) had, as was shown in the last
chapter, a connection with pearls. “On Maui”, writes W. D. Westervelt,
[108] “the greatest dragon of the island was Kiha-wahine. The natives
had the saying, ‘Kiha has mana, or miraculous power, like Mo-o-inanea’.
She lived in a large, deep pool on the edge of the village Lahaina, and
was worshipped by the royal family of Maui as their special guardian.”
Royal families were invariably the descendants of intruding conquerors.
It is of special interest, therefore, to find the Polynesian dragon-god
connected with a military aristocracy.
The Rev. George Brown, missionary and explorer, refers to similar
dragon beliefs among the people of New Britain. He tells of a spring
connected with the woman (goddess) who caused the deluge. The natives
“say that an immense fish lives in it, which will come out when they
call it”. The belief obtains among the Melanesians “that the creator of
all things was a woman”. She “made all lands” and “the natives prayed”
to her “when an eclipse of the sun or the moon took place”. [109] The
king of Samoan gods was a dragon. “This god”, Brown tells, “had the
body of a man to the breast only, and the body of an eel (muræna)
below. This eel’s body lies down in the ocean, and from the chest to
the head lies down in the house. This is the god to whom all things are
reported. The inferior gods are his attendants.” [110]
Gods half human and half reptile, or half human and half fish, are
found in various countries. In the British Museum are bronze reliefs of
the King of Benin (as the representative of his chief deity) half shark
and half man. The kings of Dahomey were depicted as sharks with bodies
covered with scales; their statues are in the Trocadero, Paris. [111]
That the Polynesian reptile deities were imported there can be no
doubt. As early as 1825 Mr. Bloxam, the English naval chaplain, drew
this necessary conclusion. In his The Voyage of the Blonde he says: “At
the bottom of the Parre (pali) there are two large stones, on which
even now offerings of fruit and flowers are laid to propitiate the
Aku-wahines, or goddesses, who are supposed to have the power of
granting a safe passage”. Referring to the female mo-o, or reptile
deities, Mr. Bloxam says it was difficult for him to get an explanation
of their name, the Hawaiians having “nothing of the shape of serpents
or large reptiles in their islands”. [112]
But the closest analogy to the Chinese dragon is found in India. The
Nagas (serpent-gods), which were taken over by the Buddhists, and the
Chinese dragons have much in common. “Cobras in their ordinary shape,”
writes Dr. Rhys Davids of the Nagas, “they lived beneath the waters
like mermen and mermaids, in great luxury and wealth, more especially
of gems.” Sometimes the tree-spirits (dryads) are called Nagas. “They
could at will, and often did, adopt the human form; and though terrible
if angered, were kindly and mild by nature.” [113] Kerns says “that the
Nagas are water-spirits represented, as a rule, in human shapes, with a
crown of serpents on their heads”, and also as “snake-like beings
resembling clouds”. [114] They are “demi-gods”. Like the Chinese
dragons, the Nagas are guardians of the four quarters of the universe.
There are withal Nagas in the sea who control winds and tides, and one
of the Naga kings is Sagara, who is a Neptune in Japan. The Nagas are
also “Lords of the Earth”, and send drought and disease when offended
or neglected. Ea, the sea-god of the early Babylonians, was known also
as Enki, “The Lord of the Earth”.
In Buddhist art the Naga is shown in three forms: (1) as a human being
with a snake on or poised over the head, reminding one of the Egyptian
kings or queens who wear the uræus symbol on their foreheads; (2) as
half human and half snake (the “mermaid form”); and (3) as ordinary
snakes. The first form is found not only in India, but in Tibet, China,
and Japan. Human-shaped Nagas are depicted worshipping Buddha, as they
stand in water.
In Tibet, the Naga is shown with the upper part of the body in human
shape and the lower in snake shape; there are horns on the head and
wings spreading out from the shoulders. The same form is found in
Japan.
This Tibetan link between the Indian Naga and the Chinese Dragon is
important. The bird-god has been blended with the snake-god. In India
the bird-gods (Garudas) are enemies of the Nagas (snakes), and Garudas
in “eagle shape” are found depicted in low relief, carrying off Nagas
in snake shape. This eternal conflict between eagle-like birds and
serpents is one of the features of Babylonian mythology.
The story of Zu, the Babylonian Eagle-god, is found on tablets that
were stored in the library of the great Assyrian King, Ashur-bani-pal.
Zu, it is related, stole from the gods the “tablets of destiny”, and
was pursued and caught by Shamash, the sun-god. In one version of the
myth Zu, the eagle, is punished by the serpent, which conceals itself
in the body of an ox. When the eagle comes to feast on the flesh it is
seized by the serpent and slain.
In Polynesia the eternal conflict between bird-god and serpent-god is
illustrated in wood-carvings. The Egyptian winged disk, as adopted by
the islanders, shows the bird in the centre with a struggling snake in
its beak. The Central American peoples had likewise this
bird-and-serpent myth. Indeed, it figures prominently in their
mythologies. In Mexico the winged disk was placed, as in Egypt, above
the entrances to the temples.
The bird-and-serpent myth is to be found even in the Iliad. When Hector
set forth with his heroes to break through the wall of the Achæan camp,
an eagle appeared in the air, bearing in its talons “a blood-red
monstrous snake, alive and struggling still”. The writhing snake
manages to sting the eagle, which immediately drops it. [115]
In ancient Egyptian myths the bird was the Horus hawk and the serpent
was Set. Horus assumed, in his great battle against the snake,
crocodile, and other enemies of Ra, the winged disk form—the winged
sun, protected by the two snake-goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt.
This strange combination of deities in the “winged disk” symbol was as
distinctively an Egyptian cultural and political complex as the Union
Jack is distinctively a British complex. As the Union Jack has been
carried to many a distant land, so was the Egyptian winged disk, “the
flag” of Egyptian culture. In those areas in which the winged disk is
found, are found also traces of Egyptian ideas which, of course, were
not necessarily introduced by the Egyptians themselves.
How did this myth of the struggle between bird and serpent have origin?
The only country in the world in which a great bird hunts serpents is
Africa. The bird in question is the famous secretary bird (Serpentarius
secretarius), which is nowadays domesticated by South African farmers
so as to keep down snakes. It is found in East and West Africa. “In
general appearance it looks like a modified eagle mounted on stilts.”
[116] The bird attacks a snake with wings outspread, and flaps them in
front of its body to prevent itself from being bitten during the
conflict. Early Egyptian seafarers were no doubt greatly impressed
when, “in the land of Punt”, they saw these strange birds, with heads
like eagles or hawks, standing over snakes they had clutched in their
talons, and then flying away with them dangling from their beaks. The
mariners’ stories about the snake-devouring bird appear to have crept
into the mythology of Egypt, with the result that the Horus hawk became
the hunter of Set in his “hissing serpent” form. Above the hole in the
ground into which the Set serpent fled for concealment and safety was
set a pole surmounted by the head of the Horus hawk. As Dr. Budge puts
it: “Horus, the son of Isis, stood upon him (Set) in the form of a pole
or staff, on the top of which was the head of a hawk”. [117] But, one
may urge, it could not have been until after Egyptian vessels visited
the coasts haunted by the secretary bird that the bird and serpent
variation of the Horus-Set myth was formulated in the land of Egypt,
whence, apparently, it was distributed far and wide. Horus was not
necessarily an enemy of serpents, seeing that there are two in his
disk.
In Tibet, as has been stated, the bird and serpent were combined, and
the “composite beast” was given a human head with horns. The horned and
winged dragon of China is thus, in part, a combination of the original
secretary bird and the snake.
The later blending process was, no doubt, due to Buddhistic influence.
Both Nagas (snakes) and Garudas (eagles or secretary birds) were
included in northern India among the gods and demons who worshipped
Buddha. The Nagas understood the language of birds. They gave charms to
human beings so that they might share this knowledge. In European and
Arabian stories folk-heroes acquire the language of birds, or of all
animals, after eating the hearts of dragons. A Naga king causes an
Indian king to understand what animals say. [118]
“The jewel that grants all desires” is possessed by the Indian Nagas,
as it is by Chinese and Japanese dragons. In the Mahábhárata, the
Pandava hero Arjuna is, after being slain in combat, restored to life
by his Naga wife, who had obtained this magic jewel from the Naga king.
[119]
The Nagas are guardians of pearls, and the females have many pearl
necklaces.
Note may here be taken of interesting Indian evidence that throws light
on the process of transferring to a local animal complex ideas
associated with another animal figuring in an imported myth. The great
enemy of African snakes is, as has been said, the secretary bird; the
Indian enemy is the mungoose. In early Buddhist art the mungoose,
spitting jewels, is placed in the right hand of Kubera, god of wealth,
who stands on the back of a Yaksha (a bird demon). By devouring snakes
(Nagas) the mungoose (according to the myth) “appropriates their
jewels, and has hence developed into the attribute of Kubera”. [120]
Here the pearl-guarding shark, having become a jewel-guarding
dragon-snake, is substituted by the jewel-spitting mungoose which has
“devoured” its attributes.
The god Kubera has a heaven of its own, and is a form of Yama, god of
death. In his form as Dharma, god of justice, Yama figures in the
Mahábhárata [121] as a “blue-eyed mungoose with one side of his body
changed into gold”, his voice being “loud and deep as thunder”. Here
Yama links with Indra, god of thunder, who, having a heaven of his own,
is also a god of death. Egypt had its “blue-eyed Horus”. [122] The god
Horus was the living form of Osiris. The living Pharaoh was a Horus,
and the dead Pharaoh an Osiris, as Dr. Gardiner reminds us.
The combination of bird and serpent is found in Persia as well as in
Tibet. On an archaic cylinder seal from the ancient Elamite capital of
Susa, the dragon is a lion with an eagle’s head and wings; the forelegs
are those of the eagle, and the hind legs those of a lion.
A form of the god Tammuz, namely the god Nin-Girsu (“Lord of Girsu”) of
the Sumerian city of Lagash (Girsu appears to have been a suburb), was
a lion-headed eagle. [123] The god Ea had a dragon form. [124] The
dragon of the Ishtar gate of Babylon is a combination of eagle,
serpent, and lion, and is horned.
There can remain little doubt that the Chinese dragon has an
interesting history, not only in China but outside that country. It
cannot be held to have independent origin. At a remote period dragon
beliefs reached China, India, and Polynesia, and even America. [125]
In each separated area the dragon took on a local colouring, but the
fundamental beliefs connected with it remained the same. It was closely
connected with water (the “water of life”), and also with trees (the
“trees of life”). Thus we find that in China a dragon might assume “the
shape of a tree growing under water”; [126] a boat once collided with
drift-wood which was found to be a dragon. Crocodiles are sometimes
mistaken for logs of wood.
In Hawaii two noted dragons (mo-o) lived in a river. “They were called
‘the moving boards’ which made a bridge across the river.” [127]
The Indian Nagas were not only water deities but tree spirits, as Dr.
Rhys Davids has emphasized. [128]
Behind dragon worship is a complex of beliefs connected with what is
usually called “tree and well worship”. In Gaelic stories, the sacred
tree is guarded by the “beast” in the sacred well, and a form of the
“beast” (dragon) is the salmon; in the tree is the “thunder bird”.
Dragon, tree, and bird are connected with the god of thunder who sends
rain.
When Buddhism reached China, imported Naga beliefs were superimposed on
earlier Chinese beliefs connected with the dragon-god who controlled
the rain-supply, as Osiris in Egypt controlled the Nile, and the
Babylonian Ea the Euphrates.
In the next chapter various beliefs connected with the dragon are
brought out in representative legends.
CHAPTER VII
DRAGON FOLK-STORIES
How Fish became Chinese Dragons—Fish forms of Teutonic and Celtic
Gods—Dragon-slayers eat Dragons’ Hearts—The “Language of
Birds”—Heart as Seat of Intelligence—Babylonian
Dragon-Kupu—Polynesian Dragon-Kupua—Dragons and Medicinal
Herbs—Story of Chinese Herbalist and “Red Cloud Herb”—“Boy Blue”
and Red Carp as Forms of Black Dragon—Ignis Fatuus as “Dragon
Lanterns”—“Heart Fire”—Story of Priest and Dragon-woman—The “Fire
Nail” in Japan and Polynesia—The “Faith Cure” in Japan—The Magic
Rush-mat—Grave Reed-mats, Skins, and Linen Wrappings—The
Ephod—Melusina in Far East—Story of Wu and the Thunder Dragon.
In Chinese and Japanese folk-stories the dragons have fish forms or
avatars. They may be eels, carps, or migratory fish like the salmon. It
is believed that those fish that ascend a river’s “dragon gate” become
dragons, while those that remain behind continue to be fish. Dragons
are closely associated with waterfalls. They haunt in one or other of
their forms the deep pools below them.
In western European stories, dragons and gods of fire and water assume
the forms of fish, and hide themselves in pools. Loki of Icelandic
legend has a salmon form. When the gods pursue him, he hides in
Franang’s stream, or “under the waters of a cascade called
Franangurfors”. [129] After he is caught and bound, Loki is tortured by
a serpent. When he twists his body violently, earthquakes are caused.
He is closely associated with the “dragon-woman”, and is the father of
monsters, including the moon-swallowing wolf-dragon.
Andvari, the guardian of Nibelung treasure, has a pike form. [130]
In Gaelic legend the salmon is the source of wisdom and of the power to
foretell events. Finn (Fionn) tastes of the “Salmon of Knowledge” when
it is being cooked, and immediately becomes a seer. Michael Scott, in
like manner, derives wisdom from the “juices” of the white snake. The
salmon is, in Gaelic, a form of the dragon. The dragon of Lough Bel
Séad [131] (Lake of the Jewel Mouth), in Ireland, was caught “in the
shape of a salmon”.
Sigurd, the dragon-slayer of Norse Icelandic stories, eats the dragon’s
heart, and at once understands the language of birds. So does Siegfried
of Germanic romance. The birds know the secrets of the gods. They are
themselves forms of the gods. Apollonius of Tyana acquired wisdom by
eating the hearts of dragons in Arabia.
In ancient Egypt the heart was not only the seat of life, but the mind,
and therefore the source of “words of power”. The Hebrews and many
other peoples used “heart” when they wrote of “mind”. [132] Ptah, god
of Memphis, was the “heart” (mind) of the gods. The “heart” fashioned
the gods. Everything that is came into existence by the thought of the
“heart” (mind).
The Egyptian belief about the power of the “heart” (the source of magic
knowledge, and healing, and creative power) lies behind the stories
regarding heroes eating dragons’ hearts. In an Egyptian folk-tale the
dragon-slayer does not eat the heart of the reptile god, but gets
possession of a book of spells, and, on reading these, acquires
knowledge of the languages of all animals, including fish and birds.
[133]
When, however, we investigate the dragon beliefs of ancient Babylonia,
we meet with a reference to the Ku-pu as the source of divine power and
wisdom. After Merodach (Marduk) the dragon-slayer kills Tiamat, the
“mother dragon”, a form of the mother-goddess, he “divides the flesh of
the Ku-pu, and devises a cunning plan”. As the late Mr. Leonard W. King
pointed out, [134] Ku-pu is a word of uncertain meaning. It did not
signify the heart, because it had been previously stated in the text
that Merodach severed her inward parts, he pierced her heart.
Jensen has suggested that Ku-pu signifies “trunk, body”. It is more
probable that the Ku-pu was the seat of the soul, mind, and magical
power; the power that enabled the slain reptile to come to life again
in another form. [135]
It may be that a clue is afforded in this connection by the Polynesian
idea of Kupua. Mr. Westervelt, who has carefully recorded what he has
found, writes regarding the Mo-o (dragons) of the Hawaiians:
“Mighty eels, immense sea turtles, large fish of the ocean, fierce
sharks, were all called mo-o. The most ancient dragons of the
Hawaiians are spoken of as living in pools or lakes. These dragons
were known also as Kupuas, or mysterious characters, who could
appear as animals, or human beings, according to their wish. The
saying was, ‘Kupuas have a strange double body!’”
The Polynesian beliefs connected with the Kupuas are highly suggestive.
Mr. Westervelt continues:
“It was sometimes thought that at birth another natural form was
added, such as an egg of a fowl or a bird, or the seed of a plant,
or the embryo of some animal which, when fully developed, made a
form which could be used as readily as the human body. These Kupuas
were always given some great magic power. They were wonderfully
strong, and wise, and skilful.
“Usually the birth of a Kupua, like the birth of a high chief, was
attended with strange disturbances in the heavens, such as
reverberating thunder, flashing lightning, and severe storms which
sent the abundant red soil of the islands down the mountain-sides
in blood-red torrents, known as ka-ua-koko (the blood rain). The
name was also given to misty, fine rain when shot through by the
red waves of the sun.”
All the dragons of Hawaii were descended from Mo-o-inanea (the
self-reliant dragon), a mother-goddess. She had a dual nature,
“sometimes appearing as a dragon, sometimes as a woman”. Hawaiian
dragons also assumed the forms of large stones, some of which were
associated with groves of hau trees; on these stones ferns and flowers
were laid and referred to as “kupuas”. [136]
In China the dragon’s kupua (to use the Polynesian term) figures in
various stories. We meet with the “Red Cloud herb”, or the “Dragon
Cloud herb”, which cures diseases. It is the gift of the dragon, and
apparently a dragon kupua. Other curative herbs are the
“dragon-whisker’s herb” and the “dragon’s liver”, a species of gentian,
which is in Japan a badge of the Minamoto family. The “dragon’s
spittle” had curative qualities, the essence of life being in the body
moisture of a deity. The pearl, which the dragon spits out, has, or is,
“soul substance”. The plum tree was in China connected with the dragon.
A story tells that once a dragon was punished by having its ears cut
off. Its blood fell on the ground, and a plum tree sprang up; it bore
fleshy fruit without kernels. [137] When in an ancient Egyptian story
the blood of the Bata bull falls to the ground two trees containing his
soul-forms grow in a night. [138]
A Chinese “Boy Blue” story deals with the search made by Wang Shuh, a
herbalist, for the Red Cloud herb. He followed the course of a mountain
stream on a hot summer day, and at noon sat down to rest and eat rice
below shady trees beside the deep pool of a waterfall. As he lay on the
bank, gazing into the water, he was astonished to see in its depths a
blue boy, about a foot in height, with a blue rush in his hand, riding
on the back of a red carp, without disturbing the fish, which darted
hither and thither. In time the pair came to the surface, and, rising
into the air, turned towards the east. Then they went swiftly in the
direction of a bank of cloud that was creeping across the blue sky, and
vanished from sight.
The herbalist continued to ascend the mountain, searching for the herb,
and when he reached the summit was surprised to find that the sky had
become completely overcast. Great masses of black and yellow clouds had
risen over the Eastern Sea, and a thunder-storm was threatening. Wang
Shuh then realized that the blue boy he had seen riding on the back of
the red carp was no other than the thunder-dragon. He peered at the
clouds, and perceived that the boy and the carp [139] had been
transformed into a black kiao (scaled dragon). He was greatly alarmed,
and concealed himself in a hollow tree.
Soon the storm burst forth in all its fury. The herbalist trembled to
hear the voice of the black thunder-dragon and to catch glimpses of his
fiery tongue as he spat out flashes of lightning. Rain fell in
torrents, and the mountain stream was heavily swollen, and roared down
the steep valley. Wang Shuh feared that each moment would be his last.
In time, however, the storm ceased and the sky cleared. Wang Shuh then
crept forth from his hiding-place, thankful to be still alive, although
he had seen the dragon. He at once set out to return by the way he had
come. When he drew near to the waterfall he was greatly astonished to
hear the sound of sweet humming music. Peering through the branches of
the trees, he beheld the little blue boy riding on the back of the red
carp, returning from the east and settling down on the surface of the
pool. Soon the boy was carried into the depths and past the playful
fish again.
Struck with fear, the herbalist was for a time unable to move. When at
length he had summoned sufficient strength and courage to go forward,
he found that the boy and the carp had vanished completely. Then he
perceived that the Red Cloud herb, for which he had been searching, had
sprung up on the very edge of the swirling water. Stooping, he plucked
it greedily. As soon as he had done so, he went scampering down the
side of the mountain. On reaching the village, Wang told his friends
the wonderful story of his adventure and discovery.
Now it happened that the Emperor’s daughter—a very beautiful girl—was
lying ill in the royal palace. The Court physicians had endeavoured in
vain to restore her to health. Hearing of Wang Shuh’s discovery of the
Red Cloud herb, the Emperor sent out for him. On reaching the palace,
the herbalist was addressed by the Emperor himself, who said: “Is it
true, as men tell, that you have seen the black kiao in the form of a
little blue boy riding on a red carp?”
“It is indeed true,” Wang Shuh made answer.
“And is it true that you have found the dragon herb that sprang up
during the thunder-storm?”
“I have brought the herb with me, Your Majesty.”
“Mayhap,” the Emperor said, “it will give healing to my daughter.”
Wang Shuh at once made offer of the herb, and the Emperor led him to
the room in which the sick princess lay. The herb had a sweet odour,
[140] and Wang Shuh plucked a leaf and gave it to the lady to smell.
She at once showed signs of reviving, and this was regarded as a good
omen. Wang Shuh then made a medicine from the herb, and when the
princess had partaken of it, she grew well and strong again.
The Emperor rewarded Wang Shuh by appointing him his chief physician.
Thus the herbalist became a great and influential man.
To few mortals comes the privilege of setting eyes on a dragon, and to
fewer is the vision followed by good fortune.
In this quaint story the Red Cloud herb is evidently a kupua of the
thunder-dragon. It had “soul substance” (the vital essence). Another
kupua or avatar was the carp.
In China and Japan there are references in dragon stories to pine trees
being forms assumed by dragons. The connection between the tree and
dragon is emphasized by the explanation that when a pine becomes very
old it is covered with scales of bark, and ultimately changes into a
dragon. By night “dragon lanterns” (ignis fatuus) are seen on pine
trees in marshy places, and on the masts of ships at sea.
The pine trees at Buddhist temples and Shinto shrines are said to be
regularly illuminated by these “supernatural” lights. The “lanterns”
are supposed to come from the sea. Japanese stories tell that when a
lantern appears on a pine, a little boy, known as the “Heavenly Boy”,
is to be seen sitting on the topmost branch. Some lights were supposed
to be the souls of holy men. In Gaelic stories are told about little
men being seen in these wandering lights.
There is an evil form of the fire which is supposed to rise from the
blood of a suicide or of a murderer’s victim. The “heart fire” (the
“vital spark”) in the blood is supposed to rise as a flame from the
ground. A similar superstition prevailed in England. If lights made
their appearance above a prison on the night before the arrival of the
judges of assize, the omen was regarded as a fatal one for the
prisoners. The belief is widespread in the British Isles that lights
(usually greenish lights) appear before a sudden death takes place.
Wandering lights seen on mountains were supposed by the Chinese and
Japanese to be caused by dragons. A Japanese legend associates them
with a dragon woman, named Zennyo, who appears to have the attributes
of a fire-goddess. It is told regarding a Buddhist priest who lived
beside a dragon hole on Mount Murōbu. One day, as he was about to cross
a river, a lady wearing rich and dazzling attire came up to him and
made request for a magic charm he possessed. She spoke with averted
face, telling who she was. The priest repeated the charm to her and
then said: “Permit me to look upon your face”.
Said the dragon woman: “It is very terrible to behold. No man dare gaze
on my face. But I cannot refuse your request.”
The priest had his curiosity satisfied, but apparently without coming
to harm. Priestly prestige was maintained by stories of this kind.
As soon as the priest looked in her face the dragon woman rose in the
air, and stretched out the small finger of her right hand. It was not,
however, of human shape, but a claw that suddenly extended a great
length and flashed lights of five colours. The “five colours” indicate
that the woman was a deity. Kwan Chung, in his work Kwantsze, says: “A
dragon in the water covers himself with five colours. Therefore, he is
a god (shin).” [141]
The “fire nail” figures prominently in Polynesian mythology. In the
legend of Maui, that hero-god goes to the old woman (the goddess), his
grandmother, to obtain fire for mankind. “Then the aged woman pulled
out her nail; and as she pulled it out fire flowed from it, and she
gave it to him. And when Maui saw she had drawn out her nail to produce
fire for him, he thought it a most wonderful thing.” [142]
The reference in the Japanese story to the averted face of the dragon
woman may be connected with the ancient belief that the mortal who
looked in the face of a deity was either shrivelled up or transformed
into stone, as happened in the case of those who fixed their eyes upon
the face of Medusa. Goddesses like the Egyptian Neith were “veiled”. A
Japanese legend tells of a dragon woman who appeared as a woman with a
malicious white face. She laughed loudly, displaying black teeth. She
was often seen on a bridge, binding up her hair. [143] Apparently she
was a variety of the mermaid family, and this may explain the reference
to her being “one legged”. The people scared her away by forming a
torch-light procession and advancing towards her. Dragons were
sometimes expelled by means of fire. In Europe, bonfires were lit when
certain “ceremonies of riddance” were performed.
British mermaids are credited, in the folk-tales, with providing cures
for various diseases, and especially herbs, [144] and in this
connection they link with the dragon wives of China and Japan. Some
dragon women lived for a time among human beings as do swan-maidens,
nereids, mermaids, and fairies in the stories of various lands.
A Japanese legend tells of an elderly and mysterious woman who had the
power to cure any ill that flesh is heir to. When a patient called, she
listened attentively to what was told her. Then she retired to a secret
chamber, sat down and placed a rush mat [145] on her head. After
sitting alone for a time (apparently engaged in working a magic spell)
she left the chamber and returned to the patient. She recommended the
“faith cure”. Making the pretence that she was handing over a medicine,
she said: “Believe that I have given you medicine. Now, go away. Each
day you must sit down and imagine that you are taking my medicine. Come
back to me in seven days’ time.” Those who faithfully carried out her
instructions are said to have been cured. Large numbers visited her
daily.
It was suspected that this woman was possessed by the spirit of a
water-demon. A watch was set upon her, and one night she was seen going
from her house to a well in which, during the day, she often washed her
head while being consulted by patients. Those who watched her told that
she remained in human shape for a little time. Then she transformed
herself into a white mist and entered the well. Protective charms were
recited, and she never returned. For many years afterwards, however,
her house was haunted.
De Groot relates a story about one of the wives of an Emperor of China
who practised magic by means of reptiles and insects. Her object was to
have her son selected as crown prince. She was detected, and she and
her son were imprisoned. Both became dragons before they died.
Dragons sometimes appear in the stories in the rôle of demon lovers. A
Japanese legend tells of two boys who were the children of a man and a
dragon woman. In time they changed into dragons and flew away. The
woman herself came to her lover in the shape of a snake, and then
transformed herself into a beautiful maiden.
This is a version of a very widespread story, found in the Old and New
World, which was possibly distributed by ancient mariners and traders.
Its most familiar form is the French legend of Melusina, the serpent
woman, who became the wife of Raymond of Poitou, and the mother of his
disfigured children. [146]
A Chinese legend of the Melusina order deals with the fall of the Hea
Dynasty. A case of dragon foam which had been kept in the royal palace
during three dynasties was one day opened, and there issued forth a
dragon in the form of a black lizard. It touched a young virgin, who
became the mother of a girl whom she bore in secret and abandoned in a
wood. It chanced that a poor man and his wife, who were childless,
hearing the cries of the babe, took her to their house, where they
cared for her tenderly. But the magicians came to know of the dragon’s
daughter, of whom it had been prophesied that she would destroy the
dynasty. Search was made for the child, and the foster-parents fled
with her to the land of Pao. They presented her to the king of the
land, and she grew up to be a beautiful maid who was called Pao Sze.
The king loved her dearly, and when she gave birth to a son, he made
her his queen, degrading Queen Chen and her son, the crown prince. Poh
Fuh, the son of the dragon woman, then became crown prince instead.
Now Pao Sze, although very beautiful, was always sad of countenance.
She never smiled. The king did everything in his power to make her
smile and laugh. But his efforts were in vain.
“Fain would I hear you laugh,” said he.
But she only sighed and said: “Ask me not to laugh.”
One day the king, in his endeavours to break the spell of sadness that
bound his beautiful queen, arranged that his lords should enter the
palace and declare that an enemy army was at hand, and that the life of
the king was in peril.
This they did. The king was at the time making merry when his lords
entered suddenly and said: “Your Majesty, the enemy have come, while
you sit making merry, and they are resolved to slay you.”
The king’s sudden change of countenance made the dragon woman laugh.
His Majesty was well pleased.
Then, as it chanced, the enemy came indeed. But when the alarm was
raised, the lords thought it was a false one. The army took possession
of the city, entered the palace, and slew the king. Pao Sze was taken
prisoner, because of her fatal beauty; but she brought no joy to her
captor and transformed herself into a dragon, departing suddenly and
causing a thunder-storm to rage.
To those who win their favour, the dragons are preservers even when
they come forth as destroyers. The story is told of how Wu, the son of
a farmer named Yin, won the favour of a dragon and rose to be a great
man in China. When he was a boy of thirteen, he was sitting one day at
the garden gate, looking across the plain which is watered by a winding
river that flows from the mountains. He was a silent, dreamy boy, who
had been brought up by his grandmother, his mother having died when he
was very young, and it was his habit thus to sit in silence, thinking
and observing things. Along the highway came a handsome youth riding a
white horse. He was clad in yellow garments and seemed to be of high
birth. Four man-servants accompanied him, and one held an umbrella to
shield him from the sun’s bright rays. The youth drew up his horse at
the gate and, addressing Wu, said: “Son of Yin, I am weary. May I enter
your father’s house and rest a little time?”
The boy bowed and said: “Enter.”
Yin then came forward and opened the gate. The noble youth dismounted
and sat on a seat in the court, while his servants tethered the horse.
The farmer chatted with his visitor, and Wu gazed at them in silence.
Food was brought, and when the meal was finished, the youth thanked him
for his hospitality and walked across the courtyard. Wu noticed that
before one of the servants passed through the gate, he turned the
umbrella upside down. When the youth had mounted his horse, he turned
to the silent, observant boy and said: “I shall come again to-morrow.”
Wu bowed and answered: “Come!”
The strangers rode away, and Wu sat watching them until they had
vanished from sight.
When evening came on, the farmer spoke to his son regarding the
visitors, and said: “The noble youth knew my name and yet I have never
set eyes on him before.”
Wu was silent for a time. Then he said: “I cannot say who the youth is
or who his attendants are.”
“You watched them very closely, my son. Did you note anything peculiar
about them?”
Said Wu: “There were no seams in their clothing; the white horse had
spots of five colours and scaly armour instead of hair. The hoofs of
the horse and the feet of the strangers did not touch the ground.”
[147]
Yin rose up with agitation and exclaimed: “Then they are not human
beings, but spirits.”
Said Wu: “I watched them as they went westward. Rain-clouds were
gathering on the horizon, and when they were a great distance off they
all rose in the air and vanished in the clouds.” [148]
Yin was greatly alarmed to hear this, and said: “I must ask your
grandmother what she thinks of this strange happening.”
The old woman was fast asleep, and as she had grown very deaf it was
difficult to awaken her. When at length she was thoroughly roused, and
sat up with head and hands trembling with palsy, [149] Yin repeated to
her in a loud voice all that Wu had told him.
Said the woman: “The horse, spotted with five colours, and with scaly
armour instead of hair, is a dragon-horse. When spirits appear before
human beings they wear magic garments. That is why the clothing of your
visitors had no seams. Spirits tread on air. As these spirits went
westward, they rose higher and higher in the air, going towards the
rain-clouds. The youth was the Yellow Dragon. He is to raise a storm,
and as he had four followers, the storm will be a great one. May no
evil befall us.”
Then Yin told the old woman that one of the strangers had turned the
umbrella upside down before passing through the garden gate. “That is a
good omen,” she said. Then she lay down and closed her eyes. “I have
need of sleep,” she murmured; “I am very old.” [150]
Heavy masses of clouds were by this time gathering in the sky, and Yin
decided to sit up all night. Wu asked to be permitted to do the same,
and his father consented. Then the boy lit a yellow lantern, put on a
yellow robe that his grandmother had made for him, burned incense, and
sat down reading charms from an old yellow book. [151]
The storm burst forth in fury just when dawn was breaking dimly. Wu
then closed his yellow book and went to a window. The thunder bellowed,
the lightning flamed, and the rain fell in torrents, and swollen
streams poured down from the mountains. Soon the river rose in flood
and swept across the fields. Cattle gathered in groups on shrinking
mounds that had become islands surrounded by raging water.
Yin feared greatly that the house would be swept away, and wished he
had fled to the mountains.
At night the cottage was entirely surrounded by the flood. Trees were
cast down and swept away. “We cannot escape now,” groaned Yin.
Wu sat in silence, displaying no signs of emotion. “What do you think
of it all?” his father asked.
Wu reminded him that one of the strangers had turned the umbrella
upside down, and added: “Before the dragon youth went away he spoke and
said: ‘I shall come again to-morrow’.”
“He has come indeed,” Yin groaned, and covered his face with his hands.
Said Wu: “I have just seen the dragon. As I looked towards the sky he
spread out his great hood above our home. He is protecting us now.”
“Alas! my son, you are dreaming.”
“Listen, father, no rain falls on the roof.”
Yin listened intently. Then he said: “You speak truly, my son. This is
indeed a great marvel.”
“It was well,” said Wu, “that you welcomed the dragon yesterday.”
“He spoke to you first, my son; and you answered, ‘Enter’. Ah, you have
much wisdom. You will become a great man.”
The storm began to subside, and Wu prevailed upon his father to lie
down and sleep. [152]
Much damage had been done by storm and flood, and large numbers of
human beings and domesticated animals had perished. In the village,
which was situated at the mouth of the valley, only a few houses were
left standing.
The rain ceased to fall at midday. Then the sun came out and shone
brightly, while the waters began to retreat.
Wu went outside and sat at the garden gate, as was his custom. In time
he saw the yellow youth returning from the west, accompanied by his
four attendants. When he came nigh, Wu bowed and the youth drew up his
horse and spoke, saying: “I said I should return to-day.”
Wu bowed.
“But this time I shall not enter the courtyard,” the youth added.
“As you will,” Wu said reverently.
The dragon youth then handed the boy a single scale which he had taken
from the horse’s neck, and said: “Keep this and I shall remember you.”
Then he rode away and vanished from sight.
The boy re-entered the house. He awoke his father and said: “The storm
is over and the dragon has returned to his pool.” [153]
Yin embraced his son, and together they went to inform the old woman.
She awoke, sat up, and listened to all that was said to her. When she
learned that the dragon youth had again appeared and had spoken to Wu,
she asked: “Did he give you ought before he departed?”
Wu opened a small wooden box and showed her the scale that had been
taken from the neck of the dragon horse.
The woman was well pleased, and said: “When the Emperor sends for you,
all will be well.”
Yin was astonished to hear these words, and exclaimed: “Why should the
Emperor send for my boy?”
“You shall see,” the old woman made answer as she lay down again.
Before long the Emperor heard of the great marvel that had been worked
in the flooded valley. Men who had taken refuge on the mountains had
observed that no rain fell on Yin’s house during the storm. So His
Majesty sent couriers to the valley, and these bade Yin to accompany
them to the palace, taking Wu with him.
On being brought before the Emperor, Yin related everything that had
taken place. Then His Majesty asked to see the scale of the dragon
horse.
It was growing dusk when Wu opened the box, and the scale shone so
brightly that it illumined the throne-room so that it became as bright
as at high noon.
Said the Emperor: “Wu shall remain here and become one of my magicians.
The yellow dragon has imparted to him much power and wisdom.”
Thus it came about that Wu attained high rank in the kingdom. He found
that great miracles could be worked with the scale of the dragon horse.
It cured disease, and it caused the Emperor’s army to win victories.
Withal, Wu was able to foretell events, and he became a renowned
prophet and magician.
The farmer’s son grew to be very rich and powerful. A great house was
erected for him close to the royal palace, and he took his grandmother
and father to it, and there they lived happily until the end of their
days.
Thus did Wu, son of Yin, become a great man, because of the favour
shown to him by the thunder-dragon, who had wrought great destruction
in the river valley and taken toll of many lives.
It will be gathered from this story that the Chinese dragon is not
always a “beneficent deity”, as some writers put it. Like certain other
gods, he is a destroyer and preserver in one.
CHAPTER VIII
THE KINGDOM UNDER THE SEA
The Vanishing Island of Far-Eastern Dragon-god—Story of Priest who
visited Underworld—Far-Eastern Dragon as “Pearl Princess”—Her Human
Lover—An Indian Parallel—Dragon Island in Ancient Egyptian
Story—The Osirian Underworld—Vanishing Island in Scotland and
Fiji—Babylonian Gem-tree Garden—Far-Eastern Quest of the Magic
Sword—Parallels of Teutonic and Celtic Legend—“Kusanagi Sword”, the
Japanese “Excalibur”—City of the Far-Eastern Sea-god—Japanese
Vision of Gem-tree Garden—Weapon Demons—Star Spirits of Magic
Swords—Swords that become Dragons—Dragon Jewels—Dragon
Transformations.
The palace of the dragon king is situated in the Underworld, which can
be entered through a deep mountain cave or a dragon-guarded well. In
some of the Chinese stories the dragon palace is located right below a
remote island in the Eastern Sea. This island is not easily approached,
for on the calmest of days great billows dash against its shelving
crags. When the tide is high, it is entirely covered by water and
hidden from sight. Junks may then pass it or even sail over it, without
their crews being aware that they are nigh to the palace of the
sea-god.
Sometimes a red light burns above the island at night. It is seen many
miles distant, and its vivid rays may be reflected in the heavens.
In a Japanese story the island is referred to as “a glowing red mass
resembling the rising sun”. No mariner dares to approach it.
There was once a Chinese priest who, on a memorable night, reached the
dragon king’s palace by entering a deep cave on a mountain-side. It was
his pious desire to worship the dragon, and he went onward in the
darkness, reciting religious texts that gave him protection. The way
was long and dark and difficult, but at length, after travelling far,
he saw a light in front of him. He walked towards this light and
emerged from the cavern to find that he was in the Underworld. Above
him was a clear blue firmament lit by the night sun. He beheld a
beautiful palace in the midst of a garden that glittered with gems and
flowers, and directed his steps towards it. He reached a window the
curtain of which rustled in the wind. He perceived that it was a mass
of gleaming pearls. Peering behind it, as it moved, he beheld a table
formed of jewels. On this table lay a book of Buddhist prayers
(sutras).
As he gazed with wonder and reverence, the priest heard a voice that
spake and said: “Who hath come nigh and why hath he come?”
The priest answered in a low voice, giving his name, and expressing his
desire to behold the dragon king, whom he desired to worship.
Then the voice made answer: “Here no human eye can look upon me. Return
by the way thou hast come, and I shall appear before thee at a distance
from the cavern mouth.”
The priest made obeisance, and returned to the world of men by the way
he had come. He went to the spot that the voice had indicated, and
there he waited, reading sacred texts. Soon the earth yawned and the
dragon king arose in human shape, wearing a red hat and garment. The
priest worshipped him, and then the dragon vanished from sight. On that
sacred spot a temple was afterwards erected.
Once upon a time the daughter of the dragon king, who was named
“Abundant Pearl Princess”, fell in love with a comely youth of Japan.
He was sitting, on a calm summer day, beneath a holy tree, and his
image was reflected in a dragon well. The princess appeared before him
and cast a love spell over his heart. The youth was enchanted by her
beauty, and she led him towards the palace of the dragon king, the
“Abundant Pearl Prince”. There she married him, and they lived together
for three years. Then the youth was possessed by a desire to return to
the world of men. In vain the princess pleaded with him to remain in
the palace. When, however, she found that his heart was set on leaving
the kingdom of the Underworld, she resolved to accompany him. He was
conveyed across the sea on the back of a wani (a dragon in crocodile
shape). The princess accompanied him, and he built a house for her on
the seashore.
The “Abundant Pearl Princess” was about to become a mother, and she
made the youth promise not to look upon her until after her child was
born. But he broke his vow. Overcome with curiosity, he peered into her
chamber and saw that his wife had assumed the shape of a dragon. As
soon as the child was born, the princess departed in anger and was
never again beheld by her husband.
This story, it will be noted, is another Far-Eastern version of the
Melusina legend.
An Indian version of the tale relates that the hero was a sailor, the
sole survivor from a wreck, who swam to a small island in the midst of
the sea. When he reached the shore, he set out to look for food, but
found that the trees and shrubs, which dazzled him with their beauty,
bore beautiful gems instead of fruit. At length, however, he found a
fruit-bearing tree. He ate and was well content. Then he sat down
beside a well. As he stooped to drink of its waters, he had a vision of
the Underworld in all its beauty. At the bottom of the well sat a fair
sea-maid, who looked upwards with eyes of love and beckoned him towards
her. He plunged into the well and found himself in the radiant Kingdom
of Ocean. The maid was the queen, and she took him as her consort. She
promised him great wealth, but forbade him to touch the statue of an
Apsara [154], which was of gold and adorned with gems. But one day he
placed his hand on the right foot of the image. The foot darted forth
and struck him with such force that he was driven through the sea and
washed ashore on his native coast. [155]
The oldest version of this type of story comes from Egypt. It has been
preserved in a papyrus in the Hermitage collection at Petrograd, and is
usually referred to as of Twelfth Dynasty origin (c. 2000 B.C.). A
sailor relates that he was the sole survivor from a wreck. He had
seized a piece of wood and swam to an island. After he recovered from
exhaustion, he set out to search for food. “I found there figs and
grapes, all manner of good herbs, berries and grain, melons of all
kinds, fishes and birds.” In time, he heard a noise “as of thunder”,
while “the trees shook and the earth was moved”. The ruler of the
island drew nigh. He was a human-headed serpent “thirty cubits long,
and his beard greater than two cubits; his body was as overlaid with
gold, and his colour as that of true lapis-lazuli”.
The story proceeds to tell that the sailor becomes the guest of the
serpent, who makes speeches to him and introduces him to his family. It
is stated that the island “has risen from the waves and will sink
again”. After a time the sailor is rescued by a passing vessel. [156]
This ancient Egyptian tale links with the Indian and Chinese versions
given above. The blue serpent resembles closely the Chinese dragon; the
vanishing island is common to Egypt and China. Like much else that came
from Egypt, the island has a history. Long before the ancient mariners
transferred it to the ocean, it figured in the fused mythology of the
Solar and Osirian cults. Horus hid from Set on a green floating island
on the Nile. He was protected by a serpent deity. His father, Osiris,
is Judge and Ruler of the Underworld, and has a serpent shape as the
Nile god and the dragon of the abyss. The red light associated with the
Chinese dragon island of ocean recalls the Red Horus, a form of the
sun-god, rising from the Nile of the Underworld, on which floated the
green nocturnal sun, “the green bed of Horus” and a form of his father
Osiris as the solar deity of night.
The Osirian underworld idea appears to have given origin to the
widespread stories found as far apart as Japan and the British Isles
regarding “Land-under-Waves” and “the Kingdom of the Sea”. The green
floating island of Paradise is referred to in Scottish Gaelic
folk-tales. In Fiji the natives tell of a floating island that vanishes
when men approach it. [157]
In some Chinese legends Egyptian conceptions blend with those of
Babylonia. The Chinese priest who, in the dragon-king story, reached
the Underworld through a deep cave, followed in the footsteps of
Gilgamesh, who went in search of the “Plant of Life”—the herb that
causes man “to renew his youth like the eagle”. [158] Gilgamesh entered
the cave of the Mountain of Mashi (Sunset Hill), and after passing
through its night-black depths, reached the seaside garden in which, as
on the island in the Indian story, the trees bore, instead of fruit and
flowers, clusters of precious stones. He beheld in the midst of this
garden of dazzling splendour the palace of Sabitu, the goddess, who
instructed him how to reach the island on which lived his ancestor
Pir-naphishtum (Ut-napishtim). Gilgamesh was originally a god, the
earlier Gishbilgames of Sumerian texts. [159]
The Indian Hanuman (the monkey-god) similarly enters a deep cave when
he goes forth as a spy to Lanka, the dwelling-place of Ravana, the
demon who carried away Sita, wife of Rama, the hero of the Rámáyana. A
similar story is told in the mythical history of Alexander the Great.
There are also western European legends of like character. Hercules
searches for the golden apples that grow in the Hesperian gardens.
[160] In some Far Eastern stories the hero searches for a sword instead
of an herb. “Every weapon,” declares an old Gaelic saying, “has its
demon.” The same belief prevailed in China, where dragons sometimes
appeared in the form of weapons, and in India, where the spirits of
celestial weapons appeared before heroes like Arjuna and Rama. [161] In
the Teutonic Balder story, as related by Saxo Grammaticus, [162] the
hero is slain by a sword taken from the Underworld, where it was kept
by Miming (Mimer), the god, in an Underworld cave. Hother, who gains
possession of it, goes by a road “hard for mortal man to travel”.
In the Norse version the sword becomes an herb—the mistletoe, a
“cure-all”, like the Chinese dragon herb and the Babylonian “Plant of
Life”. Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur, was obtained from the
lake-goddess (a British “Naga”), and was flung back into the lake
before he died:
So flashed and fell the brand Excalibur:
But ere he dipped the surface, rose an arm
Clothed in white samite, mystic, wonderful,
And caught him by the hilt, and brandished him
Three times, and drew him under in the mere. [163]
The Japanese story of the famous Kusanagi sword is a Far-Eastern link
between the Celestial herb- and weapon-legends of Asia and Europe. It
tells that this magic sword was one of the three treasures possessed by
the imperial family of Japan, and that the warrior who wielded it could
put to flight an entire army. At a naval battle the sword was worn by
the boy-Emperor, Antoku Tennō. He was unable to make use of it, and
when the enemy were seen to be victorious, the boy’s grandmother,
Nu-no-ama, clutched him in her arms and leapt into the sea.
Many long years afterwards, when the Emperor Go Shirakawa sat on the
imperial throne, his barbarian enemies declared war against him. The
Emperor arose in his wrath and called for the Kusanagi sword. Search
was made for it in the temple of Kamo, where it was supposed to be in
safe-keeping. The Emperor was told, however, that it had been lost, and
he gave orders that ceremonies should be performed with purpose to
discover where the sword was, and how it might be restored. One night,
soon afterwards, the Emperor dreamed a dream, in which a royal lady,
who had been dead for centuries, appeared before him and told that the
Kusanagi sword was in the keeping of the dragon king in his palace at
the bottom of the sea.
Next morning the Emperor related his dream to his chief minister, and
bade him hasten to the two female divers, Oimatsu and her daughter
Wakamatsu, who resided at Dan-no-ura, so that they might dive to the
bottom of the sea and obtain the sword.
The divers undertook the task, and were conveyed in a boat to that part
of the ocean where the boy-Emperor, Antoku Tennō, had been drowned. A
religious ceremony was performed, and the mother and daughter then
dived into the sea. A whole day passed before they appeared again. They
told, as soon as they were taken into the boat, that they had visited a
wonderful city at the bottom of the sea. Its gates were guarded by
silent sentinels who drew flashing swords when they (the divers)
attempted to enter. They were consequently compelled to wait for
several hours, until a holy man appeared and asked them what they
sought. When they had informed him that they were searching for the
Kusanagi sword, he said that the city could not be entered without the
aid of Buddha.
Said the Emperor’s chief minister: “The city is that of the god of the
sea.”
“It is very beautiful,” Oimatsu told him; “the walls are of gold, and
the gates of pearl. Above the city walls are seen many-coloured towers
that gleam like to precious stones. When one of the gates was opened,
we perceived that the streets were of silver and the houses of
mother-of-pearl.”
Said the Emperor’s chief minister: “Fain would I visit that city.”
He looked over the side of the boat and sighed, “I see naught but
darkness.”
“When we dived and reached the sea-bottom,” Oimatsu continued, “we
beheld a cave and entered it. Thick darkness prevailed, but we walked
on and on, groping as we went, until we reached a beautiful plain over
which bends the sky, blue as sapphire. Trees growing on the plain bear
clusters of dazzling gems that sparkle among their leaves.”
“Were you not tempted to pluck them?” asked the minister.
“Each tree is guarded by a poisonous snake,” Oimatsu told him, “and we
dared not touch the gems.”
On the following day the divers were provided with sutra-charms by the
chief priest of the temple of Kamo.
They entered the sea again, and told, on their return next morning,
that they had visited the city, and reached the palace of the dragon
king, which was guarded by invisible sentries. Two women came out of
the palace and bade them stand below an old pine tree, the bark of
which glittered like the scales of a dragon. In front of them was a
window. The blind was made of beautiful pearls, and was raised high
enough to permit them to see right into the room.
One of the palace ladies said, “Look through the window.”
The women looked. In the room they saw a mighty serpent with a sword in
his mouth. He had eyes bright as the sun, and a blood-red tongue. In
his coils lay a little boy fast asleep. [164] The serpent looked round
and, addressing the women, spoke and said: “You have come hither to
obtain the Kusanagi sword, but I shall keep it for ever. It does not
belong to the Emperor of Japan. Many years ago it was taken from this
palace by a dragon prince who went to dwell in the river Hi. He was
slain by a hero of Japan. [165] This hero carried off the sword and
presented it to the Emperor. After many years had gone past a
sea-dragon took the form of a princess. She became the bride of a
prince of Japan, and was the grandmother of the boy-Emperor with whom
she leapt into the sea during the battle of Dan-no-ura. This boy now
lies asleep in my coils.”
The Emperor of Japan sorrowed greatly when he was informed regarding
the dragon king’s message. “Alas!” he said, “if the Kusanagi sword
cannot be obtained, the barbarians will defeat my army in battle.”
Then a magician told the Emperor that he knew of a powerful spell that
would compel the dragon to give up the sword. “If it is successful,”
the Emperor said, “I shall elevate you to the rank of a prince.”
The spell was worked, and when next the female divers went to the
Kingdom under the Sea, they obtained the sword, with which they
returned to the Emperor. He used it in battle and won a great victory.
The sword was afterwards placed in a box and deposited in the temple of
Atsuta, and there it remained for many years, until a Korean priest
carried it away. When, however, the Korean was crossing the ocean to
his own land, a great storm arose. The captain of the vessel knew it
was no ordinary storm, but one that had been raised by a god, and he
spoke and said, “Who on board this ship has offended the dragon king of
Ocean?”
Then said the Korean priest, “I shall throw my sword into the sea as a
peace-offering.”
He did as he said he would, and immediately the storm passed away.
The dragon king caused the sword to be replaced in the temple from
which the Korean had stolen it. There it lay for a century. Then it was
carried back to the palace of the dragon-god in his Kingdom under the
Sea.
Magic or supernatural swords were possessed by the spirits of
dragon-gods.
According to a Chinese story in the Books of the Tsin Dynasty, an
astrologer once discovered that among the stars there shone the spirits
of two magic swords, and that they were situated right above the spot
where the swords had, in time past, been concealed. Search was made for
these, and deep down in the earth was found a luminous stone chest.
Inside the chest lay two swords that bore inscriptions indicating that
they were dragon swords. As soon as they were taken out of the box,
their star-spirits faded from the sky.
These dragon swords could not be retained by human beings for any
prolonged period. Stories are told of swords being taken away by
spirit-beings and even of swords leaping of their own accord from their
sheaths into rivers or the ocean, and assuming dragon shape as soon as
they touched water. [166]
Similarly dragon jewels might be carried away by dragons who appeared
in human shape—either as beautiful girls or as crafty old men.
It was fortunate for mortals when dragons appeared as human beings, as
animals, or as fish that spoke with human voices. Dragons were unable
to change their shapes when angry, or when they intended to avenge a
wrong. A transformed dragon was therefore quite harmless.
CHAPTER IX
THE ISLANDS OF THE BLEST
Souls on Islands—Wells of Life and Trees or Plants of Life in
China, Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, &c.—How Islands were Anchored—The
Ocean Tortoise—A Giant’s Fishing—The Mystery of Fu-sang—Island of
Women—Search for Fabled Isles—Chinese and Japanese Stories—How
Navigation was Stimulated—Columbus and Eden—Water of Life in
Ceylon, Polynesia, America, and Scotland—Delos, a Floating
Island—Atlantis and the Fortunate Isles—Celtic Island
Paradise—Apples and Nuts as Food of Life—America as Paradise—The
Indian Lotus of Life—Buddhist Paradise with Gem-trees—Diamond
Valley Legend in China and Greece—Luck Gems and Immortality.
The Chinese and Japanese, like the Egyptians, Indians, Fijians, and
others, believed, as has been shown, in the existence of a floating and
vanishing island associated with the serpent-god or dragon-god of
ocean. They believed, too, that somewhere in the Eastern Sea lay a
group of islands that were difficult to locate or reach; which
resembled closely, in essential particulars, the “Islands of the
Blest”, or “Fortunate Isles”, of ancient Greek writers. Vague beliefs
regarding fabulous countries far across the ocean were likewise
prevalent.
In some native accounts these Chinese Islands of the Blest are said to
be five in number, and named Tai Yü, Yüan Chiao, Fang Hu, Ying Chou,
and P’ēng-lai; in others the number is nine, or ten, or only three. A
single island is sometimes referred to; it may be located in the ocean,
or in the Yellow River, or in the river of the Milky Way, the Celestial
Ho.
The islands are, in Chinese legend, reputed to be inhabited by those
who have won immortality, or by those who have been transported to
their Paradise to dwell there in bliss for a prolonged period so that
they may be reborn on earth, or pass to a higher state of existence.
It is of special interest to note in connection with these islands that
they have Wells of Life and Trees or Herbs of Life. The souls drink the
water and eat the herb or fruit of the tree to prolong their existence.
One Chinese “plant of life” is li chih, “the fungus of immortality”. It
appears on Chinese jade ornaments as a symbol of longevity. “This
fungus”, writes Laufer, “is a species of Agaric and considered a
felicitous plant, because it absorbs the vapours of the earth. In the
Li Ki (ed. Couvreur, Vol. I, p. 643) it is mentioned as an edible
plant. As a marvellous plant foreboding good luck, it first appeared
under the Han Dynasty, in 109 B.C., when it sprouted in the imperial
palace Kan-tsʼüan. The emperor issued an edict announcing this
phenomenon, and proclaimed an amnesty in the empire except for
relapsing criminals. A hymn in honour of this divine plant was composed
in the same year.” [167]
Like the Red Cloud herb the li chih had evidently a close connection
with the dragon-god.
The question arises whether the idea of an island of paradise was of
“spontaneous origin” in China, or whether the ancient Chinese borrowed
the belief from intruders, or from peoples with whom they had constant
trading relations. There is evidence that as far back as the fourth
century B.C., a Chinese explorer set out on an expedition to search for
the island or islands of Paradise in the Eastern Sea. But it is not
known at what precise period belief in the island arose and became
prevalent.
The evidence afforded by the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts is of
special interest and importance in connection with the problem of
origin. As far back as c. 2500 B.C. “the departed Pharaoh hoped to draw
his sustenance in the realm of Re (Paradise)” from “the tree of life in
the mysterious isle in the midst of the Field of Offerings”. The soul
of the Pharaoh, according to the Pyramid Texts, set out, soon after
death, in search of this island “in company with the Morning Star. The
Morning Star is a gorgeous green falcon, a solar divinity, identified
with Horus of Dewat.” The Egyptian story of the soul’s quest goes on to
tell that “this King Pepi ... went to the great isle in the midst of
the Field of Offerings over which the gods make the swallows fly. The
swallows are the Imperishable Stars. They give to this King Pepi the
tree of life, whereof they live, that ye (Pepi and the Morning Star)
may at the same time live thereof.” (Pyramid Texts, 1209–16). Sinister
enemies “may contrive to deprive the king of the sustenance provided
for him....” Charms were provided to protect the fruit of immortality.
“The enemy against which these are most often directed in the Pyramid
Texts is serpents.” In the Japanese story of the Kusanagi sword, the
gem-trees of the Otherworld are protected by dragons.
The Pyramid Texts devoted to the ancient Egyptian King Unis tell that a
divine voice cries to the gods Re and Thoth (sun and moon), saying,
“Take ye this King Unis with you that he may eat of that which ye eat,
and that he may drink of that which ye drink.” The magic well is
referred to as “the pool of King Unis”. [168] The soul of the Pharaoh
also sails with the unwearied stars in the barque of the sun-god, not
only by day but by night, and as the Egyptian night sun was green, “the
green bed of Horus”, the idea of the floating solar island on the
Underworld Nile became fused with that of the island with the Well of
Life and the Tree of Life. In the Pyramid Texts the Celestial
Otherworld “is”, as Breasted says, “not only the east, but explicitly
the east of the sky”. [169] Similarly the fabulous continents of the
Chinese were situated to the east of the mythical sea.
The Sumerians and early Babylonians had, like the Egyptians, their
Islands of the Blest. Gilgamesh, who reaches these islands by crossing
the mythical sea, finds dwelling on one of them Ut-napishtim (the
Babylonian Noah) and his wife. Ut-napishtim directs the hero to another
island on which there is a fountain of healing waters and a magic plant
that renews youth. Gilgamesh finds the Plant of Immortality, but as he
stoops to drink water from a stream, a serpent darts forth and snatches
the plant from him. This serpent was a form of “the Earth Lion” (the
dragon). [170]
The Gilgamesh legend dates back beyond 2500 B.C. Like the Egyptian one
enshrined in the Pyramid Texts, it has two main features, the Well of
Life and the Tree or Plant of Life, which are situated on an island.
The island in time crept into the folk-tales. It was no doubt the
prototype of the vanishing island of the Egyptian mariner’s story
already referred to.
In the Shih Chi (Historical Record) of Ssŭ-ma Chʼien, “the Herodotus of
China”, a considerable part of which has been translated by Professor
Ed. Chavannes, [171] the three Chinese Islands of the Blest (San, Shen,
Shan) are named P’ēng-lai, Fang Chang, and Ying Chou. They are located
in the Gulf of Chihli, but are difficult to reach because contrary
winds spring up and drive vessels away in the same manner as the vessel
of Odysseus was driven away from Ithaca. It is told, however, that in
days of old certain fortunate heroes contrived to reach and visit the
fabled isles. They told that they saw there palaces of gold and silver,
that the white men and women, the white beasts and the white birds ate
the Herb of Life and drank the waters of the Fountain of Life. On the
island of Ying Chou are great precipices of jade. A brook, the waters
of which are as stimulating as wine, flows out of a jade rock. Those
who can reach the island and drink of this water will increase the
length of their lives. When the jade water is mixed with pounded
“fungus of immortality” a food is provided which ensures a thousand
years of existence in the body.
Chinese legends tell that the lucky mariners who come within view of
the Isles of the Blest, behold them but dimly, as they seem to be
enveloped in luminous clouds. When vessels approach too closely, the
islands vanish by sinking below the waves, as do the fabled islands of
Gaelic stories.
Lieh Tze, alleged to be an early Taoist writer, [172] but whose
writings, or those writings attributed to him, were forged in the first
or second century A.D., has located the islands to the east of the gulf
of Chihli in that fathomless abyss into which flow all the streams of
the earth and the river of the Milky Way. Apparently this abyss is the
Mythical Sea which was located beyond the eastern horizon—a part of the
sea that surrounds the world. Into this sea or lake, according to the
ancient Egyptian texts, pours the celestial river, along which sails
the barque of the sun-god. The Nile was supposed by the Ancient
Egyptians to be fed by the waters above the firmament and the waters
below the earth. The Pyramid Texts, when referring to the birth of
Osiris as “new water” (the inundation), say:
The waters of life that are in the sky come;
The waters of life that are in the earth come.
The sky burns for thee,
The earth trembles for thee. [173]
In India the Ganges was likewise fed by the celestial Ganges that
poured down from the sky.
Lieh Tze’s Islands of the Blest are five in number, and are inhabited
by the white souls of saintly sages who have won immortality by having
their bodies rendered transparent, or after casting off their bodies as
snakes cast off their skins. All the animals on these islands are
likewise white and therefore pure and holy. The spirit-dwellings are of
gold and jade, and in the groves and gardens the trees and plants bear
pearls and precious stones. Those who eat of the fungus, or of perfumed
fruit, renew their youth and acquire the power of floating like down
through the air from island to island.
At one time the islands drifted about on the tides of ocean, but the
Lord of All who controls the Universe, having been appealed to by the
Taoist sages who dwelt on the isles, caused three great Atlas-turtles
to support each island with their heads so that they might remain
steadfast. These turtles are relieved by others at the end of sixty
thousand years. In like manner, in Indian mythology, the tortoise
Kurma, an avatar of the god Vishnu, supports Mount Meru when it is
placed in the Sea of Milk. The Japanese Creator has a tortoise form
that supports the world-tree, on the summit of which sits a four-armed
god. In China the tortoise had divine attributes. Tortoise shell is a
symbol of unchangeability, and a symbol of rank when used for court
girdles. The tortoise was also used for purposes of divination. [174]
A gigantic mythical tortoise is supposed, in the Far East, to live in
the depths of ocean. It has one eye situated in the middle of its body.
Once every three thousand years it rises to the surface and turns over
on its back so that it may see the sun.
Once upon a time, a legend tells, the Atlas-turtles that support the
Islands of the Blest suffered from a raid by a wandering giant. As the
Indian god Vishnu and the Greek Poseidon could cross the Universe at
three strides, so could this giant pass quickly from country to country
and ocean to ocean. One or two strides were sufficient for him to reach
the mythical ocean from the Lung-po mountains. He sat on the mountain
summit of one of the Islands of the Blest, and cast his fishing-line
into the deep waters. [175] The Atlas-turtles were unable to resist the
lure of his bait and, having hooked and captured six of them, he threw
them over his back and returned home in triumph. These turtles had been
supporting the two islands, Tai Yü and Yüan Chiao, which, having been
set free, were carried by powerful tides towards the north, where they
stranded among the ice-fields. The white beings that inhabited these
islands were thus separated from their fellow saints on the other three
islands, Fang Hu, Ying Chou, and Pʼēng-lai. We are left to imagine how
lonely they felt in isolation. No doubt, they suffered from the evils
associated with the north—the “airt” of drought and darkness. The giant
and his tribesmen were punished by the Lord of the Universe for this
act by having their stature and their kingdom greatly reduced.
On the fabled islands, the white saints cultivate and gather the
“fungus of immortality”, as the souls in the Paradise of Osiris
cultivate and harvest crops of barley and wheat and dates. Like the
Osirian corn, the island fungus sprouts in great profusion. This fungus
has not only the power to renew youth but even to restore the dead to
life. The “Herodotus of China” has recorded that once upon a time
leaves of the fungus were carried by ravens to the mainland from one of
the islands, and dropped on the faces of warriors slain in battle. The
warriors immediately came to life, although they had lain dead for
three days. The “water of life” had similarly reanimating properties.
The famous magician, Tung-fang Shuo, who lived in second century B.C.,
tells that the sacred islands are ten in number, there being two
distinct groups of five. One of the distant islands is named Fu-sang,
and it has been identified by different western writers with
California, Mexico, Japan, and Formosa. Its name signifies “the Land of
the Leaning Mulberry”. The mulberries are said to grow in pairs and to
be of great height. Once every nine thousand years they bear fruit
which the saints partake of. This fruit adds to their saintly
qualities, and gives them power to soar skyward like celestial birds.
Beyond Fu-sang is a country of white women who have hairy bodies. In
the spring season they enter the river to bathe and become pregnant,
and their children are born in the autumn. The hair of their heads is
so long that it trails on the ground behind them. Instead of breasts,
they have white locks or hairy organs at the back of their necks from
which comes a liquor that nourishes their children. These women,
according to some accounts, have no husbands, and take flight when they
see a man. A historian who, by the way, gives them husbands, has
recorded that a Chinese vessel was once driven by a tempest to this
wonderful island. The crew landed and found that the women resembled
those of China, but that the men had heads like dogs and voices that
sounded like the barking of dogs. Evidently the legends about the
fabled islands became mixed up with accounts of the distant islands of
a bearded race reached by seafarers.
There are records of several attempts that were made by pious Chinese
Emperors to discover the Islands of the Blest, with purpose to obtain
the “fungus of immortality”. One mariner named Hsu Fü, who was sent to
explore the Eastern Sea so that the fungus might be brought to the
royal palace, returned with a wonderful story. He said that a god had
risen out of the sea and inquired if he was the Emperor’s
representative. “I am,” the mariner made answer.
“What seek ye?” asked the sea-god.
“I am searching for the plant that has the power to prolong human
life,” Hsu Fü answered.
The god then informed the Emperor’s messenger that the offerings he
brought were not sufficient to be regarded as payment for this magic
plant. He was willing, however, that Hsu Fü should see the fungus for
himself so that, apparently, the Emperor might be convinced it really
existed.
The vessel was then piloted in a south-easterly direction until the
Islands of the Blest were reached. Hsu Fü was permitted to land on
P’ēng-lai, the chief island, on which was situated the golden palace of
the dragon king of ocean. There he saw newly-harvested crops of the
“fungus of immortality” guarded by a great brazen dragon of ferocious
aspect. Not a leaf could he obtain, however, to bring back to China.
The pious mariner knelt before the sea-god and asked him what offering
he required from the Emperor in return for the fungus. He was informed
that many youths and girls would have to be sent to P’ēng-lai.
On ascertaining the price demanded by the god for the magic fungus, the
Emperor dispatched a fleet of vessels with three thousand young men and
virgins. Hsu Fü was placed in command of the expedition. But he never
returned again to China. According to some, he and his followers still
reside on P’ēng-lai; others assert that he reached a distant land,
supposed to be Japan, where he founded a state over which he reigned as
king.
Other Chinese Emperors were similarly anxious to discover the fabled
islands, and many expeditions were sent to sea. One exasperated monarch
is said to have had nearly five hundred magicians and scholars put to
death because their efforts to assist him in discovering the islands
had proved to be futile.
Another Emperor fitted out a naval expedition which he himself
commanded. Each vessel was packed with soldiers who in mid-ocean raised
a great clamour, blowing horns, beating drums, and shouting in chorus,
with purpose to terrify the gods of ocean and compel them to reveal the
location of the Isle of Immortality. In time the dragon-god appeared in
his fiercest shape, with the head of a lion and a shark-like body 500
feet in length. The Emperor ordered his fleet to surround the god, who
had apparently come with the intention of preventing the ships going
any farther. A fierce battle ensued. Thousands of poisoned arrows were
discharged against the god, who was so grievously wounded that his
blood tinged the sea over an area of 10,000 miles. But despite this
victory achieved by mortals, the famous island on which grew the herb
of immortality was never reached. On the same night the Emperor had to
engage in single combat with the dragon-god, who came against him in a
dream. This was a combat of souls, for in sleep, as was believed, the
soul leaves the body. The soul of the Emperor fared badly. On the day
that followed his majesty was unable to rise from his couch, and he
died within the space of seven days.
In Japanese stories the island of P’ēng-lai is referred to as Horaizan.
It has three high mountains, on the chief of which, called Horai, grows
the Tree of Life. This tree has a trunk and branches of gold, roots of
silver, and gem-leaves and fruit. In some stories there are three
trees, the peach, the plum, and the pine. The “fungus of immortality”
is also referred to. It grows in the shade of one or another of the
holy trees, usually the pine. There is evidence, too, of the belief
that a “grass of immortality” grew on the sacred island as well as the
famous fungus. The life-giving fountain was as well known to the
Japanese as it was to the Chinese and others.
A story is told of a Japanese Gilgamesh, named Sentaro, who, being
afraid of death, summoned to his aid an immortal saint so that he might
be enabled to obtain the “grass of immortality”. The saint handed him a
crane made of paper which, when mounted, came to life and carried
Sentaro across the ocean to Mount Horai. There he found and ate the
life-giving grass. When, however, he had lived for a time on the island
he became discontented. The other inhabitants had already grown weary
of immortality and wished they could die. Sentaro himself began to pine
for Japan and, in the end, resolved to mount his paper crane and fly
over the sea. But after he left the island he doubted the wisdom of his
impulsive resolution. The result was that the crane, which moved
according to his will, began to crumple up and drop through the air.
Sentaro was greatly scared, and once again yearned so deeply for his
native land that the crane, straightened and strengthened by his
yearning, rose into the air and continued its flight until Japan was
reached.
Another Japanese hero, named Wasobioye, the story of whose wanderings
is retold by Professor Chamberlain, [176] once set out in a boat to
escape troublesome visitors. The day was the eighth of the eighth month
and the moon was full. Suddenly a storm came on, which tore the sail to
shreds and brought down the mast. Wasobioye was unable to return home,
and his boat was driven about on the wide ocean for the space of three
months. Then he reached the Sea of Mud, on which he could not catch any
fish. He was soon reduced to sore straits and feared he would die of
hunger, but, in time, he caught sight of land and was greatly cheered.
His boat drifted slowly towards a beautiful island on which there were
three great mountains. As he drew near to the shore, he found, to his
great joy, that the air was laden with most exquisite perfumes that
came from the flowers and tree-blossoms of that wonderful isle. He
landed and found a sparkling well. When he had drunk of the water his
strength was revived, and a feeling of intense pleasure tingled in his
veins. He rose up refreshed and happy and, walking inland, soon met
with Jofuku the sage, known in China as Hsu Fü, who had been sent to
the Island of the Blest (P’ēng-lai) by the Emperor She Wang Ti to
obtain the “fungus of immortality”, with the youths and virgins, but
had never returned.
Wasobioye was taken by the friendly sage to the city of the immortals,
who spent their lives in the pursuit of pleasure. He found, however,
that these people had grown to dislike their monotonous existence, and
were constantly striving to discover some means whereby their days
would be shortened. They refused to partake of mermaid flesh because
this was a food that prolonged life; they favoured instead goldfish and
soot, a mixture which was supposed to be poisonous. The manners of the
people were curious. Instead of wishing one another good health and
long life, they wished for sickness and a speedy death. Congratulations
were showered on any individual who seemed to be indisposed, and he was
sympathized with when he showed signs of recovering.
Wasobioye lived on the island for nearly a quarter of a century. Then,
having grown weary of the monotonous life, he endeavoured to commit
suicide by partaking of poisonous fruit, fish, and flesh. But all his
attempts were in vain. It was impossible for anyone to die on that
island. In time he came to know that he could die if he left it, but he
had heard of other wonderful lands and wished to visit them before his
days came to an end. Then, instead of eating poisonous food, he began
to feast on mermaid flesh so that his life might be prolonged for many
years beyond the allotted span. Thereafter he visited the Land of
Shams, the Land of Plenty, &c. His last visit was paid to the Land of
Giants. Wasobioye is usually referred to as the “Japanese Gulliver”.
The search for the mythical islands with their “wells of life” and
“trees” or “plants of life” is referred to in the stories of many lands
and even in history, especially the history of exploration, for the
world-wide search for the Earthly Paradise appears to have exercised
decided influence in stimulating maritime enterprise in mediæval as
well as prehistoric times. Columbus searched for the island paradise in
which the “well” and “tree” were to be found. He sailed westward so as
to approach the paradise “eastward in Eden”, [177] through “the back
door” as it were, and wrote: “The saintly theologians and philosophers
were right when they fixed the site of the terrestrial paradise in the
extreme Orient, because it is a most temperate clime; and the lands
which I have just discovered are the limits of the Orient.” In another
letter he says: “I am convinced that there lies the terrestrial
paradise”. [178]
As Ellis reminds us, “the expedition which led to the discovery of
Florida was undertaken not so much from a desire to explore unknown
countries”, as to find a “celebrated fountain, described in a tradition
prevailing among the inhabitants of Puerto Rico, as existing in Binini,
one of the Lucayo Islands. It was said to possess such restorative
powers as to renew youth and the vigour of every person who bathed in
its waters. It was in search of this fountain, which was the chief
object of their expedition, that Ponce de Leon ranged through the
Lucayo Islands and ultimately reached the shores of Florida.”
Ellis refers to this voyage because he found that the mythical island
and well were believed in by the Polynesians. He refers, in this
connection, to the “Hawaiian account of the voyage of Kamapiikai to the
land where the inhabitants enjoyed perpetual health and youthful
beauty, where the wai ora (life-giving fountain) removed every internal
malady, and every external deformity or paralysed decrepitude, from all
those who were plunged beneath its salutary waters”. Ellis anticipates
the views of modern ethnologists when dealing with the existence of the
same beliefs among widely-separated peoples. He says: “A tabular view
of a number of words in the Malayan, Asiatic, or the Madagasse, the
American, and the Polynesian languages, would probably show that, at
some remote period, either the inhabitants of these distant parts of
the world maintained frequent intercourse with each other, or that
colonies from some one of them originally peopled, in part or
altogether, the others”. He adds, “Either part of the present
inhabitants of the South Sea Islands came originally from America, or
tribes of the Polynesians have, at some remote period, found their way
to the (American) continent”. [179]
W. D. Westervelt, in his Legends of Old Honolulu, heads his old
Hawaiian story “The Water of Life of Ka-ne”, which he himself has
collected, with the following extract from the Maori legend of New
Zealand:
When the moon dies, she goes to the living water of Ka-ne, to the
water which can restore all life, even the moon to the path in the
sky.
In the Hawaiian form of the legend the hero, who found the water so
that his sick father, the king, might be cured, met with a dwarf who
instructed him where to go and what to do.
A russet dwarf similarly figures in the Gaelic story of Diarmaid’s
search for the cup and the water of life so that the daughter of the
King of Land-under-Waves might be cured of her sickness. This dwarf
takes the Gaelic hero across a ferry and instructs him how to find the
cup and the water. [180]
The Polynesians’ ghosts went westward. In their Paradise was a
bread-fruit tree. “This tree had two branches, one towards the east and
one towards the west, both of which were used by the ghosts. One was
for leaping into eternal darkness into Po-pau-ole, the other was a
meeting-place with the helpful gods.” [181] Turner tells that “some of
the South Sea Islanders have a tradition of a river in their imaginary
world of spirits, called the ‘water of life’. It was supposed that if
the aged, when they died, went and bathed there, they became young and
returned to earth to live another life over again.” [182] Yudhishthira,
one of the heroes of the Aryo-Indian epic the Mahábhárata, becomes
immortal after bathing in the celestial Ganges. [183] In the Æneid, the
hero sees souls in Paradise drinking of the water of Lethe so that they
may forget the past and be reborn among men.
Sir John de Mandeville, the fourteenth-century traveller and compiler
of traveller’s stories, located the fountain of life at the base of a
great mountain in Ceylon. This “fayr well ... hathe odour and savour of
all spices; and at every hour of the day, he chaungethe his odour and
his savour dyversely. And whoso drinkethe 3 times fasting of that watre
of that welle, he is hool (whole) of alle maner (of) sykenesse that he
hathe. And they that duellen (dwell) there and drynken often of that
welle, thei nevere hau (have) sykenesse, and thei semen (seem) alle
weys yonge.” Sir John says that he drank of the water on three or four
occasions and fared the better for it. Some men called it the “Welle of
Youthe”. They had often drunk from it and seemed “alle weys yongly
(youthful)” and lived without sickness. “And men seyn that that welle
comethe out of Paradys, and therefore it is so vertuous.” The “tree of
life” is always situated near the “well of life” in mediæval
literature. At Heliopolis in Egypt a well and tree are connected by
Coptic Christians and Mohammedans with Christ. When Joseph and Mary
fled to Egypt they rested under this tree, according to Egyptian
belief, and the clothes of the holy child were washed in the well.
Heliopolis, the Biblical On, is “the city of the sun”, and the Arabs
still call the well the “spring of the sun”. According to ancient
Egyptian belief the sun-god Ra washed his face in it every morning. The
tree, a sycamore, was the mother-goddess.
That European ideas regarding a floating island or islands were of
Egyptian origin and closely connected with the solar cult, is suggested
by the classical legend regarding Delos, one of the Cyclades. It was
fabled to have been raised to the surface of the sea at the command of
Poseidon, so that the persecuted goddess Latona, who was pursued from
land to land by a python, as the Egyptian Isis was pursued by Set,
might give birth there to Apollo. On Delos the image of Apollo was in
the shape of a dragon, and delivered oracles. It was unlawful for any
person to die on Delos, and those of its inhabitants who fell sick were
transported to another island.
Delos was a floating island like the floating island of the Nile, “the
green bed of Horus” on which that son of Osiris and Isis hid from Set.
The most ancient Apollo was the son of cripple Hephaistos. Cripple
Horus was, in one of his forms, a Hephaistos and a metal-worker. Homer
knew of the fabled island of Apollo. The swineherd, addressing
Odysseus, says, [184] “There is a certain isle called Syria ... over
above Ortygia, and there are the turning places of the sun. It is not
very great in compass, though a goodly isle, rich in herds, rich in
flocks, with plenty of corn and wine. Dearth never enters the land, and
no hateful sickness falls on wretched mortals.”
The later Greeks located the island Paradise in the Atlantic, and it is
referred to as “Atlantis”, the Islands of the Blest and the Fortunate
Isles (fortunatae insulae). Hercules set out to search for the golden
apples, the fruit of immortality that grow in
those Hesperian gardens famed of old,
Fortunate fields and groves and flowery vales.
The garden of Paradise, cared for by those celebrated nymphs, the
daughters of Hesperus, brother of Atlas—Hesperus is the planet Venus as
an evening star—was also located among the Atlas mountains in Africa.
There the tree of life, which bore the golden apples, was guarded by
the nymphs and by a sleepless dragon, like the gem-trees in the
Paradises of China and Japan.
According to Diodorus, the Phœnicians discovered the island Paradise.
Plutarch placed it at a distance of five days’ voyage to the west of
Brittia (England and Scotland), apparently confusing it with Ireland
(the “sacred isle” of the ancients), or with an island in the Hebrides.
The island of immortals in the western ocean is found in Gaelic folk-
and manuscript-literature.
Among the Gaelic names of Paradise is that of “Emain Ablach” (Emain
rich in apples). In one description a youth named Conla and his bride
Veniusa are referred to. “Now the youth was so that in his hand he held
a fragrant apple having the hue of gold; a third part of it he would
eat, and still, for all he consumed, never a whit would it be
diminished. The fruit it was that supported the pair of them and when
once they had partaken of it, nor age nor dimness could affect them.” A
part of this Paradise was reserved for “monarchs, kings, and tribal
chiefs”. Teigue, a Celtic Gilgamesh who visited the island, saw there
“a thickly furnished wide-spreading apple tree that bore blossom and
ripe fruit” at the same time. He asked regarding the great tree and was
informed that its fruit was “meat” intended to “serve the congregation”
which was to inhabit the mansion. [185] The rowan berry and hazel nut
were also to the Gaels fruits of immortality. There once came to St.
Patrick “from the south” a youth wearing a crimson mantle fixed by a
fibula of gold over a yellow shirt. He brought “a double armful of
round yellow-headed nuts and of beautiful golden-yellow apples”. [186]
The Gaelic Islands of the Blest are pictured in glowing colours:
Splendours of every colour glisten
Throughout the gentle-voiced plains.
Joy is known, ranked around music
In the southern Silver-cloud Plain.
Unknown is wailing or treachery ...
There is nothing rough or hoarse ...
Without grief, without sorrow, without death,
Without sickness, without debility ...
A lovely land
On which the many blossoms drop. [187]
The hero Bran sets out to search for the islands, and, like one of the
Chinese mariners, meets with the sea-god, who addresses him and tells
of the wonders of the island Paradise with its trees of life.
A wood laden with beautiful fruit ...
A wood without decay, without defect,
On which is a foliage of a golden hue. [188]
The green floating and vanishing island and the well of life are common
in Scottish Gaelic folk-lore. It was believed that the life-giving
water had greatest potency if drunk at dawn of the day which was of
equal length with the night preceding it, and that it should be drunk
before a bird sipped at the well and before a dog barked. The
Scandinavians heard of the Gaelic Island of the West during their
prolonged sojourn in the British Isles and Ireland, and referred to it
as “Ireland hit Mikla” (“The Mickle Ireland”), and the mythical island
was afterwards identified with Vinland, believed to be America, which
was apparently reached by the hardy sea-rovers.
The Earthly Paradise was also located in Asia. In the mythical
histories of Alexander a hero sets forth like Gilgamesh on the quest of
the Water of Life. He similarly enters a cavern of a great mountain in
the west which is guarded by a monster serpent. In one version of the
tale this hero carries a jewel that shines in darkness—a jewel that
figures prominently in Chinese lore (Chap. XIII)—and passes through the
dark tunnel. He reaches the Well of Life and plunges into it. When he
came out he found that his body had turned a bluish-green colour, and
ever afterwards he was called “El Khidr”, which means “Green”. [189]
The Well of Life is referred to in the Koran. Commentators explain a
reference to a vanishing fish by telling that Moses or Joshua carried a
fried fish when they reached the Well of Life. Some drops of the water
fell on the fish, which at once leapt out of the basket into the sea
and swam away.
In the Aryo-Indian epic, the Mahábhárata, the hero Bhima sets out in
search of the Lake of Life and the Lotus of Life. He overcomes the
Yaksha-guardians of the lake, and when he bathes in the lake his wounds
are healed. [190]
There are glowing descriptions in Buddhist literature of the Paradise
reached by those who are to qualify for Buddhahood. A proportion of the
Chinese Taoist inhabitants of the Islands of the Blest similarly wait
for the time when they will pass into another state of existence. A
similar belief prevailed in the West. Certain Celtic heroes, like
Arthur, Ossian, Fionn (Finn), Brian Boroimhe, and Thomas the Rhymer,
live in Paradise for long periods awaiting the time when they are to
return to the world of men, as do Charlemagne, Frederick of Barbarossa,
William Tell, and others on the Continent.
In the Buddhist Paradise the pure beings have faces “bright and
yellowish”, yellow being the sacred colour of the Buddhist as it is the
colour of the chief dragon of China. In this Paradise is the Celestial
Ganges and the great Bodhi-tree, “a hundred yojanas in height”, which
prolongs life and increases “their stock of merit”. Their “merit” may
“grow in the following shapes, viz. either in gold, in silver, in
jewels, in beryls, in shells, in stones, in corals, in amber, in red
pearls, in diamonds, &c., or in any one of the other jewels; or in all
kinds of perfumes, in flowers, in garlands, in ointment, in
incense-powder, in cloaks, in umbrellas, in flags, in banners, or in
lamps; or in all kinds of dancing, singing, and music”. [191]
The gem-trees abound in this Paradise. “Of some trees”, one account
runs, “the trunks are of coral, the branches of red pearls, the small
branches of diamonds, the leaves of gold, the flowers of silver, and
the fruits of beryl.” [192] In the “eastern quarter” there are “Buddha
countries equal to the sand of the River Ganga (Ganges)”. The purified
beings in the lands “surpass the light of the sun and moon, by the
light of wisdom, and by the whiteness, brilliancy, purity, and beauty
of their knowledge”. [193] There are references to “the king of jewels
that fulfils every wish”. It has “golden-coloured rays excessively
beautiful, the radiance of which transforms itself into birds
possessing the colours of a hundred jewels, which sing out harmonious
notes”. [194] The purified may become like Buddha “with bodies bright
as gold and blue eyes”, for “the eyes of Buddha are like the water of
the four great oceans; the blue and the white are quite distinct”.
[195] The imaginations of the Buddhists run riot in their descriptions
of the Land of Bliss, and the stream of glowing narrative carries with
it many pre-Buddhist beliefs about metals and precious stones, “red
pearls, blue pearls”, and so on, and “nets of gold adorned with the
emblems of the dolphin, the svastika (swashtika), the nandyāvarta, and
the moon”. [196] In their Paradise even the river mud is of gold. The
religious ideas of the early searchers for “soul substance” in the form
of metals and gems are thus found to be quaintly blended with Buddhist
conceptions of the Earthly Paradise.
In some Chinese and Japanese stories the souls of the dead are carried
to Paradise by birds, and especially by the crane or stork, which takes
the place of the Indian man-eagle Garuda (Japanese Gario, the
woman-bird with crane’s legs), and of the Babylonian eagle that carried
the hero Etana to heaven. The saints who reach the Indian Paradise of
Uttara Kuru, situated at the sources of the River Indus, among the
Himalayan mountains, and originally the homeland of the Kuru tribe of
Aryans, are supposed to have their lives prolonged for centuries. When
they die their bodies are carried away by gigantic birds and dropped
into mountain recesses. The belief enshrined in stories of this kind
may be traced to the wide-spread legend of the Diamond Valley. Laufer
notes that a version of it occurs in the Liang se kung ki, “one of the
most curious books of Chinese literature”. A prince is informed by
scholars regarding the wonders of distant lands. “In the west, arriving
at the Mediterranean,” one Chinese story runs, “there is in the sea an
island of two hundred square miles. On this island is a large forest,
abundant in trees with precious stones, and inhabited by over ten
thousand families. These men show great ability in cleverly working
gems, which are named for the country Fu-lin (Syria). In a
north-westerly direction from the island is a ravine, hollowed out like
a bowl, more than a thousand feet deep. They throw flesh into this
valley. Birds take it up in their beaks, whereupon they drop the
precious stones.” Here Fu-lin, in the Mediterranean area, is referred
to as early as the beginning of the sixth century.
The Chinese Diamond Valley story is “an abridged form of a well-known
Western legend”. In a version of it in the writings of Epiphanius,
Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus (c. 315–403), the valley is situated in
“a desert of great Scythia”, and the precious stones are gathered on
the mountains, whence the eagles carry them. The eagle-stone is “useful
to women in aiding parturition”. Laufer notes that Pliny knew about the
parturition stone, and that the beliefs associated with it are found in
Egypt and India. In the latter country it occurs in legends about the
combats between the eagle and serpent. [197]
A Scottish Gaelic folk-story tells of a man who had a combat with an
eagle which carried him away to the floating island of the blest. He
was killed, but came to life again after drops of the water from the
well of life were thrown on his body. Stones found in eagles’ or
ravens’ nests, according to Scottish belief, imparted to their
possessors the power of prophecy or healing.
The gems from the trees of Paradise in Babylonian, Indian, Chinese, and
Japanese literature were supposed to confer special powers on those who
became possessed of them. To this class belongs the “Jewel that grants
all Desires”, the “gem that shines in darkness”, the prophet’s or
priest’s jewel or jewels, &c. Gems were searched for in ancient times
because they were supposed to possess what has been called “soul
substance”. They protected those who wore them from all evil, they
assisted birth, they prolonged life. Precious metals were similarly
believed to be “luck-bringers”, and to early man luck meant everything
he wished for, including good health, longevity, plentiful supplies of
food, a knowledge of the future, offspring, and so on.
In the stories of the Islands of the Blest the happy souls are, in the
ancient sense of the term, “lucky souls”. Paradise was a land in which
life-giving water and fruit, and innumerable gems were to be found, and
those who reached it became wise as magicians and prophets, and lived
for thousands of years free from sickness and pain. It was the land of
eternal youth and unlimited happiness.
CHAPTER X
THE MOTHER-GODDESS OF CHINA AND JAPAN
Food for the Dead—Milk, Bread, and Beer in Paradise—The Western
Tree of Life in Egypt—Tree of Life in Greece, Britain, and
Polynesia—The Underworld Paradise—The “Wonderful Rose
Garden”—Chinese Cult of the West—Biblical Tree Parable—Chinese
Peach Tree of Longevity—The “Royal Mother of the West”—Visit of the
Chinese Emperor—A Far-Eastern El-Khidr—The Sacred Chrysanthemum—The
Cassia Tree Cult—Celestial Yellow River—Moon Myths—Lunar Elixir in
China, India, and Scandinavia—Chinese Star Maiden—The Sun
Barque—“Island of Blest” in Celestial River—Moon-girl Story—The
“Makara” in China and Japan—The Chinese Ishtar—Deluge Legend—Tree
Spirits—Story of Little Peachling—“Soul Substance” in Dragon Bones,
Trees, and Pearls.
The quest of the “elixir of life”, the “water of life”, or “the food of
life” is as prominent a feature of ancient religious literature as is
the quest of the Holy Grail in the Arthurian romances. As has been
shown in the last chapter, the belief that prompted the quest was
widely prevalent, and of great antiquity. The Babylonian hero,
Gilgamesh, whose story is told in the oldest epic in the world,
undertook his long and perilous journey to the Otherworld, in quest of
the Plant of Life, because the thought of death was sorrowful to him.
When his friend, Ea-bani, had expired,
Gilgamesh wept bitterly, and he lay stretched out upon the ground.
He cried, “Let me not die like Ea-bani....
I fear death.” [198]
In the Babylonian myth of Adapa reference is made to the “water of
life” and the “food of life”, which give wisdom and immortality to the
gods and to the souls of those mortals who win their favour. The sacred
tree in Babylonian art is evidently the Tree of Life. [199]
We seem to meet with the history of the immemorial quest in the Pyramid
Texts of Ancient Egypt. The ancient priests appear to have concerned
themselves greatly regarding the problem how the dead were to be
nourished in the celestial Paradise. “The chief dread felt by the
Egyptian for the hereafter,” says Breasted, “was fear of hunger.” [200]
In Egypt, as in other lands offerings of food were made at the tombs,
and these were supposed to be conveyed to the souls by certain of the
gods. But those who hoped to live for ever knew well that the time
would come when grave-offerings would cease to be made, and their own
names would be forgotten on earth. Some Pharaohs endowed their
chapel-tombs for all time, but revolutions ultimately caused endowments
to be appropriated.
The Babylonians believed that if the dead were not fed, their ghosts
would prowl through the streets and enter houses, searching for food
and water. [201] In Polynesia the homeless and desolate ghosts were
those of poor people, “who during their residence in the body had no
friends and no property”. [202] The custom of including food-vessels
and drinking-cups in the funerary furniture of prehistoric graves in
different countries was no doubt connected with the fear of hunger in
the hereafter. The custom was widespread of giving the dead food
offerings at regular intervals. Once a year the living held feasts in
the burial-grounds, and invited the dead to partake of their share.
Among the Hallowe’en beliefs in the British Isles is one that ghosts
return home during the year-end festival to attend “the feast of all
souls”. The Hebridean custom, which lingered even in the nineteenth
century, of placing food and water, or milk, beside a corpse while it
lay in a house, and outside the door or at the grave after the burial
took place, was no doubt a relic of an ancient custom, based on the
haunting belief that the dead were in need of nourishment, if not for
all time, at any rate until the journey to the Otherworld was
completed.
As has been said, it was the provision of food in the celestial
Paradise, far removed from the earth and its produce, that chiefly
concerned the Egyptians. In the Underworld Kingdom, presided over by
Osiris, the souls grew corn and gathered fruit. But the Paradise of the
solar cult was above or beyond the sky. Some of the sun-worshippers are
found in the Pyramid Texts to have placed their faith in the
food-supplying Great Mother, the goddess Hathor, who gave them corn and
milk during their earthly lives. As son of Re, born of the sky-goddess,
he (the Pharaoh) is frequently represented as suckled by one of the
sky-goddesses, or some other divinity connected with Re, especially the
ancient goddesses of the prehistoric kingdoms of South and North. These
appear as “the two vultures with long hair and hanging breasts; ...
they draw their breasts over the mouth of King Pepi, but they do not
wean him forever....” Another text invokes the mother-goddess: “Give
thy breast to this King Pepi, ... suckle this King Pepi therewith”. As
a result, perhaps, of the prevalence of Osirian beliefs, the solar cult
adopted the idea that food, such as is found in Egypt, might be
provided in the regions above or beyond the sky. The sun-god was
appealed to: “Give thou bread to this King Pepi, from this thy eternal
bread, thy everlasting beer”. [203]
But the chief source of nourishment in the celestial Paradise was the
Tree of Life (a form of the mother-goddess) on the great isle in the
mythical lake or sea beyond the Eastern horizon. [204] Egyptian artists
depicted this tree as a palm, or sycamore, with a goddess rising from
inside it, pouring water from a vessel on the hands of the Pharaoh’s
soul, which might appear in human form, or in the man-bird form called
the ba. In the funeral ritual the ceremony of pouring out a libation
was performed with the object of restoring the body moisture (the water
of life) to the mummy. [205] A Biblical reference to the ceremony is
found in 2 Kings, iii, 11, in which it is said of Elisha that he
“poured water on the hands of Elijah”. No doubt the Egyptian soul
received water as nourishment, as well as to ensure its immortality,
from the tree-goddess.
In the Book of the Dead (Chapter LIX), the Tree of Life is referred to
as “the sycamore of Nut” (the sky-goddess). Other texts call the tree
“the Western Tree” of Nut or Hathor. It may be that the solar cult of
the East took over the tree from the Osirian cult of the West.
This mythical tree figures in many ancient mythologies. The goddess
Europa was worshipped at Gortyna, in Crete, during the Hellenic period,
as a sacred tree. [206] The tree may be traced from the British Isles
to India, and there are numerous legends of spirits entering or leaving
it. The Polynesians have stories of this kind. Their Tree of Life was
the local bread-fruit tree which “became a god”, or, as some had it, a
goddess. “Out of this magic bread-fruit tree,” a legend says, “a great
goddess was made.” [207]
It may be that the island Paradise with its Tree of Life was specially
favoured after maritime enterprise made strong appeal to the
imagination of the Egyptians. No doubt the old sailors who searched for
“soul-substance” in the shape of pearls, precious stones, and metals
had much to do with disseminating the idea of the Isles of the Blest.
At any rate, it became, as we have seen, a tradition among seafarers to
search for the distant land in which was situated the “water of life”.
The home-dwelling Osirians clung to their idea of an Underworld
Paradise, and belief in it became fused with that of the floating
island, or Islands of the Blest. Those who dwelt in inland plains and
valleys, and those accustomed to cross the great mysterious deserts on
which the oasis-mirage frequently appeared and vanished like the
mythical floating island, conceived of a Paradise on earth. There are
references in more than one land to a Paradise among the mountains. It
figures in the fairy stories of Central Europe, for instance, as “the
wonderful Rose Garden” with its linden Tree of Immortality, the
hiding-place of a fairy lady, its dancing nymphs and its dwarfs; the
king of dwarfs has a cloak of invisibility which he wraps round those
mortals he carries away. [208]
At first only the souls of kings entered Paradise. But, in time, the
belief became firmly established that the souls of others could reach
it too, and be fed there. The quest of the “food of life” then became a
popular theme of the story-tellers, and so familiar grew the idea of
the existence of this fruit that people believed it could be obtained
during life, and that those who partook of it might have their days
prolonged indefinitely. For, as W. Schooling has written, “a few simple
thoughts on a few simple subjects produce a few simple opinions common
to a whole tribe” (and even a great part of mankind), “and are taught
with but little modification to successive generations; hence arises a
rigidity that imposes ready-made opinions, which are seldom questioned,
while such questioning as does occur is usually met with excessive
severity, as Galileo and others have found out”. [209]
The apple, as we have seen, was to the Celts the fruit of immortality:
the Chinese favoured the peach—that is, it was favoured by the Chinese
cult of the West. As all animals were supposed to be represented in the
Otherworld by gigantic prototypes—the fathers or mothers of their
kind—so were trees represented by a gigantic tree. [210] This tree was
the World Tree that supported the Universe. In Egypt the World Tree was
the sycamore of the sky-goddess, who was the Great Mother of deities
and mankind. The sun dropped into the sycamore at eventide; when
darkness fell the swallows (star-gods) perched in its branches. In
Norse mythology the tree is the ash, called Ygdrasil, and from the well
at its roots souls receive the Hades-drink of immortality, drinking
from a horn embellished with serpent symbols. The Tree figures
prominently in Iranian mythology: the Aryo-Indian Indra constructs the
World-house round it. This Tree is, no doubt, identical with the sacred
tree in Assyrian art, which is sometimes the date, the vine, the
pomegranate, the fir, the cedar, and perhaps the oak. It may be that
the Biblical parable about the talking trees is a memory of the
rivalries of the various Assyrian tree cults:
The trees went forth on a time to anoint a king over them; and they
said unto the olive tree, Reign thou over us. But the olive tree
said unto them, Should I leave my fatness, wherewith by me they
honour god and man, and go to be promoted over the trees? And the
trees said to the fig tree, Come thou, and reign over us. But the
fig tree said unto them, Should I forsake my sweetness, and my good
fruit, and go to be promoted over the trees? Then said the trees
unto the vine, Come thou, and reign over us. And the vine said unto
them, Should I leave my vine, which cheereth God and man, and go to
be promoted over the trees? Then said all the trees unto the
bramble, Come thou, and reign over us. And the bramble said unto
the trees, If in truth ye anoint me King over you, then come and
put your trust in my shadow: and if not, let fire come out of the
bramble, and devour the cedars of Lebanon.
As in Assyria, there was in China quite a selection of life-giving
trees.
The Chinese gigantic Peach Tree, whose fruit was partaken of by gods
and men, grew in the Paradise among the Kwun-lun mountains in Tibet,
and, like the Indian Mount Meru (“world spine”), supported the
Universe. Its fruit took three thousand years to ripen. The tree was
surrounded by a beautiful garden, and was under the care of the
fairy-like lady Si Wang Mu, the queen of immortals, the “Mother of the
Western King”, and the “Royal Mother of the West”. She appears to have
originally been the mother-goddess—the Far-Eastern form of Hathor. In
Japan she is called Seiobo. Her Paradise, which is called “the palace
of exalted purity”, and “the metropolis of the pearl mountain”, or of
“the jade mountain”, and is entered through “the golden door”, [211]
was originally that of the cult of the West. Sometimes Si Wang Mu is
depicted as quite as weird a deity as the Phigalian Demeter, with
disordered hair, tiger’s teeth, and a panther’s tail. Her voice is
harsh, and she sends and cures diseases. Three blue birds bring food to
her.
Chinese emperors and magicians were as anxious to obtain a peach from
the Royal Mother’s tree in the Western Paradise, as they were to import
the “fungus of immortality” from the Islands of the Blest in the
Eastern Sea.
There once lived in China a magician named Tung Fang So, who figures in
Japanese legend as Tobosaku, and is represented in Japanese art as a
jolly old man, clasping a peach to his breast and performing a dance,
or as a dreamy sage, carrying two or three peaches, and accompanied by
a deer—an animal which symbolized longevity. Various legends have
gathered round his name. One is that he had several successive rebirths
in various reigns, and that originally he was an avatar of the planet
Venus. He may therefore represent the Far-Eastern Tammuz, the son of
the mother-goddess. Another legend tells that he filched three peaches
from the Tree of Life, which had been plucked by the “Royal Mother of
the West”.
Tung Fang So was a councillor in the court of Wu Ti, the fourth emperor
of the Han Dynasty, who reigned for over half a century, and died after
fasting for seven days in 87 B.C. In Japanese stories Wu Ti is called
Kan no Buti. He was greatly concerned about finding the “water of life”
or the “fruit of life”, so that his days might be prolonged. In his
palace garden he caused to be erected a tower over 100 feet high, which
appears to have been an imitation of a Babylonian temple. On its summit
was the bronze image of a god, holding a golden vase in its hands. In
this vase was collected the pure dew that was supposed to drip from the
stars. The emperor drank the dew, believing that it would renew his
youth.
One day there appeared before Wu Ti in the palace garden a beautiful
green sparrow. In China and Japan the sparrow is a symbol of
gentleness, and a sparrow of uncommon colour is supposed to indicate
that something unusual is to happen. The emperor was puzzled regarding
the bird-omen, and consulted Tung Fang So, who informed him that the
Queen of Immortals was about to visit the royal palace.
Before long Si Wang Mu made her appearance. She had come all the way
from her garden among the Kwun-lun mountains, riding on the back of a
white dragon, with seven of the peaches of immortality, which were
carried on a tray by a dwarf servant. Her fairy majesty was gorgeously
attired in white and gold, and spoke with a voice of bird-like
sweetness.
When she reached Wu Ti there were only four peaches on the tray, and
she lifted one up and began to eat it. The peach was her symbol, as the
apple was that of Aphrodite. Tung Fang So peered at her through a
window, and when she caught sight of his smiling face, she informed the
emperor that he had stolen three of her peaches. Wu Ti received a peach
from her, and, having eaten it, became an immortal. A similar story is
told regarding the Chinese Emperor, Muh Wang.
In her “Jade Mountain” Paradise of the West (the highest peak of the
Kwun-lun mountains) this goddess is accompanied by her sister, as the
Egyptian Isis is by Nephthys, and the pair are supposed to flit about
in Cloud-land, followed by the white souls of good women of the Taoist
cult. Her attendants include the Blue Stork, the White Tiger, the Stag,
and the gigantic Tortoise, which are all gods and symbols of longevity
in China.
Among the many stories told about Tung Fang So is one regarding a visit
he once paid to the mythical Purple Sea. He returned after the absence
of a year, and on being remonstrated with by his brother for deserting
his home for so long a period, he contended that he had been away for
only a single day. His garments had been discoloured by the waters of
the Purple Sea, and he had gone to another sea to cleanse them. In like
manner heroes who visit Fairyland find that time slips past very
quickly.
The Purple Sea idea may have been derived from the ancient Well of Life
story about El Khidr, [212] whose body and clothing turned green after
he had bathed in it. Purple supplanted green and blue as the colour of
immortality and royalty after murex dye became the great commercial
asset of sea-traders. Tung Fang So may have had attached to his memory
a late and imported version of the El Khidr story.
The reference to Wu Ti’s dew-drinking habit recalls the story of the
youthful Keu Tze Tung, a court favourite, who unwittingly offended the
emperor, Muh Wang, and was banished. As the Egyptian Bata, who
similarly fell into disgrace in consequence of a false charge being
made against him, fled to the “Valley of the Acacia”, Keu Tze Tung fled
to the “Valley of the Chrysanthemum”. There he drank the dew that
dropped from the petals of chrysanthemums, and became an immortal. The
Buddhists took over this story, and told that the youth had been given
a sacred text, which he painted on the petals. This text imparted to
the dew its special qualities. In the Far East the chrysanthemum is a
symbol of purity. The chrysanthemum with sixteen petals is the emblem
of the Mikado of Japan.
A Chinese sage, who, like the Indian Rishis, practised yoga until he
became immortal, engaged his spare moments in painting fish. He lived
on the bank of a stream for over two hundred years. In the end he was
carried away to the Underworld Paradise of the Lord of Fish, who was,
of course, the dragon-god. He paid one return visit to his disciples,
riding like the Chinese “Boy Blue” in the dragon story, on the back of
a red carp.
Another Chinese “tree-cult” favoured, instead of the peach tree, a
cassia tree. This cassia-cult must have been late. The peach tree is
indigenous. “Of fruits,” says Laufer, “the West is chiefly indebted to
China for the peach (Amygdalus persica) and the apricot (Prunus
armeniaca). It is not impossible that these two gifts were transmitted
by the silk-dealers, first to Iran (in the second or first century
B.C.) and thence to Armenia, Greece, and Rome (in the first century
A.D.).” In India the peach is called cinani (“Chinese fruit”). “There
is no Sanskrit name for the tree (peach); nor does it play any rôle in
the folk-lore of India, as it does in China.” ... Persia “has only
descriptive names for these fruits, the peach being termed saft alu
(‘large plum’), the apricot, zard alu (‘yellow plum’).” [213]
It is difficult to identify the cassia tree of Chinese religious
literature. “The Chinese word Kwei occurs at an early date, but it is a
generic term for Lauraceæ; and there are about thirteen species of
Cassia, and about sixteen species of Cinnamomum in China. The essential
point is that the ancient texts maintain silence as to cinnamon; that
is, the product from the bark of the tree. Cinnamomum cassia is a
native of Kwan-si, Kwan-tun, and Indo-China; and the Chinese made its
first acquaintance under the Han, when they began to colonize and to
absorb southern China.” The first description of this tree goes no
farther back than the third century. “It was not the Chinese, but
non-Chinese peoples of Indo-China who first brought the tree into
civilization, which, like all other southern cultivations, was simply
adopted by the conquering Chinese.” [214] It has been suggested that
the cinnamon bark was imported into Egypt from China as far back as the
Empire period (c. 1500 B.C.) by Phœnician sea-traders. [215] Laufer
rejects this theory. [216] Apparently the ancient Egyptians imported a
fragrant bark from their Punt (Somaliland, or British East Africa). At
a very much later period cinnamon bark was carried across the Indian
Ocean from Ceylon.
The Egyptians imported incense-bearing trees from Punt to restore the
“odours of the body” of the dead, and poured out libations to restore
its lost moisture. [217] “When”, writes Professor Elliot Smith, “the
belief became well established that the burning of incense was potent
as an animating force, and especially a giver of life to the dead, it
naturally came to be regarded as a divine substance in the sense that
it had the power of resurrection. As the grains of incense consisted of
the exudation of trees, or, as the ancient texts express it, ‘their
sweat’, the divine power of animation in course of time became
transferred to trees. They were no longer merely the source of the
life-giving incense, but were themselves animated by the deity, whose
drops of sweat were the means of conveying life to the mummy.... The
sap of trees was brought into relationship with life-giving water....
The sap was also regarded as the blood of trees and the incense that
exuded as sweat.” As De Groot reminds us, “tales of trees that shed
blood, and that cry out when hurt are common in Chinese literature (as
also in Southern Arabia, notes Elliot Smith); also of trees that lodge,
or can change into maidens of transcendent beauty.” [218]
Apparently the ancient seafarers who searched for incense-bearing trees
carried their beliefs to distant countries. The goddess-tree of the
peach cult was evidently the earliest in China. It bore the fruit of
life. The influence that led to the foundation of this cult probably
came by an overland route. The cassia-tree cult was later, and beliefs
connected with it came from Southern China; these, too, bear the
imprint of ideas that were well developed before they reached China.
There are references in Chinese lore to a gigantic cassia tree which
was 10,000 feet high. Those who ate of its fruit became immortal. The
earlier belief connected with the peach tree was that the soul who ate
one of its peaches lived for 3000 years.
This cassia world-tree appears first to have taken the place of the
peach tree of the “Royal Mother of the West”. It was reached by sailing
up the holiest river in China, the Hoang-Ho (Yellow River), the sources
of which are in the Koko-Nor territory to the north of Tibet. It
wriggles like a serpent between mountain barriers before it flows
northward; then it flows southward for 200 miles on the eastern border
of Shensi province (the Chinese homeland), and then eastward for 200
miles, afterwards diverging in a north-easterly direction towards the
Gulf of Chihli, in which the Islands of the Blest were supposed to be
situated.
It was believed that the Hoang-Ho had, like the Ganges of India and the
Nile of Egypt, a celestial origin. Those sages who desired to obtain a
glimpse of Paradise sailed up the river to its fountain head. Some
reached the tree and the garden of Paradise. Others found themselves
sailing across the heavens. The Western Paradise was evidently supposed
by some to be situated in the middle of the world, and by others to
have been situated beyond the horizon.
Chang Kiʼen, one of the famous men attached to the court of Wu Ti, the
reviver of many ancient beliefs and myths, was credited with having
followed the course of the sacred river until he reached the spot where
the cassia tree grew. Beside the tree were the immortal animals that
haunt the garden of the “Royal Mother of the West”. In addition, Chang
Kiʼen saw the moon-rabbit or moon-hare, which is adored as a
rice-giver. In the Far East, as in the Near East and in the West, the
moon is supposed to ripen crops. The lunar rabbit or hare is associated
with water; in the moon grow plants and a tree of immortality. There is
also, according to Chinese belief, a frog in the moon. It was
originally a woman, the wife of a renowned archer, who rescued the moon
from imprisonment in masses of black rain-clouds. The “Royal Mother of
the West” was so grateful to the archer for the service he had rendered
that she gave him a jade cup filled with the dew of immortality. His
wife stole the cup and drank the dew. For this offence the “Royal
Mother of the West” transformed her into a frog, and imprisoned her in
the moon. In Egypt the frog was a symbol of resurrection or rebirth,
and the old frog-goddess Hekt is usually regarded as a form of Hathor,
the Great Mother.
The lunar tree is sometimes identified with the cassia tree of
immortality. Its leaves are red as blood, and the bodies of those who
eat of its fruit become as transparent as still water.
The moon-water which nourishes plants and trees (eight lunar trees of
immortality are referred to in some legends), and the dew of
immortality in the jade cup, appear to be identical with the Indian
soma and the nectar of the classical gods. In Norse mythology the lunar
water-pot (a symbol of the mother-goddess) was filled at a well by two
children, the boy Hyuki and the girl Bil, [219] who were carried away
by the moon-god Mani. Odin was also credited with having recovered the
moon-mead from the hall of Suttung, “the mead wolf”, after it had been
stolen from the moon. The god flew heavenward, carrying the mead, in
the form of an eagle. [220] Zeus’s eagle is similarly a nectar-bringer.
In Indian mythology the soma was contained in a bowl fashioned by
Twashtri, the divine artisan, and was drunk by the gods, and especially
by Indra, the rain-bringer. A Vedic frog-hymn was chanted by
Aryo-Indian priests as a rain-charm when Indra’s services were
requisitioned. In one of the Indian legends an eagle or falcon carries
the soma to Indra. The souls who reach Paradise are made immortal after
they drink of the soma. In India the soma was personified, and the
lunar god, Soma, became a god of love, immortality, and fertility. The
soma juice was obtained by the Vedic priests from some unknown plant.
There are also references in Indian mythology to the “Amrita”, which
was partaken of by the gods. It was the sap of sacred trees that grew
in Paradise. Trees and plants derived their life and sustenance from
water. The Far-Eastern beliefs in “the dew of immortality”, “the fungus
of immortality”, and “the fruit of immortality” have an intimate
connection with the belief that the mother-goddess was connected with
the moon, which exercised an influence over water. The mother-goddess
was also the love-goddess, the Ishtar of Babylonia, the Hathor of
Egypt, the Aphrodite of Greece. Her son, or husband, was, in one of his
phases, the love-god.
The sage of the Chinese Emperor Wu Ti, who followed the course of the
Yellow River so as to reach the celestial Paradise, saw, in addition to
the moon-rabbit, or hare, the “Old Man of the Moon”, the Chinese Wu
Kang and Japanese Gekkawo, the god of love and marriage. He is supposed
to unite lovers by binding their feet with invisible red silk cords.
The “Old Man in the Moon” is, in Chinese legend, engaged in chopping
branches from the cassia tree of immortality. New branches immediately
sprout forth to replace those thus removed, but the “Old Man” has to go
on cutting till the end of time, having committed a sin for which his
increasing labour is the appropriate punishment.
A Buddhist legend makes Indra the old man. He asked for food from the
hare, the ape, and the fox. The hare lit a fire and leapt into it so
that the god might be fed. Indra was so much impressed by this supreme
act of friendship and charity that he placed the exemplary hare in the
moon. A version of this story is given in the Mahábhárata.
In European folk-lore the “Old Man” is either a thief who stole a
bundle of faggots, or a man who “broke the Sabbath” by cutting sticks
on that holy day.
See the rustic in the Moon,
How his bundle weighs him down;
Thus his sticks the truth reveal
It never profits man to steal.
Various versions of the Man in the Moon myth are given by S.
Baring-Gould, [221] who draws attention to a curious seal “appended to
a deed preserved in the Record office, dated the 9th year of Edward the
Third (1335)”. It shows the “Man in the Moon” carrying his sticks and
accompanied by his dog. Two stars are added. The inscription on the
seal is, “Te Waltere docebo cur spinas phebo gero (I will teach thee,
Walter, why I carry thorns in the moon)”. The deed is one of conveyance
of property from a man whose Christian name was Walter.
Wu Ti’s sage travelled through the celestial regions until he reached
the Milky Way, the source of the Yellow River. He saw the Spinning
Maiden, whose radiant garment is adorned with silver stars. She had a
lover, from whom she was separated, but once a year she was allowed to
visit him, and passed across the heavens as a meteor. This Spinning
Maiden, who weaves the net of the constellations, is reminiscent of the
Egyptian sky-goddess, Hathor (or Nut), whose body is covered with
stars, and whose legs and arms, as she bends over the earth, “represent
the four pillars on which the sky was supposed to rest and mark the
four cardinal points”. Her lover, from whom she was separated, was Seb.
[222] In China certain groups of stars are referred to as the
“Celestial Door”, the “Hall of Heaven”, &c. Taoist saints dwell in
stellar abodes, as well as on the “Islands of the Blest”; some were,
during their life on earth, incarnations of star-gods. The lower ranks
of the western-cult immortals remain in the garden of the “Royal
Mother”; those of the highest rank ascend to the stars.
Wu Ti’s sage, according to one form of the legend, never returned to
earth. His boat, which sailed up the Yellow River and then along the
“Milky Way”, was believed to have reached the Celestial River that
flows round the Universe, and along which sails the sun-barque of the
Egyptian god Ra (or Re). One day the Chinese sage’s oar—apparently his
steering oar—was deposited in the Royal Palace grounds by a celestial
spirit, who descended from the sky. Here we have, perhaps, a faint
memory of the visits paid to earth from the celestial barque by the
Egyptian god Thoth, in his captivity as envoy of the sun-god Ra.
There is evidence in Far-Eastern folk-tales that at a very remote
period the beliefs of the cult of the sky-goddess, which placed the
tree of immortality in the “moon island”, and the beliefs of the peach
cult of “the Westerners” were fused, as were those of the Osirian and
solar cults in Egypt.
A curious story tells that once upon a time a man went to fish on the
Yellow River. A storm arose, and his boat was driven into a tributary,
the banks of which were fringed with innumerable peach trees in full
blossom. He reached an island, on which he landed. There he was kindly
treated by the inhabitants, who told that they had fled from China
because of the oppression of the emperor. This surprised the fisherman
greatly. He asked for particulars, and was given the name of an emperor
who had died about 500 years before he himself was born.
“What is the name of this island?” he asked. The inhabitants were
unable to tell him. “We came hither,” they said, “just as you have
come. We are strangers in a strange land.”
Next day the wanderer launched his boat and set out to return by the
way he had come. He sailed on all day and all night, and when morning
came he found himself amidst familiar landmarks. He was able to return
home.
When the fisherman told the story to a priest, he was informed that he
had reached the land of the Celestials, and that the river fringed by
peach trees in blossom was the Milky Way.
In this story the Chinese Island of the Blest is, like the Nilotic
“green bed of Horus”, a river island.
Another memory of the Celestial River and the Barque of the Sun is
enshrined in the story of Lo Tze Fang, a holy woman of China who
ascended to heaven by climbing a high tree—apparently the “world-tree”.
After reaching the celestial regions she was carried along the
Celestial River in a boat. According to the story, she still sails each
day across the heavens.
Other saintly people have been carried to the celestial regions by
dragons. According to Chinese belief the “Yellow Dragon” is connected
with the moon. The reflection of the moon on rippling water is usually
referred to as the “Golden Dragon”, or “Yellow Dragon”, the chief of
Chinese dragons, and usually associated with the sun.
One of the classes of Chinese holy men of the Spirit-world, the Sien
Nung, who bear a close resemblance to Indian Rishis, is connected with
the moon cult. They are believed to prolong their lives by eating the
leaves of the lunar plants.
In an Egyptian legend it is told that Osiris was the son of the Mother
Cow, who had conceived him when a fertilizing ray of light fell from
the moon. In like manner a moon-girl came into being in Japan. She was
discovered by a wood-cutter. One day, when collecting bamboo, he found
inside a cane a little baby, whose body shone as does a gem in
darkness. He took her home to his wife, and she grew up to be a very
beautiful girl. She was called “Moon Ray”, and after living for a time
on the earth returned to the moon. She had maintained her youthful
appearance by drinking, from a small vessel she possessed, the fluid of
immortality.
As the dragon was connected with the moon, and the moon with the
bamboo, it might be expected that the dragon and bamboo would be
closely linked. One of the holy men is credited with having reached the
lunar heaven by cutting down a bamboo, which he afterwards transformed
into a dragon. He rode heavenwards on the dragon’s back.
Saintly women, as a rule, rise to heaven in the form of birds, or in
their own form, without wings, on account of the soul-like lightness of
their bodies, which have become purified by performing religious rites
and engaging in prayer and meditation. Their husbands have either to
climb trees or great mountains. Some holy women, after reaching heaven,
ride along the clouds on the back of the Kʼilin, the bisexual monster
that the soul of Confucius is supposed to ride. It is a form of the
dragon, but more like the makara of the Indian god Varuna than the
typical “wonder beast” of China and Japan. Some of these monsters
resemble lions, dogs, deer, walruses, or unicorns. They are all,
however, varieties of the makara.
Sometimes we find that the attributes of the Great Mother, who, like
Aphrodite, was a “Postponer of Old Age” (Ambologera), being the
provider of the fruit of immortality and a personification of the World
Tree, have been attached to the memory of some famous lady, and
especially an empress. As the Egyptian Pharaoh, according to the
beliefs of the solar cult, became Ra (the sun-god) after death, so did
the Chinese empress become the “Royal Lady of the West”. Nu Kwa, a
mythical empress of China, was reputed to have become a goddess after
she had passed to the celestial regions. She figures in the Chinese
Deluge Myth. Like the Babylonian Ishtar, she was opposed to the policy
of destroying mankind. She did not, however, like Ishtar, content
herself by expressing regret. When the demons of water and fire, aided
by rebel generals of her empire, set out to destroy the world, Nu Kwa
waged war against them. Her campaign was successful, but not until a
gigantic warrior had partly destroyed the heavens by upsetting one of
its pillars and the flood had covered a great portion of the earth. The
empress stemmed the rising waters by means of charred reeds (a
Babylonian touch), and afterwards rebuilt the broken pillar, under
which was placed an Atlas-tortoise. Like Marduk (Merodach), she then
set the Universe in order, and formed the channel for the Celestial
River. Thereafter she created the guardians of the four quarters,
placing the Black Tortoise in the north, and giving it control over
winter; the Blue Dragon in the east, who was given control over spring;
the White Tiger in the west, who was given control over autumn; and the
Red Bird in the south, who was given control over summer, with the
Golden Dragon, whose special duty was to guard the sun, the moon being
protected by the White Deity of the west. The broken pillar of heaven
was built up with stones coloured like the five gods.
Among the gifts conferred on mankind by this Empress-Goddess was jade,
which she created so that they might be protected against evil
influence and decay.
In this Deluge Myth, which is evidently of Babylonian origin, the gods
figure as rebels and demons. The Mother Goddess is the protector of the
Universe, and the friend of man. Evidently the cult of the Mother
Goddess was at one time very powerful in China. In Japan the Empress Nu
Kwa is remembered as Jokwa.
The Tree of Immortality, as has been seen, is closely associated with
the Far Eastern Mother Goddess, who may appear before favoured mortals
either as a beautiful woman, as a dragon, or as a woman riding on a
dragon, or as half woman and half fish, or half woman and half serpent.
It is from the goddess that the tree receives its “soul substance”; in
a sense, she is the tree, as she is the moon and the pot of life-water,
or the mead in the moon. The fruits of the tree are symbols of her as
the mother, and the sap of the tree is her blood.
Reference has been made to Far Eastern stories about dragons
transforming themselves into trees and trees becoming dragons. The tree
was a “kupua” of the dragon. The mother of Adonis was a tree—Myrrha—the
daughter of King Cinyras of Cyprus, who was transformed into a myrrh
tree. A Japanese legend relates that a hero, named Manko, once saw a
beautiful woman sitting on a tree-trunk that floated on the sea. She
vanished suddenly. Manko had the tree taken into his boat, and found
that the woman was hidden inside the trunk. She was a daughter of the
Dragon King of Ocean.
A better-known Japanese tree hero is Momotaro (momo, peach, taro,
eldest son), whose name is usually rendered in English as “Little
Peachling”. He is known in folk-stories as a slayer of demons—a
veritable Jack the Giant-Killer.
The legend runs that one day an old wood-cutter went out to gather
firewood, while his wife washed dirty clothes in a river. After the
woman had finished her work, she saw a gigantic peach drifting past.
Seizing a pole, she brought it into shallow water, and thus secured it.
The size of the peach astonished her greatly, and she carried it home,
and, having washed it, placed it before her husband when he returned
home for his evening meal. No sooner did the wood-cutter begin to cut
open the peach than a baby boy emerged from the kernel. The couple,
being childless, were greatly delighted, and looked upon the child as a
gift from the Celestials, and they believed he had been sent so as to
become their comfort and helper when they grew too old to work.
Momotaro, “the elder son of the peach”, as they called him, grew up to
be a strong and valiant young man, who performed feats of strength that
caused everyone to wonder at him.
There came a day when, to the sorrow of his foster-parents, he
announced that he had resolved to leave home and go to the Isle of
Demons, with purpose to secure a portion of their treasure. This seemed
to be a perilous undertaking, and the old couple attempted to make him
change his mind. Momotaro, however, laughed at their fears, and said:
“Please make some millet dumplings for me. I shall need food for my
journey.”
His foster-mother prepared the dumplings and muttered good wishes over
them. Then Momotaro bade the old couple an affectionate farewell, and
went on his way.
The young hero had not travelled far when he met a dog, which barked
out: “Bow-wow! where are you going, Peach-son?”
“I am going to the Isle of Demons to obtain treasure,” the lad
answered.
“Bow-wow! what are you carrying?”
“I am carrying millet dumplings that my mother made for me. No one in
Japan can make better dumplings than these.”
“Bow-wow! give me one and I shall go with you to the Isle of Demons.”
The lad gave the dog a dumpling, and it followed at his heels.
Momotaro had not gone much farther when a monkey, perched on a tree,
called out to him, saying: “Kia! Kia! where are you going, Son of a
Peach?”
Momotaro answered the monkey as he had answered the dog. The monkey
asked for a dumpling, promising to join the party, and when he received
one he set off with the lad and the dog.
The next animal that hailed the lad was a pheasant, who called out:
“Ken! Ken! where are you going, Son of a Peach?”
Momotaro told him, and the bird, having received the dumpling he asked
for, accompanied the lad, the dog, and the monkey on the quest of
treasure.
When the Island of Demons was reached they all went together towards
the fortress in which the demon king resided. The pheasant flew inside
to act as a spy. Then the monkey climbed over the wall and opened the
gate, so that Momotaro and the dog were able to enter the fortress
without difficulty. The demons, however, soon caught sight of the
intruders, and attempted to kill them. Momotaro fought fiercely,
assisted by the friendly animals, and slew or scattered in flight the
demon warriors. Then they found their way into the royal palace and
made Akandoji, the king of demons, their prisoner. This great demon was
prepared to wield his terrible club of iron, but Momotaro, who was an
expert in the jiu-jitsu system of wrestling, seized the demon king and
threw him down, and, with the help of the monkey, bound him with a
rope.
Momotaro threatened to put Akandoji to death if he would not reveal
where his treasure was hidden.
The king bade his servants do homage to the Son of the Peach and to
bring forth the treasure, which included the cap and coat of
invisibility, magic jewels that controlled the ebb and flow of ocean,
gems that shone in darkness and gave protection against all evil to
those who wore them, tortoise-shell and jade charms, and a great
quantity of gold and silver.
Momotaro took possession of as much of the treasure as he could carry,
and returned home a very rich man. He built a great house, and lived in
it with his foster-parents, who were given everything they desired as
long as they lived.
In this story may be detected a mosaic of myths. The Egyptian Horus,
whose island floated down the Nile, had white sandals which enabled him
to go swiftly up and down the land of Egypt. There are references in
the Pyramid Texts to his youthful exploits, but the full story of them
has not yet been discovered. The Babylonian Tammuz, when a child,
drifted in a “sunken boat” down the River Euphrates. No doubt this myth
is the one attached to the memory of Sargon of Akkad, [223] the son of
a vestal virgin, who was placed in an ark and set adrift on the river.
He was found by a gardener, and was afterwards raised to the kingship
by the goddess Ishtar. Karna, the Aryo-Indian Hector, the son of Surya,
the sun-god, and the virgin-princess Pritha, was similarly set adrift
in an ark, and was rescued from the Ganges by a childless woman whose
husband was a charioteer. The poor couple reared the future hero as
their own son. [224]
Adonis, the son of the myrrh tree, was a Syrian form of Tammuz. Horus
was the son of Osiris, whose body was enclosed by a tree after Set
caused his death by setting him adrift in a chest. When Isis found the
tree, which had been cut down for a pillar, the posthumous conception
of the son of Osiris took place. [225] The Momotaro legend has thus a
long history.
The friendly animals figure in the folk-tales of many lands. Momotaro’s
fight for the treasure, including the cloak of invisibility, bears a
close resemblance to Siegfried’s fight for the treasure of the
Nibelungs. [226] In western European, as in Far Eastern lore, the
treasure is guarded by dragons as well as by dwarfs and giants and
other demons. When the dragon-slayer is not accompanied by friendly
animals, he receives help and advice from birds whose language he
acquires by eating a part of the dragon, or, as in the Egyptian tale,
after getting possession of the book of spells, guarded by the
“Deathless Snake”. When the Egyptian hero reads the spells he
understands the language of birds, beasts, and fishes. The
treasure-guarding dragon appears, as has been suggested, to have had
origin in the belief that sharks were the guardians of pearl-beds and
preyed upon the divers who stole their treasure.
The beliefs connected with the life-giving virtues of the tree of the
Mother Goddess were attached to shells, pearls, gold, and jade. The
goddess was the source of all life, and one of her forms was the
dragon. As the dragon-mother she created or gave birth to the
dragon-gods. Dragon-bones were ground down for medicinal purposes;
dragon-herbs cured diseases; the sap of dragon-trees, like the fruit,
promoted longevity, as did the jade which the goddess had created for
mankind.
The beliefs connected with jade were similar to those connected with
pearls, which were at a remote period emblems of the moon in Egypt. In
China the moon was “the pearl of heaven”. One curious and widespread
belief was that pearls were formed by rain-drops, or by drops of dew
from the moon, the source of moisture, and especially of nectar or
soma. Pearls and pearl-shells were used for medicinal purposes. They
were, like the sap of trees, the very essence of life—the
soul-substance of the Great Mother. [227]
That the complex ideas regarding shells, pearls, dew, trees, the moon,
the sun, the stars, and the Great Mother were of “spontaneous
generation” in many separated countries is difficult to believe. It is
more probable that the culture-complexes enshrined in folk-tales and
religious texts had a definite area of origin in which their history
can be traced. The searchers for precious stones and metals and
incense-bearing trees must have scattered their beliefs far and wide
when they exploited locally-unappreciated forms of wealth.
CHAPTER XI
TREE-, HERB-, AND STONE-LORE
“Soul Substance” in Medicinal Plants—Life-fire in Water and
Plants—“The Blood which is Life”—Colour Symbolism in East and
West—Charm Symbolism—Gems as Fruit—Jade and Vegetation—Far Eastern
Elixirs of Life—Links between Pine, Cypress, Mandrake, and
Mugwort—Story of Treasure-finding Dog—The Far Eastern Artemis—Her
Mugwort, Lotus, and Fruit Basket—Herbs and Pearl-shell—Goats and
Women’s Herb—Chinese and Tartar’s Fight for Mandrake—Tea as an
Elixir—Far Eastern Rip Van Winkles—Problem of the Date Tree—“Tree
Tears” and “Stone Tears”—Weeping Deities—Goats and
Thunder-gods—Goats and Sheep become Stones—Gems and Herbs connected
with Moon—Graded Herbs, Deities, and Stones—Foreign Ideas in China.
In the ancient medical lore of China, as in the medical lores of other
lands, there are laudatory references to “All-heal” plants and plants
reputed to be specific remedies for various diseases. Not a few of
these medicinal plants have been found to be either quite useless or
positively harmful, but some are included in modern pharmacopœias,
after having been submitted to the closest investigations of
physiological science.
The old herbalists, witch-doctors, and hereditary “curers”, who made
some genuine discoveries that have since been elaborated, were
certainly not scientists in the modern sense of the term. Their “cures”
were a quaint mixture of magic and religion. They searched for those
plants and substances that appeared, either by their shape or colour,
to contain in more concentrated form than others the “essence of life”,
the “soul substance” that restored health and promoted longevity.
This “soul substance” was concentrated in body-odours and
body-moistures. It was a something mixed in water which had colour,
odour, and heat—a something derived from the Great Mother, who had
herself sprung from water, as did the Egyptian Hathor and the Greek
Aphrodite, or, if not directly from the Great Mother, from one or other
of her offspring. The “soul substance” of the goddess was in
vegetation; the sap of trees was identified with her blood—the “blood
which is life”. Blood was one kind of body-moisture; other kinds were
sweat, tears, saliva, &c. All these moistures had fertilizing
properties. The Mother, as the sky-goddess, provided the world’s supply
of fertilizing water. In China the supply was controlled by the
dragon-gods, who caused the thunder and lightning that released the
rain and flooded the rivers.
Winter is the Chinese dry season. It was believed that during this
period the dragons were concealed and asleep. No growth was possible
during winter because of the scarcity of water—the life-giving water
that caused Nature to “renew her youth” in the spring season. When the
dragons awoke and rose fighting and thundering, parched wastes were
soaked and fertilized by rain. Then the old, decaying world renewed her
youth and fresh vegetation appeared, because “soul substance” in the
form of rain had entered the soil and furnished plants with
“blood-sap”, and at the same time with vital energy, vital odours, and
vital colours. Thus life, which had its origin in water, was sustained
by the products of water and by the properties in water.
The plants that were supposed to store up most “soul substance” were
those that grew in water, like the lotus, those that constantly
absorbed moisture, like the “fungus of immortality”, or those that
sprang up suddenly during a thunder-storm, like the “Red Cloud herb”.
The latter required a heavy deluge to bring it into existence. It was a
special gift of the dragon-god—or an “avatar” of that deity—and had
concentrated in it the essence of much rain, and, in addition, the
essence of lightning—the “fire of heaven”, ejected by the rain-dragon.
The lightning was the “dragon’s tongue”, and had therefore substance,
moisture, and heat, as well as brilliance. To the early thinkers the
life fluid was not only blood, but warm blood—blood pulsating with the
“vital spark”, the “fire of life”. These men would have accepted in the
literal sense the imagery of the modern Irish poet, who wrote:
O, there was lightning in my blood,
Red lightning lighten’d through my blood,
My Dark Rosaleen.
The “fire of life” might be locked up in vegetation, in stone, or in
red earth, and be made manifest by its colour alone.
The genesis of this idea can be traced at a very early period in the
history of modern man (Homo sapiens). In Aurignacian times in western
Europe (that is, from ten till twenty thousand years ago) blood was
identified with life and consciousness. The red substance in “the blood
which is life” was apparently regarded as the vitalizing agency, and
was supposed to be the same as red earth (red ochre). It is found, from
the evidence afforded by burial customs, that the Aurignacian race
originated or perpetuated the habit of smearing the bodies of their
dead with red ochre. After the flesh had decayed, the red ochre fell on
and coloured the bones and the pebbles around the bones. Whether or not
the red ochre was supposed to be impregnated with the essence of fire,
or of the sun, the source of fire, it is impossible to say. Behind the
corpse-painting custom there was, no doubt, a body of definite beliefs.
As much is suggested by the fact that shell-amulets and spine-amulets
were laid on or about the dead. The belief that the first man had been
formed of red clay mixed with water may well have been in existence in
Aurignacian times. The amulets associated with Aurignacian ceremonial
burials suggest, too, that ideas had been formulated regarding the
after-life. Was it believed that the painted, and therefore reanimated,
body would rise again, or that the soul could be assisted to travel to
the Otherworld? These questions cannot yet be answered. We can do no
more than note here that Colour Symbolism, and especially Red Symbolism
and all it entails, had origin in remote antiquity.
In China red flowers and red berries were supposed, because of their
colour, to be strongly impregnated with “soul substance” or “vital
essence”, or, to use the Chinese term, with shen. These flowers and
berries had curative qualities. In western Europe the red holly berry
was in like manner regarded as an “All-heal”. The tree on which the red
berry appears is so full of divine life that it is an evergreen. In
Gaelic folk-lore holly is associated with the Mother Goddess and with
the water-beast (dragon) and its “avatar”, the red-spotted salmon,
which is supposed to swallow the holly berries that drop into its pool.
The red substance which is in the blood was not necessarily confined,
however, to vegetation. As it was of the earth, earthy, or a product of
some mysterious agency at work in the earth, it might be found in
coagulated form as a ruby, or any other red stone, or as a stone
streaked or spotted with red; it might be found in water as a shell,
wholly or partly red, or as a red or yellow pearl inside a shell. It
might likewise be found concentrated in the red feathers of a bird. A
bird with red feathers was usually recognized as a “thunder bird”—Robin
Red-breast is a European “thunder bird” [228]—and the red berry as a
“thunder berry”—a berry containing the “soul substance” of the god of
lightning and fire. Fire was obtained by friction from trees associated
with the divine Thunderer; his spirit dwelt in the tree. One of the
“fire sticks” was invariably taken from a red-berried tree.
The red vital substance might likewise be displayed by a sacred
fish—the “thunder fish”. In the Chinese “Boy Blue” story the
thunder-dragon in human form rides on the back of a red carp.
Yellow is, like red, reputed to be a vital colour. Lightning is yellow;
the flames of wood fires are yellow, while the embers are red. Early
man appears to have recognized the close association of yellow and red
in fire. Gold is yellow, and it was connected, as a substitute for red
and yellow shells, with the sun, which at morning and evening sends
forth red and yellow rays. The fire which is in the sun “warms the
blood” and promotes the growth of plants, as does the moisture in the
moon—the moon which controls the flow of sap and blood. The combination
of sun-fire, lunar-fire, and moisture, or of fire-red earth and rain,
constituted, according to early man’s way of thinking, the mystery
called life. Yellow berries and yellow flowers were as sacred to him,
and had as great life-prolonging and curative qualities, as red
berries, red flowers, red feathers, and the skins and scales of red
fish. Yellow gems and yellow metals were consequently valued as highly
as were red gems and red metals. In China yellow is the earth colour.
In Ceylon, Burmah, Tibet, and China it is the sacred colour of the
Buddhists.
Blue, the sky colour, and therefore the colour of the sky-deity, was
likewise holy. Torquoise and lapis-lazuli were connected with the Great
Mother. The sacredness of green has a more complex history. It was not
reverenced simply because of the greenness of vegetation. The
mysterious substance that makes plants green was derived from the
supreme source of life—the green form of the water-goddess or god—and
was to be found in concentrated form in green gems and stones,
including green jade. White was the colour of day, the stars, and the
moon, and black the colour of night and of death, and therefore the
colour of deities associated with darkness and the Otherworld. In China
black is the colour of the north, of winter, and of drought. The
combination of the five colours (black, white, red, yellow, and blue or
green) was displayed by all deities. This conception is enshrined in
the religious text which De Visser gives without comment:
“A dragon in the water covers himself with five colours;
Therefore he is a god.” [229]
In China, as in several other countries, the colour of an animal,
plant, or stone was believed to reveal its character and attributes. A
red berry was regarded with favour, because it displayed the life
colour. A red stone was favoured for the same reason. When it is
nowadays found that some particular berry or herb, favoured of old as
an “All-heal”, is really an efficacious medicine, an enthusiast may
incline to regard it as a wonderful thing that modern medical science
has not achieved, in some lines, greater triumphs than were achieved by
the “simple observers” of ancient times. But it may be that the real
cures were of accidental discovery, and that the effective berry or
herb would, on account of its colour alone, have continued in use
whether it had cured or not.
In China not only the berry with a “good colour” was used by “curers”,
but even the stone with a “good colour”. The physicians, for instance,
sometimes prescribed ground jade, and we read of men who died, because,
as it was thought, the quantities of jade-medicine taken were much too
large. Some ancient writers assert, in this connection, that although a
dose of ground jade may bring this life to a speedy end, it will ensure
prolonged life in the next world.
The berries and stones which were reputed to be “All-heals” were not
always devoured. They could be used simply as charms. The vital essence
or “soul substance” in berry or stone was supposed to be so powerful
that it warded off the attacks of the demons of disease, or expelled
the demons after they had taken possession of a patient. Medicines
might be prepared by simply dipping the charms into pure well water.
These charms were often worn as body-ornaments. All the ancient
personal ornaments were magic charms that gave protection or regulated
the functions of body organs. When symbols were carved on jade, the
ornaments were believed to acquire increased effectiveness. Gold
ornaments were invariably given symbolic shape. Like the horse-shoe,
which in western Europe is nailed on a door for “luck”—that is, to ward
off evil—these symbolic ornaments were credited with luck-bringing
virtues. The most ancient gold ornaments in the world are found in
Egypt, and these are models of shells, which had been worn as
“luck-bringers” long before gold was worked. [230] These shells had an
intimate association with the Mother Goddess, who, in one of her
aspects, personified the birth-aiding and fertilizing shell.
The idea that the coloured fruits and the coloured stones were
life-giving “avatars” of the Mother Goddess is well illustrated in the
glowing accounts of the Chinese Paradise. The Tree of Life might bear
fruit or gems. The souls swallowed gems as readily as fruit. In the
Japanese Paradise the immortals devour powdered mother-of-pearl shells
as well as peaches, dried cassia pods, cinnabar, pine needles, or pine
cones.
Jade was connected with vegetation on this earth as well as in
Paradise. As we have seen, the Great Mother goddess created this famous
mineral for the benefit of mankind. It contained her “soul substance”,
as did the trees, their blossoms, and their fruit, and even their
leaves and bark. This quaint belief is enshrined in the following
quotation from the Illustrated Mirror of Jades, translated by Laufer
and given without comment:
“In the second month, the plants in the mountains receive a bright
lustre. When their leaves fall, they change into jade. The spirit
of jade is like a beautiful woman.” [231]
It is obvious that the “beautiful woman” is the Goddess of the West.
Reference to coral trees in Paradise are numerous. It was believed not
only in China but in western Europe, until comparatively recent times,
that coral was a marine tree—the tree of the water-goddess. The Great
Mother was connected with the water above and beyond the firmament, as
well as the rivers and the sea.
“Good health” in the Otherworld was immortality or great longevity. A
soul which ate of a peach from the World Tree was assured of 3000 years
of good health. He renewed his youth, and never grew old, so long as
the supply of peaches was assured. [232]
In China men lengthened their days by partaking of “soul substance” in
various forms. The pine-tree cult made decoctions of pine needles and
cones, or of the fungus found at the roots of pines. “The juice of the
pine”, says one Chinese sage, “when consumed for a long time, renders
the body light, prevents man from growing old, and lengthens his life.
Its leaves preserve the interior of the body; they cause a man never to
feel hunger, and increase the years of his life.” The cypress was also
favoured. “Cypress seeds,” the same writer asserts, “if consumed for a
long period, render a man hale and healthy. They endow him with a good
colour, sharpen his ears and eyes, cause him never to experience the
feeling of hunger, nor to grow old.” The camphor tree comes next to the
pine and cypress as “a dispenser and depository of vital power”. [233]
Apparently the fact that pines and cypresses are evergreens recommended
them to the Chinese, although it was not for that reason only the
belief arose about their richness of “soul substance”. An ancient
Chinese sage has declared: “Pines and cypresses alone on this earth are
endowed with life, in the midst of winter as well as in summer they are
evergreen. Pines 1000 years old resemble a blue ox, a blue dog, or a
blue human being. Cypresses 1000 years old have deep roots shaped like
men in a sitting posture.... When they are cut they lose blood....
Branches of pines which are 3000 years old have underneath the bark
accumulations of resin in the shape of dragons, which, if pounded and
consumed in a quantity of full ten pounds, will enable a man to live
500 years.” [234]
Here we have the tree connected with the blue dragon. As has been
stated, ancient pines were transformed into dragons. The assertion that
the pines and cypresses were the only trees possessed of “vital power”
does not accord with the evidence regarding the peach-tree cult. The
peach, although not an evergreen, was credited with being possessed of
much “soul substance”.
No doubt the ideas connected with evergreens had a close association
with the doctrines of colour symbolism. The Chinese “Tree of Heaven”
(Ailanthus glandulosa) appears to have attracted special attention,
because in spring its leaves are coloured reddish-violet or
reddish-brown before they turn green. The walnut, cherry, and peony
similarly show reddish young leaves, and these trees have much lore
connected with them.
One seems to detect traces of the beliefs connected with the mandrake
in the reference to the human-shaped roots of the 1000-year-old cypress
tree. The mandrake was the plant of Aphrodite, and its root, which
resembles the human form, was used medicinally; it has narcotic
properties, and was believed also to be a medicine which promoted
fertility, assisted birth, and caused youths and girls to fall in love
with one another. According to mandrake-lore, the plant shrieks when
taken from the earth, and causes the death of the one who plucks it.
[235] Dogs were consequently employed to drag it out of the ground, and
they expired immediately. The “mandrake apple” is believed by Dr.
Rendel Harris to have been the original “love apple”. [236]
In like manner the mugwort, the plant of Artemis, was connected in
China and Japan with the pine which had virtues similar to those of the
herb. Although the mandrake-dog is not associated with the cypress, it
is found connected in a Japanese folk-story with the pine. The hero of
the tale, an old man called Hana Saka Jijii, acquired the secret how to
make withered trees blossom. He possessed a wonderful dog, named Shiro,
which one day attracted his attention by sniffing, barking, and wagging
his tail at a certain spot in the cottage garden. The old man was
puzzled to know what curious thing in the ground attracted the dog, and
began to dig. After turning up a few spadefuls of earth he found a
hoard of gold and silver pieces.
A jealous neighbour, having observed what had happened, borrowed Shiro
and set the animal to search for treasure in his own garden. The dog
began to sniff and bark at a certain spot, but when the man turned over
the soil, he found only dirt and offal that emitted an offensive smell.
Angry at being deceived by the dog, he killed it and buried the body
below the roots of a pine tree. Hana Saka Jijii was much distressed on
account of the loss of Shiro. He burned incense below the pine tree,
laid flowers on the dog’s grave, and shed tears. That night he dreamed
a wonderful dream. The ghost of Shiro appeared before him, and,
addressing him, said: “Cut down the pine tree above my grave and make a
rice mortar of it. When you use the mortar think of me.”
The old man did as the dog advised, and discovered to his great joy
that when he used the pine-tree mortar each grain of rice was
transformed into pure gold. He soon became rich.
The envious neighbour discovered what was going on and borrowed the
mortar. In his hands, however, it turned rice into dirt. This enraged
him so greatly that he broke the mortar and burned it.
That night the ghost of Shiro appeared once again in a dream, and
advised Hana Saka Jijii to collect the ashes of the burnt mortar and
scatter them on withered trees. Next morning he did as the dog advised
him. To his astonishment he found that the ashes caused withered trees
to come to life and send forth fresh and beautiful blossoms. He then
went about the country and employed himself reviving dead plum and
cherry trees, and soon became so renowned that a prince sent for him,
asking that he should bring back to life the withered trees in his
garden. The old man received a rich reward when he accomplished the
feat.
The jealous neighbour came to know how Hana Saka Jijii revived dead
trees, so he collected what remained of the ashes of the pine-tree
mortar. Then he set forth to proclaim to the inhabitants of a royal
town that he could work the same miracle as Hana Saka Jijii. The prince
sent for him, and the man climbed into the branches of a withered tree.
But when he scattered the ashes no bud or blossom appeared, and the
wind blew the dust into the eyes of the prince and nearly blinded him.
The impostor was seized and soundly beaten; and the dog Shiro was, in
this manner, well avenged.
In this story the dog is a searcher for and giver of treasure. It is of
special interest, therefore, to find that Artemis, the mugwort-goddess
of the West, “was not only the opener of treasure-houses, but she also
possessed the secret of the Philosopher’s Stone; she could transmute
base substances into gold”. She could therefore grant riches to those
whom she favoured. Dr. Rendel Harris, quoting from an old English
writer, records the belief “that upon St. John’s eve there are coals
(which turn to gold) to be found at midday under the roots of mugwort,
which after or before that time are very small, or none at all”. The
gold cures sickness. [237]
A similar belief was attached to the mandrake. A French story tells of
a peasant who regularly “fed” a mandrake that grew below a
mistletoe-bearing oak. The mandrake, when fed, would, it was believed,
“make you rich by returning twice as much as you spent upon it.... The
plant had become an animal.” [238]
If Shiro’s prototype was the mandrake-dog which sacrificed itself for
the sake of lovers, and was itself an “avatar” of the deity, we should
expect to find the pine tree connected with the love-goddess. [239]
Joly, in his Legend in Japanese Art (p. 147), tells that “at Takasago
there is a very old pine tree, the trunk of which is bifurcated; in it
dwells the spirit of the Maiden of Takasago, who was seen once by the
son of Izanagi, who fell in love and wedded her. Both lived to a very
great age, dying at the same hour on the same day, and since then their
spirits abide in the tree, but on moonlight nights they return to human
shape and revisit the scene of their earthly life and pursue their work
of gathering pine needles.” The needles were promoters of longevity, as
we have seen.
Another Japanese pair associated with the pine trees are Jo and Uba, a
couple of old and wrinkled spirits. They gathered pine needles, Jo
using a rake and Uba a besom and fan.
The goddess of the pine was evidently a Far Eastern Aphrodite, as well
as a Far Eastern Artemis—an Artemis who provided medicine for women in
the form of the mugwort, was a goddess of birth, a guardian of
treasure, and a goddess of travellers and hunters. The Romans
associated with Diana (Artemis) her loved one, Dianus or Janus, [240]
as the tree-goddess in Japan was associated with a deified human lover.
The pine may have been “a kind of mugwort” (and apparently, like the
cypress, a “kind of mandrake”), but it did not displace the mugwort as
a medicinal plant. Dr. Rendel Harris quotes a letter from Professor
Giles, the distinguished Chinese scholar, who says: “There is quite a
literature about Artemisia vulgaris, L. (the mugwort), which has been
used in China from time immemorial for cauterizing as a
counter-irritant, especially in cases of gout. Other species of
Artemisia are also found in China.” [241]
The Far Eastern Artemis appears to be represented by the immortal lady
known in China as Ho Sien Ku, and in Japan as Kasenko. She is shown “as
a young woman clothed in mugwort, holding a lotus stem and flower”
(like a western Asiatic or Egyptian goddess), “and talking to a
phœnix”, or “depicted carrying a basket of loquat fruits which she
gathered for her sick mother. She was a woman who, having been promised
immortality in a dream, fed on mother-of-pearl, and thereafter moved as
swiftly as a bird.” [242] The Mexican god Tlaloc’s wife was similarly a
mugwort goddess.
In the pine-tree story the Japanese representative of the tree- and
lunar-goddess of love appears with her spouse on moonlight nights. The
moon was the “Pearl of Heaven”. It will be noted that the mugwort is
connected with pearl-shell—the lady Ho Sien Ku having acquired the
right to wear mugwort, in her character as an immortal, by eating
mother-of-pearl. This connection of pearl-shell with a medicinal plant
is a more arbitrary one than that of the mugwort with the pine, or the
mandrake with the cypress.
The lotus was a form of the ancient love-goddess, as was also the
cowry. In Egypt the solar-god Horus emerges at birth from the
lotus-form of Hathor as it floats on the breast of the Nile. Ho Sien
Ku’s basket of fruit is also symbolic. “A basket of sycamore figs” was
in Ancient Egypt “originally the hieroglyphic sign for a woman, a
goddess, or a mother”. It had thus the same significance as the Pot,
the lotus, the mandrake-apple, and the pomegranate. The latter symbol
supplanted the Egyptian lotus in the Ægean area. [243]
Mugwort, as already stated, was a medicine, and chiefly a woman’s
medicine. “The plant (mugwort)”, says Dr. Rendel Harris, “is Artemis,
and Artemis is the plant. Artemis is a woman’s goddess and a maid’s
goddess, because she was a woman’s medicine and a maid’s medicine.”
[244] The mugwort promoted child-birth, and controlled women like the
moon, and was used for women’s ailments in general. It was a healing
plant, and was “good for gout” among other troubles.
The women’s herb in China is called the “san tsi”. An
eighteenth-century writer [245] says it is “efficacious in women’s
disorders and hæmorrhages of all sorts”. It is found “only on the tops
of high, steep mountains”, as is the scented Edelraut (Artemisia
mutellina) an alpine plant like the famous and beautiful Edelweiss.
Continuing his account of the “san tsi” herb, the eighteenth-century
writer and compiler says: “A kind of goat of a greyish colour is very
fond of feeding upon this plant, insomuch that they (the Chinese)
imagine the blood of this animal is endowed with the same medicinal
properties. It is certain that the blood of these goats has surprising
success against the injuries received by falls from horses, and other
accidents of the same kind. This the missionaries have had experience
of several times. One of their servants that was thrown by a vicious
horse, and who lay some time without speech or motion, was so soon
recovered by this remedy that the next day he was able to pursue his
journey.” It is also “a specific against the smallpox”. The author of
The Chinese Traveller, touching again on the blood substitute for this
plant, which is “not easy to be had”, says: “In the experiments above
mentioned, the blood of a goat was made use of that had been taken by
hunters”.
The goat appears to be the link between Artemis “the curer” and Artemis
as “Diana the huntress”. As the virtues of rare curative herbs passed
into the blood of animals who ate them, the goddess, like her
worshippers, hunted the animals in question, or became their protector.
Pliny, in his twenty-eighth book, having, as Dr. Rendel Harris notes,
“exhausted the herbals”, shows that “a larger medicine is to be found
in animals and in man”. [246]
In China the stag or deer, the stork, and the tortoise are associated
with the Tree of Life as “emblems of longevity”. One is reminded in
this connection of the Western, Eastern, and Far Eastern legends about
birds that pluck and carry to human beings leaves of “the plant of
life” or “fungus of immortality”, and of Mykenæan and Ancient Egyptian
representations of bulls, goats, deer, &c., browsing on vines and other
trees or bushes that were supposed to contain the elixir of life, being
sacred to the goddess and shown as symbols of her or of the god with
whom she was associated as mother or spouse.
Another famous Far Eastern curative “wort” is the ginseng. Like the
fungus of immortality, it grew on one of the Islands of the Blest.
Taken with mermaid’s flesh, it was supposed to lengthen the life of man
for several centuries.
“As described by Father Jartoux”, says the eighteenth-century English
writer, already quoted, [247] “it has a white root, somewhat knotty,
about half as thick as one’s little finger; and as it frequently parts
into two branches, not unlike the forked parts of a man, it is said
from thence to have obtained the name of ginseng, which implies a
resemblance of the human form, though indeed it has no more of such a
likeness than is usual among other roots. From the root arises a
perfectly smooth and roundish stem, of a pretty deep-red colour, except
towards the surface of the ground, where it is somewhat whiter. At the
top of the stem is a sort of joint or knot, formed by the shooting out
of four branches, sometimes more, sometimes less, which spread as from
a centre. The colour of the branches underneath is green, with a
whitish mixture, and the upper part is of a deep red like the stem....
Each branch has five leaves,” and the leaves “make a circular figure
nearly parallel to the surface of the earth”. The berries are of “a
beautiful red colour”.
Here we have hints of the mandrake without a doubt. As a matter of
fact, the ginseng has been identified with the mandrake. The plant
evidently attracted attention because of its colours and form. As it
has a red stem and red berries, it is not surprising to learn that “it
strengthens the vital spirits, is good against dizziness in the head
and dimness of sight, and prolongs life to extreme old age”, and that
“those who are in health often use it to render themselves more strong
and vigorous”. The four-leaved ginseng, like the four-leaved clover,
was apparently a symbol of the four cardinal points. Its “five leaves”
and the “circular figure formed by them” must have attracted those who
selected five colours for their gods and adored the sun.
The ginseng is found “on the declivities of mountains covered with
thick forests, upon the banks of torrents or about the roots of trees,
and amidst a thousand other different forms of vegetables”.
Conflicts took place between Tartars and Chinese for possession of the
ginseng, and one Tartar king had “the whole province where the ginseng
grows encompassed by wooden palisades”. Guards patrolled about “to
hinder the Chinese from searching for it (ginseng)”.
Tea first came into use in China as a life-prolonger. The shrub is an
evergreen, and appears to have attracted the attention of the Chinese
herbalists on that account. Our eighteenth-century writer says: “As to
the properties of tea, they are very much controverted by our
physicians; but the Chinese reckon it an excellent diluter and purifier
of the blood, a great strengthener of the brain and stomach, a promoter
of digestion, perspiration, and cleanser of the veins and urethra”.
Large quantities of tea were in China given “in fevers and some sorts
of colics”. Our author adds: “That the gout and stone are unknown in
China is ascribed to the use of this plant”. [248]
Apparently we owe not only some valuable medicines, but even the
familiar cup of tea, to the ancient searchers for the elixir of life
and curative herbs. Intoxicating liquors (aqua vitæ, i.e. “water of
life”) have a similar history. They were supposed to impart vigour to
the body and prolong life. Withal, like the intoxicating “soma”, drunk
by Aryo-Indian priests, they had a religious value as they produced
“prophetic states”. Even the opium habit had a religious origin. Aqua
vitæ was impregnated with “soul substance”, as was the juice of grapes,
or, as the Hebrews put it, “the blood of grapes”. [249]
As Far Eastern beliefs associated with curative plants and curative
stones (like jade) have filtered westward, so did Western beliefs
filter eastward. Dr. Rendel Harris has shown that myths and beliefs
connected with the ivy and mugwort, which were so prevalent in Ancient
Greece, can be traced across Siberia to Kamschatka. The Ainus of Japan
regard the mistletoe as an “All-heal”, as did the ancient Europeans.
“The discovery of the primitive sanctity of ivy, mugwort, and
mistletoe”, says Dr. Harris, “makes a strong link between the early
Greeks and other early peoples both East and West, and it is probable
that we shall find many more contacts between peoples that, as far as
geography and culture go, are altogether remote.” [250]
There are many Far Eastern stories about men and women who have escaped
threatened death by eating herbs, or pine resin, or some magic fruit.
One herb, called huchu, was first discovered to have special virtues by
a man who, when crossing a mountain, fell into a deep declivity and was
unable to get out of it, not only on account of the injuries he had
sustained, but because the rocks were as smooth as glass. He looked
about for something to eat, and saw only the huchu herb. Plucking it
out of the thin soil in which it grew, he chewed the root and found
that it kept his body at a temperature which prevented him feeling
cold, while it also satisfied his desire for food and water. Time
passed quickly and pleasantly. He felt happy, slept well, and did not
weary.
One day the earth was shaken by a great earthquake that opened a way of
escape for him. The man at once left his mountain prison and set off
for home.
On reaching his house he found, to his surprise, that it was inhabited
by strangers. He spoke to them, asking why they were there, and
inquiring regarding his wife and children. The strangers only scoffed
at him. Then he wandered through the village, searching for old
friends, but could not find one. He, however, interested a wise old man
in his case. An examination was made of the family annals, and it was
discovered that the name given by the man had been recorded three
centuries earlier as that of a member of the family who had
mysteriously disappeared.
The Chinese Rip Van Winkle then told the story of his life in the
mountain cavity, and how he had been sustained by the huchu herb. In
this manner, according to Chinese tradition, the discovery was made
that the herb “prolongs life, cures baldness, turns grey hair black
again, and tends to renew one’s youth”. Great quantities of huchu tea
must be drunk for a considerable time, and no other food taken, if the
desired results are to be fully achieved.
Other Rip Van Winkle stories tell of men who have lived for centuries
while conversing with immortals met by chance, or while taking part in
their amusements like the men in Western European stories, who enter
fairy knolls and dance with fairy women, and think they have danced for
a single hour, but find, when they come out, that a whole year has gone
past.
One day a Taoist priest, named Wang Chih, entered a mountain forest to
gather firewood. He came to a cave in which sat two aged men playing
chess, while others looked on. The game fascinated Wang Chih, so he
entered the cave, laid aside his chopper, and looked on. When he began
to feel hungry and thirsty he moved as if to rise up and go away,
although the game had not come to an end. One of the spectators,
however, divining his intention, handed him a kernel, which looked like
a date stone, saying, “Suck that”.
Wang Chih put the kernel in his mouth and found that it refreshed him
so that he experienced no further desire for food or drink.
The chess-playing continued in silence, and several hours, as it
seemed, flew past. Then one of the old men spoke to Wang Chih, saying:
“It is now a long time since you came to join our company. I think you
should return home.”
Wang Chih rose to his feet. When he grasped his chopper he was
astonished to find that the handle crumbled to dust. On reaching home,
he discovered, like the man who fed on the huchu herb, that he had been
missing for one or two centuries. The old men with whom he had mingled
in the cave were the immortals, known to the Chinese as Sten Nung, to
the Japanese as Sennin, and to the Indians as Rishis—a class of
demi-gods who once lived on earth and achieved great merit, in the
spiritual sense, by practising austerities in solitude and for long
periods.
The reference to the date stone is of special interest. In Babylonia
and Assyria the date palm was one of the holy trees. It was cultivated
in southern Persia, and may have been introduced into China from that
quarter. Another possibility is that the seeds were got from dates
carried by Arab traders to China, or obtained from Arabs by Chinese
traders. One of the Chinese names for the date resembles the Ancient
Egyptian designation, bunnu. Laufer, who discusses this problem, [251]
refers to early Chinese texts that make mention of Mo-lin, a distant
country in which dark-complexioned natives subsist on dates. Mo-lin,
earlier Mwa-lin, is, Laufer thinks, “intended for the Malindi of Edrīsī
or Mulanda of Yãqūt, now Malindi, south of the Equator, in Seyidieh
Province of British East Africa”. The lore connected with other Trees
of Life in China appears to have been transferred to the imported date
palm. One of its names is “jujube of a thousand years”, or “jujube of
ten thousand years”. Laufer quotes a Chinese description of the date
palm which emphasizes the fact that it “remains ever green”, and tells
that “when the kernel ripens, the seeds are black. In their appearance
they resemble dried jujubes. They are good to eat, and as sweet as
candy.” [252]
Another Chinese Rip Van Winkle story relates that two men who wandered
among the mountains met two pretty girls. They were entertained by
them, and fed on a concoction prepared from hemp. Seven generations
went past while they enjoyed the company of the girls.
The hemp (old Persian and Sanskrit bangha) was cultivated at a remote
period in China and Iran. A drug prepared from the seed is supposed to
prolong life and to inspire those who partake of it to prophesy, after
seeing visions and dreaming dreams. The “bang” habit is as bad as the
opium habit.
In the tree-lore of China there are interesting links between trees and
stones. It has been shown that jade was an “avatar” of the
mother-goddess, who created it for the benefit of mankind; that tree
foliage was identified with jade; that dragons were born from stones;
certain coloured stones were “dragon eggs”, the eggs of the “Dragon
Mother”, the mother-goddess herself, who had “many forms and many
colours”. Sacred stones were supposed to have dropped from the sky, or
to have grown in the earth. Pliny refers to a stone that fell from the
sun.
In Ancient Egypt it was believed that the creative or fertilizing tears
of the beneficent deities, like those of Osiris and Isis, caused good
shrubs to spring up, and that the tears of a deity like Set, who became
the personification of evil, produced poisonous plants. The weeping
Prajapati of the Aryo-Indians resembles the weeping sun-god Ra of
Egypt. At the beginning, Prajapati’s tears fell into the water and
“became the air”, and the tears he “wiped away, upwards, became the
sky”. [253]
It is evident that the idea of the weeping deity reached China, for
there are references to “tree tears” and to “stone tears”. Both the
tree and stone “avatars” of the Great Mother or Great Father shed
creative tears.
The Chinese appear to have discovered their wonderful “weeping tree” in
Turkestan in the second century B.C., but the beliefs connected with it
were evidently of greater antiquity. They already knew about the
weeping deities who created good and baneful vegetation, and the
discovery of the tree, it would appear, simply afforded proof to them
of the truth of their beliefs.
The tree in question (the hu tʼun tree) has been identified by Laufer
as the balsam poplar. “This tree”, he quotes from a Chinese
commentator, “is punctured by insects, whereupon flows down a juice,
that is commonly termed hu tʼun lei (‘hu tʼun tears’), because it is
said to resemble human tears. When this substance penetrates earth or
stone it coagulates into a solid mass, somewhat on the order of rock
salt.” Laufer notes that Pliny “speaks of a thorny shrub in Ariana, on
the borders of India, valuable for its tears, resembling the myrrh, but
difficult of access on account of the adhering thorns. It is not known
what plant is to be understood by the Plinian text; but the analogy of
the tears,” comments Laufer, “with the above Chinese term is
noteworthy.”
An ancient Chinese scholar, dealing with the references to the weeping
trees, says that “its sap sinks into the earth, and is similar to earth
and stone. It is used as a dye, like the ginger stone” (a variety of
stalactite). Ta Min, who lived in the tenth century of our era, wrote
regarding the tree, “There are two kinds—a tree sap, which is not
employed in the Pharmacopœia, and a stone sap collected on the surface
of stones; this one only is utilized as medicine. It resembles in
appearance small pieces of stone, and those coloured like loess take
the first place. The latter was employed as a remedy for toothache.”
[254]
In Babylonia toothache was supposed to be caused by the marsh-worm
demon which devours “the blood of the teeth” and “destroys the strength
of the gums”. The god Ea smites the worm, which is a form of the dragon
Tiamat. [255]
The antique conception enshrined in the “weeping tree” is that the
mother-goddess of the sky sheds tears, which cause the tree to grow,
and that, as the tree, she sheds tears that become stones, while the
stones shed tears that provide soul substance to cure disease by
removing pain and promoting health. In Egypt the stone specially sacred
to the sky-goddess Hathor was the turquoise, in which was, apparently,
concentrated the vital essence or “soul substance” of the sky. The
goddess sprang from water, and her tears were drops of the primeval
water from which all things that are issued forth. Those stones that
contained water were in China “dragon stones” or “dragon eggs”. In
various countries there are legends about deities, and men and women
have sprung from moisture-shedding stones. The mother-goddess of
Scotland, who presides over the winter season, transforms herself at
the beginning of summer into a stone that is often seen to be covered
with moisture. In Norse mythology the earliest gods spring from stones
that have been licked by the primeval mother-cow. Mithra of Persia
sprang from a rock. Indonesian beliefs regarding moist stones, from
which issue water and human beings, are fairly common. [256]
The Kayan of Sumatra are familiar with the beliefs that connect stones
and vegetables with the sky and water. They say that “in the beginning
there was a rock. On this rain fell and gave rise to moss, and the
worms, aided by the dung beetles, made soil by their castings. Then a
sword handle came down from the sun and became a large tree. From the
moon came a creeper which, hanging from the tree, mated through the
action of the wind.” From this union of tree and creeper, i.e. sun and
moon, “the first men were produced”. [257]
The connection between sky, plant, and animals is found in the lore
regarding the Chinese sant si mountain herb which is eaten by goats.
This herb, like other herbs, is produced from the body-moisture of the
goddess; it is the goddess herself—the goddess who sprang from water.
The plant is guarded by the mountain goat as the pearls are guarded by
the shark, and the goat, which browses on the plant, is, like the
shark, an avatar of the goddess. Goat’s blood is therefore as
efficacious as the sap of the herb.
The goat or ram is the vehicle of the Indian fire and lightning god
Agni; the Norse god Thor has a car drawn by goats. Dionysos, as Bromios
(the Thunderer), has a goat “avatar”, too, and he is the god of wine
(Bacchus)—the wine, the “blood of grapes”, being the elixir of life.
Osiris, who had a ram form, was to the Ancient Egyptians “Lord of the
Overflowing Wine”. European witches ride naked on goats or on brooms;
the devil had a goat form.
In China, as has been shown, the dragon-herb, peach, vine, pine, fungus
of immortality, ginseng, &c., received their sap, or blood, or “soul
substance” from rain released by dragon gods, who thundered like
Bromios-Dionysos. The inexhaustible pot from which life-giving water
came was in the moon. This Pot was the mother-goddess, who had a star
form. A fertilizing tear from the goddess-star, which falls on the
“Night of the Drop”, is still supposed in Egypt to cause the Nile to
rise in flood.
We should expect to find the Chinese mythological cycle completed by an
arbitrary connection between the goat or ram and sacred stones.
There are, to begin with, celestial goats. Some of the Far Eastern
demi-gods, already referred to, ride through “Cloud-land” on the backs
of goats or sheep. One of the eight demi-gods, who personify the eight
points of the compass, is called by the Chinese Hwang Chʼu-Pʼing, and
by the Japanese Koshohei. He is said to be an incarnation of the
“rain-priest”, Chʼih Sung Tze, who has for his wife a daughter of the
Royal Mother of the West, the mother-goddess of the Peach Tree of Life.
The Japanese version of the legend of the famous Koshohei is given by
Joly as follows: “Koshohei, when fifteen years old, led his herd of
goats to the Kin Hwa mountains, and, having found a grotto, stayed
there for forty years in meditation. His brother, Shoki, was a priest,
and he vowed to find the missing shepherd. Once he walked near the
mountain and he was told of the recluse by a sage named Zenju, and set
out to find him. He recognized his brother, but expressed his
astonishment at the absence of sheep or goats. Koshohei thereupon
touched with his staff the white stones with which the ground was
strewn, and as he touched them they became alive in the shape of
goats.” [258]
Goats might become stones. The Great Mother was a stone, rock, or
mountain, having the power to assume many forms, because she was the
life of all things and the substance of all things. The goddess was the
Mountain of Dawn in labour that brought forth the mouse-form of the sun
(Smintheus Apollo), or the antelope form of the sun, or the hawk or
eagle form, or the human form, or the egg containing the sun-god. She
was also the sun-boat—the dragon-ship of the sun. The five holy
mountains of China appear to have been originally connected with the
goddess and her sons—the gods of the four quarters.
In China deities might on occasion take the form of stones or reptiles.
During the Chou Dynasty (756 B.C.) “one of the feudal dukes”, says
Giles, “saw a vision of a yellow serpent which descended from heaven,
and laid its head on the slope of a mountain. The duke spoke of this to
his astrologer, who said, ‘It is a manifestation of God; sacrifice to
it’. In 747 B.C. another duke found on a mountain a being in the
semblance of a stone. Sacrifices were at once offered, and the stone
was deified and received regular worship from that time forward.” [259]
Giles states further in connection with Chinese god-stones: “Under 532
B.C. we have the record of a stone speaking.” The Marquis Lu inquired
of his chief musician if this was a fact, and received the following
answer: “Stones cannot speak. Perhaps this one was possessed by a
spirit. If not, the people must have heard wrong. And yet it is said
that when things are done out of season and discontents and complaints
are stirring among the people, then speechless things do speak.” [260]
Precious stones were, like boulders or mountains, linked with the Great
Mother. In Egypt the red jaspar amulet, called “the girdle of Isis”,
was supposed to be a precious drop of the life-blood of that goddess.
Herbs were connected with precious stones, and were credited with the
attributes and characteristics of these stones. There are many
references in Chinese, Indian, and other texts and folk-lores to gems
that gleam in darkness. No gems do. The mandrake was similarly believed
to shine at night. Both gem and herb were associated with the moon, a
form of the mother-goddess, and were supposed to give forth light like
the moon, [261] just as stones associated with the rain-mother were
supposed to become moist, or to send forth a stream of water, or to
shed tears like the “weeping trees”, and like the sky from which drop
rain and dew. The attributes of the goddess were shared by her
“avatars”.
The amount or strength of the “soul-substance” in trees, herbs,
well-water, stones, and animals varied greatly. Some elixirs derived
from one or other of these “avatars” might prolong life by a few years;
other elixirs might ensure many years of health.
The difference between a medicinal herb and the herb of immortality was
one of degree in potency. The former was imbued with sufficient
“soul-substance” to cure a patient suffering from a disease, or to give
good health for months, or even years; the latter gave extremely good
health, and those who partook of it lived for long periods in the
Otherworld.
Even the “spiritual beings” (ling) of China were graded. The four ling,
as De Visser states, are “the unicorn, the phœnix, the tortoise, and
the dragon”. The dragon is credited with being possessed of “most ling
of all creatures”. [262]
Stones were likewise graded. Precious stones had more ling than
ordinary stones. Precious stones are sometimes referred to as pi-si.
One Chinese writer says that “the best pi-si are deep-red in colour;
that those in which purple, yellow, and green are combined, and the
white ones take the second place; while those half white and half black
are of the third grade”. [263]
Stones that displayed five colours combined apparently all the virtues
of the five deities—the gods of the four quarters, and the sun, their
chief. These were all children of the sixth deity, the Great Mother,
who was the water on earth and the water above the firmament and the
moon. The moon contained, as has been said, the “Pot” of fertilizing
water which created all the water that flows into the Earth “Pot”. In
China, as in Egypt and Western Europe, the Great Mother was the
reproductive principle in Nature, the source of the moisture of life,
the blood which is life, the sap of trees, the soul-substance in herbs,
in fruit, in pearls, and in precious stones and precious
metals—precious because of their close association with her.
It was the human dread of death and pain, the human desire for health
and long life, and for the renewal of youth that instigated early man
to search for the well of life, the plant of life, the curative herb,
the pearl, and precious stones and precious metals. But before the
search began, the complex ideas about the origin of life and the means
by which it might be prolonged, which are reviewed in this chapter,
passed through a long process of development in the most ancient
centres of civilization. In China we meet not only with primitive ideas
regarding life-giving food and water, but with ideas that had gradually
developed for centuries outside China after the earliest attempts had
been made to reanimate the corpse, not merely by painting it, but by
preventing the body from decaying. In the history of mummification in
Egypt may be found the history of complex beliefs that travelled far
and wide. [264] Even those peoples who did not adopt, or, at any rate,
perpetuate the custom of mummification, adopted the belief that it was
necessary to preserve the corpse. This belief is still prevalent in
China, as will be shown, but magic takes the place of surgery.
In the next chapter evidence will be provided to indicate how the
overland “drift” of culture towards China was impelled by the forces at
work in Babylonia and Egypt.
CHAPTER XII
HOW COPPER-CULTURE REACHED CHINA
Metals connected with Deities—Introduction of Copper—Struggles for
the First “Mine-Land”—Early Metal-working in Caucasus, Armenia, and
Persia—Civilizations of Trans-Caspian Oases—Babylonian Influence in
Mid Asia—Bronze and Jade carried into Europe—Ancient “Gold Rushes”
to Siberia—Discoveries in Chinese Turkestan—Jade carried to
Babylonia—Links between China, Iran, and Siberia—Bronze-links
between China and Europe—Evidence of Ornaments and Myths—Early
Metal-working—Far Eastern and European Furnaces Identical—Chinese
Civilization dates from 1700 B.C.—Culture-mixing in Ancient Times.
The persistent and enterprising search for wealth in ancient times,
which, as will be shown in this chapter, had so much to do with the
spread of civilization, may seem quite a natural thing to modern man.
But it is really as remarkable, when we consider the circumstances, to
find the early peoples possessed of the greed of gold as it would be to
find hungry men who have been ship-wrecked on a lonely island more
concerned about its mineral resources than the food and water they were
absolutely in need of. What was the good of gold in an ancient
civilization that had no coinage? What attraction could it possibly
hold for desert nomads?
The value attached to gold, which is a comparatively useless metal, has
always been a fictitious value. As we have seen, it became precious in
ancient times, not because of its purchasing power, but for the reason
that it had religious associations. The early peoples regarded the
precious metal as an “avatar” of the life-giving and life-sustaining
Great Mother goddess—the “Golden Hathor”, the “Golden Aphrodite”.
In Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, India, and China the cow- and sky-goddess,
the source of fertilizing water, was, in the literal sense, a goddess
of gold. In India one of the five Sanskrit names for gold is Chandra
[265] (“the moon”), and the Indus was called “Golden Stream”, not
merely because gold was found in its sand, but because of its
connection with the celestials. “Gold is the object of the wishes of
the Vedic singer, and golden treasures are mentioned as given by
patrons, along with cows and horses. Gold was used for ornaments for
neck and breast, for ear-rings, and even for cups. Gold is always
associated with the gods. All that is connected with them is of gold;
the horses of the sun are ‘gold skinned’, and so on.” This summary by
two distinguished Sanskrit scholars emphasizes the close connection
that existed in India between gold and gold ornaments and religious
beliefs. [266]
“Gold”, a reader may contend, “is, of course, a beautiful metal, and
the ancients may well have been attracted by its beauty when they began
to utilize it for ornaments.” But is there any proof that ornaments
were adopted, because, in the first place, they made appeal to the
æsthetic sense, which, after all, is a cultivated sense, and not to be
entirely divorced from certain mental leanings produced by the
experiences and customs of many generations? Do ornaments really
beautify those who wear them? Was it the æsthetic sense that prompted
the early peoples to pierce their noses and ears; and to extend the
lobes of their ears so as to “adorn” themselves with shells, stones,
and pieces of metal? Can we divorce the practice of mutilation from its
association with crude religious beliefs? Inherited ideas of beauty may
be wrong ideas, and it can be said of the modern lady who wears
collections of brilliant and costly jewels that she is not necessarily
made more beautiful by perpetuating a custom rooted in the grossest
superstitions of antiquity, for these jewels were originally charms to
preserve health, to regulate the flow of blood, to promote fertility
and birth, and, generally speaking, to secure “luck” by bringing the
wearer into close touch with the “deities”, whose “soul-substance” was
contained in them.
When the æsthetic sense of mankind reached that high stage of
development represented by Greek sculpture, the so-called ornaments
were discarded and the human form depicted in all its natural beauty
and charm.
Whatever was holy seemed beautiful to the early people, and that is why
in a country like India, with its wealth of exquisitely coloured
flowers, the Sanskrit names for gold include Jāta-rūpa (native beauty),
and Su-varna (good, or beautiful colour). The gold colour was really a
luck-bringing colour, and therefore beautiful to Aryan eyes.
Having attached in their homelands a fictitious religious value to
gold, the early prospectors and miners carried their beliefs and
customs with them wherever they went, and these were in time adopted by
the peoples with whom they came into contact.
When Columbus crossed the Atlantic he and his followers greatly
astonished the unsophisticated natives of the New World by their
anxiety to obtain precious metals. They found, to their joy, that “the
sands of the mountain streams glittered with particles of gold; these”,
as Washington Irving says, [267] “the natives would skilfully separate
and give to the Spaniards, without expecting a recompense”.
No doubt the early searchers for gold in Africa and Asia met with many
peoples who were as much amused and interested, and as helpful, as were
the natives of the New World, who welcomed the Spaniards as visitors
from the sky.
Gold was the earliest metal worked by man. It was first used in Egypt
to fashion imitation sea-shells, and the magical and religious value
attached to the shells was transferred to the gold which, in
consequence, became “precious” or “holy”.
Copper was the next metal to be worked. It was similarly used for the
manufacture of personal ornaments and other sacred objects, being
regarded apparently, to begin with, as a variety of gold. But in
time—some centuries, it would appear, after copper was first extracted
from malachite—some pioneer of a new era began to utilize it as a
substitute for flint, and copper knives and other implements were
introduced. This discovery of the usefulness of copper had far-reaching
effects, and greatly increased the demand for the magical metal.
Increasing numbers of miners were employed, and search was made for new
copper-mines by enterprising prospectors who, in Egypt, were employed,
or, at any rate, protected, by the State. This search had much to do
with promoting race movements, and introducing not only new modes of
life but new modes of thought into lands situated at great distances
from the areas in which these modes of life and thought had origin. The
metal-workers were the missionaries of a New Age. In this chapter it
will be shown how they reached China.
Archæologists are not agreed as to where copper was first used for the
manufacture of weapons and implements. Some favour Egypt, and others
Mesopotamia. In the former country the useful metal was worked in
pre-Dynastic times, that is, before 3500 B.C. or 4500 B.C. “Copper
ornaments and objects, found in graves earlier than the middle
pre-Dynastic period”, wrote the late Mr. Leonard W. King, “are small
and of little practical utility as compared with the beautifully flaked
flint knives, daggers, and lances.... At a rather later stage in the
pre-Dynastic period, copper dagger-blades and adzes were produced in
imitation of flint and stone forms, and these mark the transition to
the heavy weapons and tools of copper which, in the early Dynastic
period, largely ousted flint and stone implements for practical use.
The gradual attainment of skill in the working of copper ore on the
part of the early Egyptians had a marked effect on the whole status of
their culture. Their improved weapons enabled them by conquest to draw
their raw materials from a far more extended area.” [268]
Copper was found in the wadis of Upper Egypt and on the Red Sea
coast—in those very areas in which gold was worked for generations
before copper was extracted from malachite. At a later period the
Pharaohs sent gangs of miners to work the copper-mines in the Sinaitic
peninsula. King Semerket, of the early Dynastic age, had men extracting
copper in the Wadi Maghara. “His expedition was exposed to the
depredations of the wild tribes of Beduin ... and he recorded his
punishment of them in a relief on the rocks of the Wadi.” There is
evidence that at this remote period the Pharaohs “maintained foreign
relations with far remote peoples”. [269] A record of a later age (c.
2000 B.C.) affords us a vivid glimpse of life in the “Mine-Land”. An
official recorded in an inscription that he had been sent there in what
he calls the “Evil summer season”. He complained, “It is not the season
for going to this Mine-Land.... The highlands are hot in summer, and
the mountains brand the skin.” Yet he could boast that “he extracted
more copper than he had been ordered to obtain”. [270]
The transition from stone to copper cannot be traced in ancient
Babylonia. Sumerian history begins at the seaport Eridu, when that
centre of civilization was situated at the head of the Persian Gulf—a
fact that suggests the settlement there of seafaring colonists. At the
dawn of Sumerian culture, copper tools and weapons had come into use.
No metals could be found in the alluvial “plain of Shinar”.
The early Babylonians (Sumerians) had to obtain their supplies of
copper from Sinai, Armenia, the Caucasus area, and Persia. It may be
that their earliest supplies came from Sinai, and that the battles in
that “Mine-Land”, recorded in early Egyptian inscriptions, were fought
between rival claimants of the ore from the Nile valley and the valley
of the Tigris and Euphrates. One ancient Pharaoh refers in an
inscription to his “first occurrence of smiting the Easterners” in
Sinai. “This designation”, comments Breasted, “of the event as the
‘first occurrence’ would indicate that it was a customary thing for the
kings of the time (First Dynasty, c. 3500 B.C.) to chastise the
barbarians.” [271] But were they really “barbarians”? Is it likely that
barbarians would be found in such a region, especially in summer? It is
more probable that the “Easterners” came from an area in which the
demand for copper was as great as it was in Egypt.
The regular battles between the ancient “peggers-out” of “claims” in
Mine-Land no doubt forced the “Easterners” to search for copper
elsewhere. By following the course of the Tigris the Sumerian
prospectors were led to the rich mineral area of the Armenian
Highlands, and it is of special significance in this connection to find
that the earliest Assyrian colonies were founded by Sumerians.
Apparently Nineveh (Mosul) had origin as a trading centre at which
metal ores were collected and sent southward some time before the
Semitic Akkadians obtained control of the northern part of the
Babylonian plain.
The copper obtained from Armenia and other western Asiatic areas was
less suitable than Sinaitic copper, being much softer. Sinaitic and
Egyptian copper is naturally hard on account of the proportion of
sulphur it contains. But after tin was found, and it was discovered
that, when mixed with copper, it produced the hard amalgam known as
bronze, the Sumerians appear to have entirely deserted the Sinaitic
Mine-Land, and left it to the Egyptians.
The Egyptians continued in their Copper Age until their civilization
ceased to be controlled by native kings.
Babylonia had likewise a Copper Age to begin with, but copper was at an
early period entirely supplanted by bronze, except for religious
purposes—a fact which is of great importance, especially when it is
found that the religious beliefs associated with copper and gold were
disseminated far and wide by the early miners—the troglodytes of Sinai
in the early Egyptian texts—who formed colonies that became industrial
and trading centres. Votive images found in Babylonia are of copper. A
good example of early Sumerian religious objects is the interesting
bull’s head in copper from Tello, which is dated c. 3000 B.C. The eyes
of this image of the bull-god—the “Bull of Heaven”, the sky-god, whose
mother or spouse was the “Cow of Heaven”—“are inlaid with
mother-of-pearl and lapis-lazuli”. A “very similar method is met with
in the copper head of a goat which was found at Fara”. [272] Here we
find fused in early Sumerian religious objects complex religious
beliefs connected with domesticated animals, sea-shells, and metals.
The opinion, suggested here by the writer, that the battles between
rival miners in Sinai compelled the Sumerians to search for copper
elsewhere and to discover means whereby the softer copper could be
hardened, appears to accord with the view that bronze was first
manufactured in Babylonia, or in some area colonized by Babylonia. In
his able summary of the archæological evidence regarding the
introduction of bronze, Sir Hercules Read shows that “the attribution
of the discovery to Babylonia is preferred as offering fewest
difficulties”. [273]
Recent archæological finds make out a good case for Russian Turkestan
as the “cradle of the bronze industry”.
In Troy and Crete bronze supplanted flint and obsidian. There was no
Copper Age in either of these culture centres. The copper artifacts
found in Crete are simply small and useless votive axes and other
religious objects.
Whence did the Babylonians receive, after the discovery was made how to
manufacture bronze, the necessary supplies of tin? Armenia and the
Caucasus “appear”, as Read says, “to be devoid of stanniferous ores”.
Apparently the early metal-searchers had gone as far as Khorassan in
Persia before their fellows had ceased to wage battles with Egyptians
in the Sinaitic “Mine-Land”. Tin has been located at Khorassan and “in
other parts of Persia, near Asterabad and Tabriz. [274]... From such
areas as these”, Reid says, “the tin used in casting the earliest
bronze may have been derived.” We are now fairly on our way along the
highway leading to China. “In Eastern Asia, beyond the radius of the
ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia”, Read continues, “there would
seem to be no region likely to have witnessed the discovery (of how to
work bronze) nearer than Southern China; for India, which has copper
implements of a very primitive type, is poor in tin ... while the Malay
peninsula, an extremely rich stanniferous region, does not appear to
have been mined in very ancient times”. [275] It is unlikely that
bronze was first manufactured in China, considering the period of its
introduction into Babylonia, which antedates by several centuries the
earliest traces of civilization in the Far East.
The history of the development of the industries and commerce of early
Babylonia is the history of the growth and dissemination of
civilization, not only in western Asia, but in the “Mid East” and the
“Far East”.
Babylonia, the Asiatic granary of the ancient world, lay across the
trade routes. Both its situation and its agricultural resources gave it
great commercial importance. It had abundant supplies of surplus food
to stimulate trade, and its industrial activity created a demand for
materials that could not be obtained in the rich alluvial plain. “Over
the Persian Gulf”, says Professor Goodspeed, [276] “teak-wood, found in
Eridu (the seaside “cradle” of Sumerian culture), was brought from
India. Cotton also made its way from the same source to the southern
cities. Over Arabia, by way of Ur, which stood at the foot of a natural
opening from the desert ... were led the caravans laden with stone,
spices, copper, and gold [277] from Sinai, Yemen, and Egypt.
Door-sockets of Sinaitic stone found at Nippur attest this traffic.”
Cedar wood was imported from the Syrian mountains “for the adornment of
palaces and temples. From the east, down the pass of Holwan, came the
marble and precious metal of the mountains. Much of this raw material
was worked over by Babylonian artisans and shipped back to
less-favoured lands, along with the grain, dates, and fish, the rugs
and cloths of native production. All this traffic was in the hands of
Babylonian traders, who fearlessly ventured into the borders of distant
countries, and must have carried with them thither the knowledge of the
civilization and wealth of their own home, for only thus can the
widespread influence of Babylonian culture in the earliest periods be
explained.”
It was evidently due to the influence of the searchers for metals and
the traders that the culture of early Sumeria spread across the Iranian
plateau. As Laufer has shown, [278] “the Iranians were the great
mediators between the West and the East”. The Chinese “were positive
utilitarians, and always interested in matters of reality; they have
bequeathed to us a great amount of useful information on Iranian
plants, products, animals, minerals, customs, and institutions”. Not
only plants but also Western ideas were conveyed to China by the
Iranians. [279]
The discoveries of archæological relics made by the De Morgan
Expedition in Elam (western Persia), and by the Pumpelly Expedition in
Russian Turkestan, have provided further evidence that
Sumero-Babylonian civilization exercised great influence over wide
areas in ancient times. Unfortunately no such records as those made by
the Egyptians who visited Mine-Land have been discovered either in
Babylonia or beside the mineral workings exploited by the Sumerians or
Akkadians. The Egyptian Pharaohs, as we have seen, had to send military
forces to protect their miners, and on one occasion found it necessary
to conduct mining operations in the hot season instead of in the cool
season, a fact which suggests that the opposition shown by rivals was
at times very formidable. It does not follow that the Babylonians had
to contend with similar opposition in Armenia and Persia. They appear
to have won the co-operation of the native peoples in the mid-Asian
mining districts, and to have made it worth their while to keep up the
supply of gold, and copper, and tin. Babylonia had corn and
manufactured articles to sell, and they made it possible for native
chiefs to organize their countries and to acquire wealth and a degree
of luxury. Nomadic pastoral peoples became traders, and communities of
them adopted Babylonian modes of life. Mr. W. J. Perry has shown that
in districts where minerals were anciently worked, the system of
irrigation, which brought wealth and comfort in Babylonia and the Nile
valley, was adopted, and that megalithic monuments were erected. [280]
The early searchers for metals and pearls and precious stones were
apparently the pioneers of civilization in many a district occupied by
backward peoples.
The mineral area to the south-east of the Caspian Sea appears to have
been exploited as early as the third millennium B.C., as was also the
mineral area stretching from the Caspian to the eastern coast of the
Black Sea. New trade routes were opened up and connections established,
not only with Elam and Babylonia in the south, but with Egypt, through
Palestine, and with Crete and with the whole Ægean area. Troy became
the “clearing-house” of this early trade flowing from western Asia into
Europe. The enterprising sea-kings of Crete appear to have penetrated
the Dardanelles and reached the eastern shores of the Black Sea, where
they tapped the overland trade routes. [281] Dr. Hubert Schmidt, who
accompanied the Pumpelly expedition to Russian Turkestan in 1903–4,
found Cretan Vasiliki pottery in one of the excavated mounds, and, in
another, “three-sided seal-stones of Middle Minoan type (c. 2000 B.C.),
engraved with Minoan designs”. [282] There is evidence which suggests
that this trade in metals between western Asia and the Ægean area was
in existence long before 2500 B.C., and not long after 3000 B.C.
One of the great centres of Mesopotamian culture in the south-eastern
Caspian area was Anau, near Askabad, on the Merve-Caspian railway
route. Another was Meshed, which lies to the south-east of Anau in a
rich metalliferous mountain region. One of the “Kurgans” (mounds)
excavated at Anau yielded archæological relics that indicated an early
connection between Turkestan and Elam in south-western Persia. In
another “Kurgan” were found traces of a copper-culture. The early
searchers for metals were evidently the originators or introducers of
this culture, and as the stratum contained baked clay figurines of the
Sumerian mother-goddess, the prototype of Ishtar, little doubt can
remain whence came the earliest miners. This region of desolate
sand-dunes was in ancient times irrigated by the Mesopotamian colonists
who sowed not only the seeds of barley, wheat, and millet, but also the
seeds of civilization, and stimulated progress among the native tribes.
The settlers built houses of bricks which had been sun-dried in
accordance with the prevailing Babylonian fashion. The Egyptian
potter’s wheel was introduced—another indication that regular trading
relations between Babylonia and Egypt were maintained at a very early
period.
Mr. Pumpelly, in the first flush of enthusiasm aroused by the mid-Asia
revelations, urged the claim that the agricultural mode of life
originated in the Transcaspian Oases, and that it passed thence to
Babylonia and Egypt. But the discovery of husks of barley in the
stomachs of naturally mummified bodies found in the hot dry sands of
Upper Egypt affords proof that cannot be overlooked in this connection.
[283] Agriculture was practised in the Nile valley long centuries
before the Transcaspian Copper Age was inaugurated. Besides, barley and
millet grow wild in the Delta area.
The early Mesopotamian searchers for metals, and their pupils from the
Transcaspian region, continued the explorations towards the east. They
appear to have wandered to the north-west of the Oxus and the
south-east of the Lake Balkash and apparently to the very borders of
China. This eastward drift must have been in progress long before the
introduction of bronze into central Europe, which had a Stone Age
culture for three or four centuries after bronze implements had become
common in Troy and Crete. The traders who carried bronze into Hungary
carried jade too, and the beliefs which had been connected with jade in
Asia. The earliest supplies of European jade objects must have come, as
will be shown, from Chinese Turkestan.
There was good reason for the early gold rush towards the east. Gold
can still be easily found “everywhere and in every form” in Siberia.
The Altai means “gold mountains”, and these yield silver and copper as
well as gold. Indeed, eastern Siberia is a much richer metalliferous
area than western Siberia, and this fact appears to have been
ascertained at a very remote period. The searchers for metals not only
collected gold, copper, and silver on the Altai Mountains and the area
of the upper reaches of the Yenesei River, but also penetrated into
Chinese Turkestan, where, as in Russian Turkestan, trading colonies
were founded, the metals were worked, and the agricultural mode of
life, including the system of irrigation, adopted with undoubted
success. [284] Important archæological excavations, conducted by Dr.
Stein in Chinese Turkestan, “on behalf of the Indian Government”, have
revealed traces of the far-reaching influences exercised by
Mesopotamian culture in a region now covered by the vast and confusing
sand-dunes of the Taklamakan Desert. At Khotan the discoveries made
were of similar character to those at Anau.
Khotan is the ancient trading centre which connected central Asia and
India, and India and China. One of the most important products of
Khotan is jade—that is, important from the historical point of view. It
is uncertain at what period the importation of jade into China from the
Khotan area was inaugurated. But there can be no doubt about the
antiquity of the jade trade between Chinese Turkestan and Babylonia.
Some of the Babylonian cylinder-seals were of jade, others being of
“marble, jasper, rock-crystal, emerald, amethyst, topaz, chalcedony,
onyx, agate, lapis-lazuli, hæmatite, and steatite” [285]—all relics of
ancient trade and mining activity. Turquoise was imported into
Babylonia from Khotan and Kashgar. The archæological finds made on the
site of the ancient Sumerian city at Nippur include cobalt, “presumably
from China”. [286] At Nippur was found, too, Persian marble,
lapis-lazuli from Bactria, and cedar and cypress from Zagros.
When it is borne in mind that the chief incentive behind the search for
precious metals and precious stones was a religious one, we should not
express surprise to find that not only the products of centres of
ancient civilization were carried across Asia to outlying parts, but
also myths, legends, and religious beliefs of complex character. These
were given a local colouring in different areas. In northern Siberia,
for instance, the local fauna displaced the fauna of the southern
religious cults, the reindeer or the goat taking the place of the
gazelle or the antelope. Mythological monsters received new parts, just
as the dolphin-god of Cretan and other seafaring peoples received an
elephant’s head in northern India and became the makara; and the
seafarers’ shark-god received in China the head of a lion, although the
lion is not found in China. No doubt the lion was introduced into China
as a religious art motif by some intruding cult. Touching on this phase
of the problem of early cultural contact, Ellis H. Minns [287] suggests
a number of possibilities to account for the similarities between
Siberian and Chinese art. One is that “the resemblance may be due to
both (Siberians and Chinese) having borrowed from Iranian or some other
Central Asian art.... In each case,” he adds, “we seem to have an
intrusion of monsters ultimately derived from Mesopotamia, the great
breeding-ground of monsters.” The data summarized in a previous chapter
[288] dealing with the Chinese dragon affords confirmation of this
view.
Dr. Joseph Edkins, writing in the seventies of last century as a
Christian missionary who made an intensive study of Chinese religious
beliefs at first hand, had much to say about the “grafting process” or
culture-mixing. “Every impartial investigator”, he wrote, “will
probably admit that the ceremonies and ideas of the Chinese sacrifices
link them with Western antiquity. The inference to be drawn is this,
that the Chinese primeval religion was of common origin with the
religions of the West. But if the religion was one, then the political
ideas, the mental habits, the sociology, the early arts and knowledge
of nature, should have been of common origin also with those of the
West.” [289]
No doubt the stories brought from Siberia by the early explorers tended
to stimulate the imaginations of the myth-makers of Mesopotamia, India,
and China. The mineral and hot springs in the cold regions may have
been regarded as proof that “the wells of life” had real existence.
Some of these wells are so greatly saturated with carbonic acid gas
that they burst skin and stone bottles. “Here is living water indeed!”
the early explorer may have exclaimed when he attempted to carry away a
sample. “The feathers in the air”, as Herodotus puts it when referring
to the snow, and the aurora borealis must have greatly impressed the
early miners in the mysterious Altai region—a region possessing so much
mineral wealth that it must have been regarded as a veritable
wonderland of the gods by the early prospectors. Who knows but that the
story of Gilgamesh’s pilgrimage through the dark mountain to the land
in which trees bore gems instead of fruit owes something to the
narratives of the early explorers who reached mysterious regions rich
in metals and gems, where the strange murmurings that fill the air on
still winter nights are still referred to as “the whisperings of the
stars”, and the aurora borealis, which scatters the darkness and
illumines snow-clad mountain ranges and valleys, displays wonderful and
vivid colours in great variety.
That the early culture which was disseminated eastward across Siberia
to China and westward into Europe was of common origin, is clearly
indicated by the archæological remains.
Dealing with the bronzes of Russia and Siberia, Sir Hercules Read
writes: “At both extremities of the vast area stretching from Lake
Baikal through the Southern Siberian Steppes across the Ural Mountains
to the basin of the Volga, and even beyond to the valleys of the Don
and Dnieper, there have been found, generally in tombs, but
occasionally on the surface of the ground, implements and weapons
marked by the same peculiarities of form, and by a single style of
decoration. These objects exhibit an undoubted affinity with those
discovered in China; but some of the distinctive features have been
traced in the bronze industry of Hungary and the Caucasus; for example,
pierced axes and sickles have a close resemblance to Hungarian and
Caucasian forms. The Siberian bronzes have this relationship both in
the East and West, but their kinship with Chinese antiquities being the
more obvious, it is natural to assume that the culture which they
represent is of East Asiatic origin.” Read notes, however, that “most
of the Chinese bronze implements are of developed, and therefore not of
primitive forms.... Such forms can only have been reached after a long
period of evolution, but their prototypes are found neither in the
Ural-Altaic region itself, where some objects may indeed be simpler in
design than others, but cannot be described as quite primitive; nor as
yet within the limits of China.” [290]
The evidence afforded by ancient religious beliefs and customs tends to
show that the cultural centre in Asia, which stimulated the growth of
civilization, was Babylonia, while Egyptian influence flowed northward
through Palestine and into Syria. In time the influence of Cretan
civilization made itself felt on the eastern shores of the Black Sea.
The ebb and flow of cultural influences along the trade routes at
various periods renders the problem of highly complex character. But
one leading fact appears to emerge. The demand for metals and precious
stones in the earliest seats of civilization—that is, in Babylonia and
Egypt—stimulated exploration and the spread of a culture based on the
agricultural mode of life. Not only was the system of irrigation, first
introduced in the Nilotic and Tigro-Euphratean valleys, adopted by
colonies of miners and traders who settled in mid-Asia and founded
sub-cultural centres that radiated westward and eastward; the religious
ideas and customs that had grown up with the agricultural mode of life
in the cradles of ancient civilization were adopted too. New
experiences and new inventions imparted “local colour” to colonial
culture, but the leading religious principles that veined that culture
underwent little change. The immemorial quest for the elixir of life
was never forgotten. It was not to purchase their daily bread alone
that men lived laborious days washing gold dust from river sands,
crushing quartz among the Altai Mountains, or quarrying and fishing
jade in Chinese Turkestan; they were chiefly concerned about
“purchasing” the “food of life” so as to secure immortality. The fear
of death, which sent Gilgamesh on his long journey, caused many a man
in ancient times to wander far and wide in search of life-giving
metals, precious stones, pearls, and plants. And so we find in China as
in Egypt, in Babylonia as in western Europe, that the quest of
immortality was the chief incentive that stimulated research,
discovery, and the spread of civilization. The demand for the wood of
sacred trees, incense-bearing trees and plants, precious metals and
precious stones in the temples of Egypt and Babylonia, had much to do
with the development of early trade. The Pharaohs of Egypt and the
Patesies of Sumeria fitted out expeditions to obtain treasure for their
holy places, and to keep open the trade routes along which the treasure
was carried.
That the system of metal-working had anciently an area of origin is
emphasized by the investigations conducted by Professor Gowland. [291]
He deals first with the Japanese evidence. “The method which was
practised, and the furnace employed by the early workers, still”, he
writes, “survive in use at several mines in Japan at the present time.”
A hole in the ground forms the furnace, and a bellows is used to
introduce the blast from the top. After the copper is smelted it is
allowed to cool off, and when it is nearly solidified it is taken out
and broken up. “The copper thus produced in Japan is never cast direct
from the smelting furnaces into useful forms, but is always resmelted
in crucibles, a mode of procedure which undoubtedly prevailed in Europe
during the early Metal and the Bronze Ages.” The Japanese clay
crucibles “are analogous to those found in the pile-dwellings of the
Swiss and Upper Austrian lakes”.
Dealing with iron-furnaces, the Professor shows that the Ancient
Egyptian furnace resembled “the Japanese furnace for copper, tin, and
lead”. The Etruscan furnace also resembled the Egyptian one. “From
metallurgical considerations only”, Gowland adds, “we would certainly
be led to the inference that the Etruscans had obtained their knowledge
of the method of extracting metal from that (the Egyptian) source.”
British evidence suggests that the methods obtaining in ancient times
were introduced from “the Mediterranean region of Europe.... The actual
process for the extraction of iron from its ores in Europe, in fact in
all countries in early times, was practically the same.”
Elsewhere, Professor Gowland has written: “It is important to note ...
that the type of furnace which survives in India among the hill tribes
of the Ghats is closely analogous to the prehistoric furnace of the
Danube, and of the Jura district in Europe”. [292]
“Culture-drifts” can thus be followed in their results. Backward
communities that adopted inventions in early times continue to use them
in precisely the same manner as did those ancient peoples by whom they
were first introduced. In like manner are early beliefs and customs
still perpetuated in isolated areas. But it does not follow that all
these beliefs had origin among the peoples who still cling to them.
Some so-called “primitive” beliefs are really of highly complex
character, with as long a history of development as has the primitive
type of furnace utilized by the hill tribes of India.
In the next chapter it will be shown that in the jade beliefs of China
traces survive of ideas not necessarily of Chinese origin—ideas that,
in fact, grew up and passed through processes of development in
countries in which jade was never found. For, as the Chinese bronze
implements are “not of primitive forms”, and therefore not indigenous,
neither are all Chinese beliefs and customs “primitive” in the same
sense, or, in the real sense, indigenous either. As the stimulus to
work metals in China came from an outside source, so, apparently, did
the stimulus to search for such a “life-giving” and “luck-conferring”
material as jade come from other countries, and from races unrelated to
those that occupied China in early times.
The beliefs associated with jade were developed in China, although they
did not originate there; and these beliefs were similar to those
attached to the pearls, the precious stones, and the precious metals
searched for by the ancient prospectors who discovered and first worked
jade in Chinese Turkestan and on the borders of China.
To sum up, it would appear that the elements of a religious culture,
closely associated with the agricultural mode of life, and common to
Sumeria and Egypt, passed across Asia towards China, reaching the
Shensi province about 1700 B.C. At a much later period the complex
culture of the Egyptian Empire period gradually drifted along the sea
route and left its impress on the Chinese coast. Iranian culture, which
was impregnated with Babylonian and Egyptian ideas, likewise exercised
a persisting influence, and was renewed again and again.
One of the ultimate results of the rise of Persia as a world-power, and
of the invasion of Asia by Alexander, was to bring China into direct
touch with the Hellenistic world.
Indian influence is represented chiefly by Buddhism. In northern India
Buddhism had been blended with Naga (serpent) worship, and when it
reached China, the local beliefs regarding dragons were given a
Buddhistic colouring. The Chinese Buddhists mixed the newly-imported
religious culture with their own. The “Islands of the Blest” were
retained by the cult of the East, and the Western Paradise by the cult
of the West. The latter paradise is unknown to the Buddhists in Burmah
and Ceylon, but has never been forgotten by the Buddhists of northern
China. A Buddha called “Boundless Age” was placed in the garden of the
Royal Lady of the West, but that goddess still lingered beside the
Peach Tree of Immortality, while the sky-goddess continued to weave the
web of the constellations, and the pious men and women of the Taoist
faith were supposed to reach her stellar Paradise by sailing along the
Celestial River in dragon-boats or riding on the back of dragons. The
Chinese Buddhists found ideas regarding Nirvana less satisfying than
those associated with the Paradise of the “Peaceful Land of the West”
and the higher Paradise of the “Palaces of the Stars”, in which dwelt
the gods and the demi-gods of the older faiths.
Writing in this connection, Dr. Joseph Edkins says: “A mighty branch of
foreign origin has been grafted in the old stock. The metaphysical
religion of Shakyamuni was added to the moral doctrines of Confucius.
Another process may then be witnessed. A native twig was grafted in the
Indian branch. Modern Taoism has grown up on the model supplied by
Buddhism. That it is possible to observe the modus operandi of this
repeated grafting, and to estimate the amount of gain and loss to the
people of China, resulting from the varied religious teaching which
they have thus received, is a circumstance of the greatest interest to
the investigator of the world’s religions.” [293]
CHAPTER XIII
THE SYMBOLISM OF JADE
Jade in Early Times—Used to Reanimate and Preserve the Dead—Jade as
a Night-shining Jewel—Connection with the Pearl, Coral, Mandrake,
Moon, Dragon, Fish, &c.—Jade Beliefs in Japan—Jade Amulets—The
Chinese Cicada Amulet and Egyptian Search—Butterfly, Frog, and Bird
Amulets—Jade and the Mother-goddess—The Chinese Universe—Great Bear
and “World Mill”—Babylonian Astronomy in China—Star Deities—The
Fung-shui Doctrine—Jade Symbols of Deities—Tigress as a
Mother-goddess—Links with the West—The Two Souls in China and
Egypt—Jade as an Elixir—Jade and Herbs—Jade and Babylonian
Nig-gil-ma—Jade and Rhinoceros Horn—Jade Beliefs in Prehistoric
Europe—Jade and Colour Symbolism—Jade contains Heat and
Moisture—Jade as “The Jewel that Grants all Desires”.
One’s thoughts at once turn to China when mention is made of jade, for
in no other country in the world has it been utilized for such a
variety of purposes or connected more closely with the social
organization and with religious beliefs and ceremonies.
This tough mineral, which is also called nephrite and “axe-stone”, and
is of different chemical composition to jadeite, was known to the
Chinese at the very dawn of their history. It was used by them at first
like flint or obsidian for the manufacture of axes, arrow-heads,
knives, and chisels, as well as for votive objects and personal
ornaments of magical or religious character, and then, as time went on,
for mortuary amulets, for images or symbols of deities, for mirrors,
[294] for seals and symbols of rank, and even for musical instruments,
possessing, as it does, wonderful resonant qualities. The latter
include jade flutes and jade “luck gongs”, which have religious
associations.
Native artisans acquired great skill in working this tenacious mineral,
and the finest art products in China are those exquisite jade
ornaments, symbols, and vessels that survive from various periods of
its history. Not only did the accomplished and patient workers,
especially of the Han period (200 B.C.–200 A.D.), achieve a high degree
of excellence in carving and engraving jade, and in producing beautiful
forms; they also dealt with their hard mineral so as to utilize its
various colours and shades, and thus increase the æsthetic qualities of
their art products. The artistic genius, as well as the religious
beliefs, of the Chinese has been enshrined in nephrite.
When the prehistoric Chinese settled in Shensi, they found jade in that
area. “All the Chinese questioned by me, experts in antiquarian
matters, agree”, Laufer writes, “in stating that the jades of the Chou
and Han Dynasties are made of indigenous material once dug on the very
soil of Shensi Province, that these quarries have been long ago
exhausted, no jade whatever being found there nowadays. My informant
pointed to Lan-tʼien and Fêng-siang-fu as the chief ancient mines.”
[295]
But although the early Chinese made use of indigenous jade, it does not
follow, as has been noted, that the early beliefs connected with this
famous mineral were of indigenous origin. It cannot be overlooked that
the symbolism of jade is similar in character to the older symbolism of
pearls, precious stones, and precious metals, and that the associated
beliefs can be traced not in China alone, but in such widely-separated
countries as India, Babylonia, and Egypt. There was evidently a
psychological motive for the importance attached by the early Chinese
to jade, which they called yu. [296] It had been regarded elsewhere as
a precious mineral before they began to search for it and make use of
it, especially for religious purposes.
It is not necessary to go back to the “Age of Stone” to theorize
regarding Chinese jade beliefs. It has yet to be established that China
had a Neolithic Age. “As far as the present state of our archæological
knowledge and the literary records point out”, says Laufer, “the
Chinese have never passed through an epoch which, for other culture
regions, has been designated as a Stone Age.” [297]
Stone implements have been found, but, as in ancient Egypt, these were
still being manufactured long after metals came into general use.
The fact that the same beliefs were connected with jade as with pearls,
shells, gold, &c., is brought out very clearly in Chinese records
regarding ancient burial customs. It was considered to be as necessary
in ancient China as in ancient Egypt that the bodies of the dead should
be preserved from decay. The Egyptians mummified their dead, and laid
on and beside them a variety of charms that were supposed to afford
protection and assist in the process of reanimation; withal, food
offerings were provided. The Chinese, who have long been noted for
their tendency to find substitutes for religious offerings, including
paper money, believed that the bodies of the dead could be preserved by
magic. At any rate, they did not consider it necessary to practise the
science of mummification. In the Li Ki (chapter 56) the orthodox
treatment of the bodies of the Emperor and others is set forth as
follows:
“The mouth of the Son of Heaven is stuffed with nine cowries, that of a
feudal lord with seven, that of a great officer with five, and that of
an ordinary official with three”. [298]
Gold and jade were used in like manner. Laufer quotes from Ko Hung the
significant statement: “If there is gold and jade in the nine apertures
of the corpse, it will preserve the body from putrefaction”. A
fifth-century Chinese writer says: “When on opening an ancient grave
the corpse looks like alive, then there is inside and outside of the
body a large quantity of gold and jade. According to the regulations of
the Han Dynasty, princes and lords were buried in clothes adorned with
pearls and with boxes of jade for the purpose of preserving the body
from decay.” [299]
According to De Groot, pearls were introduced into the mouth of the
dead during the Han Dynasty. “At least”, he says, “it is stated that
their mouths were filled with rice, and pearls and jade stone were put
therein, in accordance with the established ceremonial usages.” And Poh
hu thung i, a well-known work, professedly written in the first
century, says: “On stuffing the mouth of the Son of Heaven with rice,
they put jade therein; in the case of a feudal lord they introduce
pearls; in that of a great officer and so downwards, as also in that of
ordinary officials, cowries are used to this end”.
De Groot, commenting on the evidence, writes: “The same reasons why
gold and jade were used for stuffing the mouth of the dead hold good
for the use of pearls in this connection”. He notes that in Chinese
literature pearls were regarded as “depositories of Yang matter”, that
medical works declare “they can further and facilitate the procreation
of children”, and “can be useful for recalling to life those who have
expired, or are at the point of dying”. [300]
In India, as a Bengali friend, Mr. Jimut Bahan Sen, M.A., informs me, a
native medicine administered to those who are believed to be at the
point of death is a mixture of pounded gold and mercury. It is named
Makara-dhwaja. The makara [301] is in India depicted in a variety of
forms. As a composite lion-legged and fish-tailed “wonder beast”
resembling the Chinese dragon, it is the vehicle of the god Varuna, as
the Babylonian “sea goat” or “antelope fish” is the vehicle of the god
Ea or of the god Marduk (Merodach). The makara of the northern
Buddhists is likewise a combination of land and sea animals or
reptiles, including the dolphin with the head of an elephant, goat,
ram, lion, dog, or alligator. [302]
In China the lion-headed shark, a form of the sea-god, is likewise a
makara or sea-dragon. Gold and night-shining pearls are connected with
the makara as with the dragon. The Chinese dragon, as we have seen, is
born from gold, while curative herbs like the “Red Cloud herb” and the
“dragon’s whiskers herb” are emanations of the dragon. Gold, like the
herb, contains “soul substance” in concentrated form. Pounded gold, the
chief ingredient in the makara-dhwaja medicine, is believed in India to
renew youth and promote longevity like pounded jade and gold in China.
“In Yung-cheu, which is situated in the Eastern Ocean, rocks exist,”
wrote a Chinese sage in the early part of the Christian era. “From
these rocks there issues a brook like sweet wine; it is called the
Brook of Jade Must. If, after drinking some pints out of it, one
suddenly feels intoxicated, it will prolong life.... Grease of jade,”
we are further told, “is formed inside the mountains which contain
jade. It is always to be found in steep and dangerous spots. [303] The
jade juice, after issuing from those mountains, coagulates into such
grease after more than ten thousand years. This grease is fresh and
limpid, like crystal. If you find it, pulverize it and mix it with the
juice of herbs that have no pith; it immediately liquefies; drink one
pint of it then and you will live a thousand years.... He who swallows
gold will exist as long as gold; he who swallows jade will exist as
long as jade. Those who swallow the real essence of the dark sphere
(heavens) will enjoy an everlasting existence; the real essence of the
dark sphere is another name for jade. Bits of jade, when swallowed or
taken with water, can in both these cases render man immortal.” [304]
As we have seen, the belief prevailed in China that pearls shone by
night. The mandrake root was believed elsewhere to shine in like
manner. The view is consequently urged by the writer that the myths
regarding precious stones, jade, pearls, and herbs of nocturnal
luminosity owe their origin to the arbitrary connection of these
objects with the moon, and the lunar-goddess or sky-goddess. In China
Ye Kuang (“light of the night”) “is”, Laufer notes, “an ancient term to
designate the moon”. [305]
The intimate connection between the Mother deity and precious metals
and stones is brought out by Lucian in his De Dea Syria. He refers to
the goddess Hera of Hierapolis, who has “something of the attributes of
Athene, and of Aphrodite, and of Selene, and of Rhea, and of Artemis,
and of Nemesis, and of the Fates”, and describes her as follows:
“In one of her hands she holds a sceptre, and in the other a
distaff; [306] on her head she bears rays and a tower, and she has
a girdle wherewith they adorn none but Aphrodite of the sky. And
without she is gilt with gold, and gems of great price adorn her,
some white, some sea-green, others wine-dark, others flashing like
fire. Besides these there are many onyxes from Sardinia, and the
jacinth and emeralds, the offerings of the Egyptians and of the
Indians, Ethiopians, Medes, Armenians, and Babylonians. But the
greatest wonder of all I will proceed to tell: she bears a gem on
her head, called a Lychnis; it takes its name from its attribute.
From this stone flashes a great light in the night-time, so that
the whole temple gleams brightly as by the light of myriads of
candles, but in the day-time the brightness grows faint; the gem
has the likeness of a bright fire.” [307]
Laufer notes in his The Diamond [308] that “the name lychnis is
connected with the Greek lychnos” (“a portable lamp”), and that,
“according to Pliny, the stone is so called from its lustre being
heightened by the light of a lamp”. He thinks the stone in question is
the tourmaline. Laufer reviews a mass of evidence regarding precious
stones that were reported to shine by night, and comes to the
conclusion that there is no evidence on record “to show that the
Chinese ever understood how to render precious stones phosphorescent”.
He adds: “Since this experiment is difficult, there is hardly reason to
believe that they should ever have attempted it. Altogether,” he
concludes, “we have to regard the traditions about gems luminous at
night, not as a result of scientific effort, but as folk-lore
connecting the Orient with the Occident, Chinese society with the
Hellenistic world.” As Laufer shows, the Chinese imported legends
regarding magical gems from Fu-lin (“the forest of Fu”), an island in
the Mediterranean Sea, which was known to them as “the Western Sea” (Si
hai). [309] At a very much earlier period they imported other legends
and beliefs regarding metals and minerals.
Pearls and gold having been connected with the makara or dragon, it is
not surprising to find that their lunar attributes were imparted to
jade. Laufer quotes Chinese references to the “moonlight pearl” and the
“moon-reflecting gem”, [310] while De Groot deals with Chinese legends
about “effulgent pearls”, about “pearls shining during the night”,
“flaming or fiery pearls”, and “pearls lighting like the moon”. De
Groot adds, “Similar legends have always been current in the empire (of
China) about jade stone”, and he notes in this regard that “at the time
of the Emperor Shen-nung (twenty-fifth century B.C.) there existed”,
according to Chinese records, “jade which was obtained from agate
rocks, under the name of ‘Light shining at night’. If cast into the
waters in the dark it floated on the surface, without its light being
extinguished.” [311]
The wishing jewel (“Jewel that grants all desires”) of India, Japan,
and China is said to be “the pupil of a fish eye”. In India it was
known in Sanskrit as the cintimani, and was believed to have originated
from the makara. [312] The Chinese records have references to
“moonlight pearls” from the eyes of female whales, and from the eyes of
dolphins. [313] It does not follow that this belief about the origin of
shining pearls had a connection with observations made of the
phosphorescing of parts of marine animals, because the Chinese writers
refer too, for instance, to the nocturnal luminosity of rhinoceros
horn. [314] Even coral, which, like jade, was connected with the lunar-
or sky-goddess, was supposed to shine by night. Laufer quotes from the
work, Si King tsa (Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital, i.e.
Si-ngan-fu), in this connection:
“In the pond Tsi-tsʼui there are coral trees twelve feet high. Each
trunk produces three stems, which send forth 426 branches. These
have been presented by Chao Tʼo, King of Nan Yūe (Annam), and were
styled ‘beacon-fire trees’. At night they emitted a brilliant light
as though they would go up in flames.” [315]
The “coral tree” here links with the pine, peach, and cassia trees, and
the shining mandrake, as well as with jade, gold, precious stones, and
pearls. In Persia the pearl and coral are called margan, which
signifies “life-giver” or “life-owner”. Lapis-lazuli was called Kin
tsin (“essence of gold”) during the Tiang period in China. [316]
As the metal associated with the moon was usually silver, gold being
chiefly, although not always, the sun metal, we should expect to find
silver connected with jade and pearls.
De Groot, who is frankly puzzled over Chinese beliefs regarding pearls,
and has to “plead incompetency” to solve the problem why they were
“considered as depositories and distributors of vital force”, [317]
provides the translation of a passage in the Ta Tsʼing thung li that
connects silver with pearls. It states in reference to burial customs
that “in the case of an official of the first, second, or third degree,
five small pearls and pieces of jade shall be used for stuffing the
mouth; in that of one of the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh rank,
five small pieces of gold and of jade. The gentry shall use three bits
of broken gold or silver; among ordinary people the mouth shall be
stuffed with three pieces of silver.”
De Groot insists that the principal object of the practice of stuffing
the mouths of the dead was “to save the body from a speedy decay”.
[318]
It is significant therefore to find references in Chinese literature to
“Pearls of Jade”, to “Fire Jade” that sheds light or even “boils a
pot”, and to find silver being regarded as a substitute for jade.
Shells, pearls, gold, silver, and jade contained “soul substance”
derived from the Great Mother. As we have seen, Nu Kwa, the mythical
Chinese Empress (the sister of Fu Hi, the “Chinese Adam”), who stopped
the Deluge, took the place of the ancient goddess in popular legend.
She was credited, as has been indicated, with planning the course of
the Celestial River, with creating dragons, with re-erecting one of the
four pillars that supported the firmament, and with creating jade for
the benefit of mankind. In Japan Nu Kwa is remembered as Jokwa.
The Japanese beliefs connected with jade are clearly traceable to
China. A Tama may be a piece of jade, a crystal, a tapering pearl, or
the pearl carried on the head of a Japanese dragon. “The Tama”, says
Joly, “is associated not only with the Bosatsu and other Buddhist
deities or saints, but also with the gods of luck.” [319] There are a
number of heroic legends in which the Tama figures. In a story,
relegated to the eighth century B.C., a famous jade stone is called
“the Tama”. It tells that Pien Ho (the Japanese Benwa) saw an eagle
standing on a large block of jade which he took possession of and
carried to his king. The royal magicians thought it valueless, and
Benwa’s right foot was cut off. He made his way to the mountains and
replaced the jade, and soon afterwards observed that the same eagle
returned and perched upon it again. When a new king came to the throne
Benwa carried the jade to the court, but only to have his left foot cut
off. A third king came to the throne, and on seeing Benwa weeping by
the gate of the palace he inquired into the cause of his grief, and had
the stone tested, when it was found to be a perfect gem. This Tama was
afterwards regarded so valuable that it was demanded as “a ransom for
fifteen cities”. [320]
Here the eagle is associated with the gems containing “soul substance”.
Joly notes that “foxes are also shown holding the Tama”, and he wonders
if the globe “held under their talons by the heraldic lions has a
similar meaning”. [321] Foxes and wolves were, like dragons, capable of
assuming human form and figure among the were-animals of the Far East.
As these were-animals include the tiger, which is a god in China, it is
possible that they were ancient deities. The lion is associated with
the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, with the Cretan mother-goddess, while
the Egyptian Tefnut has a lioness form. Tammuz of Babylon is, as
Nin-girsu of Lagash, a lion-headed eagle. The Indian Vishnu has a
lion-headed avatar.
The connection of the precious jewel and of gold with the supreme deity
is traceable to the ancient beliefs regarding the shark-guardian of
pearls. As the beliefs associated with pearls were transferred to jade,
it need not surprise us to find the sacred fish—a form of the Great
Mother—connected with jade. A significant text is quoted by Laufer,
without comment, which brings out this connection. He says that “Lü
Pu-wei, who died in B.C. 235, reports in his book Lu-shih Chʼun Tsʼiu:
‘Pearls are placed in the mouth of the dead, and fish-scales are added;
these are now utilized for interment with the dead.’ The Commentary to
this passage explains: ‘To place pearls in the mouth of the dead (han
chu) means to fill the mouth with them; the addition of fish-scales
means, to enclose these in a jade casket which is placed on the body of
the deceased, as if it should be covered with fish-scales.’” [322] Jade
fish-symbols figure among the Chinese mortuary amulets.
Light is thrown on Chinese beliefs regarding resurrection by the cicada
mortuary amulet which was made of jade. It was placed on the tongue of
the dead and seems therefore to have been like the Egyptian scarab
amulet, a guarantee of immortality.
One of the important ceremonies in connection with the process of
reanimating an Egyptian corpse was “the opening of the mouth”. It was
necessary that the reanimated corpse should speak with “the true voice”
and justify itself in the court of Osiris, judge of the dead, when the
heart was weighed in the balance.
Tongue and heart were closely connected. According to the beliefs
associated with the cult of Ptah, which was fused with the cult of
Osiris, the heart was “the mind”, and the source of all power and all
life. The tongue expressed the thoughts of the mind.
Ptah, the great, is the mind and tongue of the gods.
Ptah, from whom proceeded the power
Of the mind,
And of the tongue....
It (the mind) is the one that bringeth forth every
successful issue.
It is the tongue that repeats the thoughts of the mind. [323]
The mind was the essence of life: the tongue, which formed the word,
was the active agent of the mind (heart).
As “the stuffing of the corpse with jade took the place of embalming”
[324] in China, the custom of placing a jade amulet on the tongue is of
marked significance. It is quite evidently an imported custom. The
cicada takes the place of the Egyptian scarabæus, the beetle-god of
Egypt, named Khepera and called in the texts “father of the gods”. In
ancient Egypt scarabs were placed on the bodies and in the tombs of the
dead to protect heart (mind) and tongue and ensure resurrection. A text
sets forth in this connection: “And behold, thou shalt make a scarab of
green stone, with a rim of gold, and this shall be placed in the heart
of a man, and it shall perform for him the ‘Opening of the Mouth’”. The
scarab is to be anointed with “ānti unguent” and then “words of power”
are to be recited over it. In “words of power” the deceased addresses
the scarab as “my heart, my mother: my heart whereby I came into
being”.
The beetle-god, in whose form the scarab was made, “becomes”, as Budge
says, “in a manner a type of the dead body, that is to say, he
represents matter containing a living germ which is about to pass from
a state of inertness into one of active life. As he was a living germ
in the abyss of Nu (the primeval deep) and made himself emerge
therefrom in the form of the rising sun, so the germ of the living
soul, which existed in the dead body of man, and was to burst into new
life in a new world by means of the prayers recited during the
performance of appropriate ceremonies, emerged from its old body in a
new form either in the realm of Osiris or in the boat of Ra (the
sun-god).” [325]
This Egyptian doctrine was symbolized by the beetle which rolls a bit
of dung in the dust into the form of a ball, and then, having dug a
hole in the ground, pushes it in and buries it. Thereafter the beetle
enters the subterranean chamber to devour the ball. This beetle also
collects dung to feed the larvæ which ultimately emerge from the ground
in beetle form.
As the Chinese substituted jade for pearls, so did they substitute the
cicada for the dung-beetle.
The cicada belongs to that class of insect which feeds on the juices of
plants. It is large and broad with brightly-coloured wings. The male
has on each side of the body a sort of drum which enables it to make
that chirping noise called “the song of the cicada”, referred to by the
ancient classical poets. When the female lays her eggs she bores a hole
in a tree and deposits them in it. Wingless larvæ are hatched, and they
bore their way into the ground to feed on the juices of roots. After a
time—in some cases after the lapse of several years—the cicada emerges
from the ground, the skin breaks open, and the winged insect rises in
the air. The most remarkable species of the cicada is found in the
United States, where it passes through a life-history of seventeen
years, the greater part of that time being spent underground—the larval
stage. In China the newly-hatched larva sometimes bores down into the
earth to a depth of about twenty feet.
“The observation of this wonderful process of nature,” says Laufer,
“seems to be the basic idea of this (cicada) amulet. The dead will
awaken to a new life from his grave as the chirping cicada rises from
the pupa buried in the ground. This amulet, accordingly, was an emblem
of resurrection.” Laufer quotes in this connection from the Chinese
philosopher Wang Chʼung, who wrote: “Prior to casting off the exuviæ, a
cicada is a chrysalis. When it casts them off, it leaves the pupa
state, and is transformed into a cicada. The vital spirit of a dead man
leaving the body may be compared to the cicada emerging from the
chrysalis.” [326]
The fact that the cicada feeds on the juices of plants apparently
connected it with the idea of the Tree of Life, the source of “soul
substance”.
Another insect symbol of resurrection was the butterfly, which was
connected with the Plum Tree of Life. Laufer notes that some
butterflies carved from jade, which were used as mortuary amulets, have
a plum-blossom pattern between the antennæ and plum-blossoms “carved à
jour in the wings”. [327]
He notes that “in modern times the combination of butterfly and
plum-blossom is used to express a rebus with the meaning ‘Always great
age’”. This amulet is of great antiquity.
The butterfly symbol of resurrection is found in Mexico. The Codex
Remensis shows an anthropomorphic butterfly from whose mouth a human
face emerges. Freyja, the Scandinavian goddess, is connected with the
butterfly, and in Greece and Italy the same insect was associated with
the idea of resurrection. Psyche (a name signifying “soul”) has
butterfly wings. Apparently the butterfly, like the cicada, was
supposed to derive its vitality from the mother-goddess’s Tree of Life.
Another important Chinese mortuary jade object was the frog or toad
amulet. As we have seen, the frog was connected with the moon and the
lunar goddess, and in China, as in ancient Egypt, was a symbol of
resurrection.
Among the interesting jade amulets shown by Laufer are two that roughly
resemble in shape the Egyptian scarabs. “The two pieces”, he writes,
“show traces of gilding, and resemble helmets in their shape, and are
moulded into the figures of a curious monster which it is difficult to
name. It seems to me that it is possibly some fabulous giant bird, for
on the sides, two wings, each marked by five pinions, are brought out,
a long, curved neck rises from below, though the two triangular ears do
not fit the conception of a bird.” [328] The figure apparently
represents a “composite wonder beast”. Fishes and composite quadrapeds
were also depicted in jade and placed in graves. Human figures are
rare.
Stone coffins were used in ancient times. The books of the later Han
Dynasty (at the beginning of our era) tell about a pious governor, Wang
Khiao, who receives a jade coffin from heaven. It was placed by unseen
hands in his hall. His servants endeavoured to take it away, but found
it could not be moved.
De Groot, [329] who translates the story, continues: “Khiao said, ‘Can
this mean that the Emperor of Heaven calls me towards him?’ He bathed
himself, put on his official attire with its ornaments, and lay down in
the coffin, the lid being immediately closed over him. When the night
had passed, they buried him on the east side of the city, and the earth
heaped itself over him in the shape a tumulus. All the cows in the
district on that evening were wet with perspiration and got out of
breath, and nobody knew whence this came. The people thereupon erected
a temple for him.”
De Groot quotes from another work written in the fifth century, which
relates that “at Lin-siang there is in the water a couch of stone, upon
which stand two coffins of solid stone, green like copper mirrors.
There is nobody who can give information regarding them.” [330]
Here we have jade used for the preservation of the dead, associated
with the sky, with cows, water, and stone, and, in addition, a
reference to green copper. Jade has taken the place of pearls, and
pearls were, as has been shown, connected with the mother-goddess, the
sky and cow deity who was the source of fertilizing and creative
moisture and “soul substance”. The standing stones of the
mother-goddess were supposed to perspire, and to split and give birth
to dragons or gods. This idea appears to lie behind the story regarding
the perspiring cows. An influence was at work on the night when the
sage was buried in the jade coffin, and that influence came from the
sky, and was concentrated in jade. It is necessary, therefore, at this
point, to get at Chinese ideas regarding the connection between jade
and the mysterious influence or influences in what we call “Nature”.
Behind all mythologies lie basic ideas regarding the universe. To
understand a local or localized mythology, it is necessary that we
should know something regarding the world in which lived those who
invented or perpetuated the myths.
The Chinese world was flat, and over it was the dome of the firmament
supported by four pillars. These pillars were situated at the four
cardinal points, and were each guarded by a sentinel deity. The deities
exercised an influence on the world and on all living beings in it, and
their influence was particularly strong during their seasons.
Like the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians the Chinese believed that
their world was surrounded by water. There are references in the texts
to the “Four Seas”, and to what the Egyptians called the “Great Circle”
(Okeanos).
The Babylonians believed the world was a mountain, and their temples
were models of their world. Thus the temple of Enlil, as the world-god,
was called E-Kur, which signifies “mountain house”. His consort Ninlil
was also called Nin-Kharsag, “the lady of the mountain”. [331] The
Babylonian and Egyptian temples were not only places of worship, but
seats of learning, and they had workshops in which the dyers,
metal-workers, &c., plied their sacred trades.
Chinese palaces and universities were in ancient times models of the
world. One of the odes says of King Wu:
“In the capital of Hao he built his hall with its circlet of water.
From the west to the east, from the south to the north, there was
not a thought but did him homage.” [332]
This hall was a royal college, “built”, says Legge, “in the middle of a
circle of water”. Colleges might also have semicircular pools in front
of them, “as may now be seen in front of the temples of Confucius in
the metropolitan cities of the provinces”. [333] Ceremonies were
studied in these institutions. There were also grave-pools. In
Singapore these grave-pools have had to be abolished because they were
utilized for hatching purposes by mosquitoes.
Much attention was paid by the Chinese to the shape and situation of a
temple, college, palace, or grave. Each was subjected to good and bad
influences, and as seafarers set their sails to take full advantage of
a favourable breeze, so did the Chinese construct edifices and graves
to take full advantage of favourable influences emanating from what may
be called the “magic tanks” of the universe—the cardinal points and the
sky.
The beliefs involved in this custom are not peculiar to China. In
Scottish Gaelic, for instance, there is the old saying:
Shut the north window,
And quickly close the window to the south;
And shut the window facing west;
Evil never came from the east.
Another saying is: “Shut the windows to the north, open the windows to
the south, and do not let the fire go out”. Both in Scottish and Irish
Gaelic the north is the “airt” (cardinal point) of evil influence, and
is coloured black, as is the north in China, and the south in India.
The black Indian south is “Yama’s gate”, that is the “gate” of the god
of death. One cannot say anything worse to a Hindu than “Go to Yama’s
gate”. The north is the good and white “airt” of Indian mythology; the
good go northward to Paradise, as in Scotland they go southward. A
Japanese poet has written: “The Paradise is in the south; only fools
pray towards the west”. [334]
In the Pyramid Texts of ancient Egypt the east is held by the solar
cult “to be the most sacred of all regions”, while the west is the
sacred “airt” of the Osirian cult. [335] In the east the sun-god, to
whom the soul of the dead Pharaoh went, was supposed to be reborn every
morning. The Chinese regarded the east “as the quarter”, says De Groot,
“in which is rooted the life of everything, the great genitor of life
(the sun) being born there every day”. [336] As we have seen, there was
in China, as in Egypt, a rival cult of the west.
The gods of the four quarters of China, from whom influences flowed,
were: The Blue (or Green) Dragon (east), the Red Bird (south), the
White Tiger (west), and the Black Tortoise (north). The east is the
left side, and the west is the right side; a worshipper therefore faces
the south. In Irish and Scottish Gaelic lore the south is the right
side, and the north is the left side; a worshipper therefore faces the
east.
According to Kwang-tze, the Taoist, it was believed in China that “the
breath (or influence) of the east is wind, and wind creates wood”; that
“the breath of the south is Yang, which creates fire”; that “the centre
is earth”; that “the breath of the west is Yin, which gives birth to
metal”; and that the breath of the north “is cold, by which water is
produced”. Another native pre-Christian writer says that “the east
appertains to wood, the south to fire, the west to metal, and the north
to water”. [337] Thus taking in the seasons we have the following
combinations, showing the organs of the body influenced by the gods of
the “airts”:
East—the Blue Dragon, Spring, Wood; Planet, Jupiter; liver and
gall.
South—the Red Bird, Summer, Fire, the Sun; Planet, Mars; heart and
large intestines.
West—the White Tiger, Autumn, Wind, Metal; Planet, Venus; lungs and
small intestine.
North—the Black Tortoise, Winter, Cold, Water; Planet, Mercury;
kidneys and bladder.
The good influence (or breath) was summed up in the term Yang, and bad
influence in the term Yin. Yang refers to what is bright, warm, active,
and life-giving; and Yin to what is inactive, cold, and of the earth
earthy. “When”, says a Chinese writer, “we speak of the Yin and the
Yang, we mean the air (or ether) collected in the Great Void. When we
speak of the Hard and Soft, we mean that ether collected and formed
into substance.” [338] Says De Groot in this connection: “In China
vital power is specially assimilated with the Yang, the chief part of
the Cosmos, identified with light, warmth, and life”. Yin is “the
principle of darkness, cold, and death, standing in the universe
diametrically opposite to Yang”. [339] The chief source of Yang is the
sun, which gives forth “shen” or “soul substance”; the chief source of
Yin is the moon. Yang strengthens the vital energy, and is the active
principle in various elixirs of life, including, as De Groot notes,
“the cock, jade, gold, pearls, and the products of pine and cypress
trees”. [340]
Yin and Yang are controlled by the constellation, the Great Bear,
called in China “the Bushel”. In the Shi Ki there is a reference to
“the seven stars of the Bushel”, styled “the Revolving Pearls or the
Balance of Jasper”, and arrayed “to form the body of seven rulers”.
This constellation is “the chariot of the Emperor (of Heaven).
Revolving around the pole, it descends to rule the four quarters of the
sphere and to separate the Yin and the Yang; by so doing it fixes the
four seasons, upholds the equilibrium between the five elements, moves
forward the subdivisions of the sphere, and establishes all order in
the Universe.” [341]
An ancient Chinese writer says in this connection that when the handle
(tail) of the Bushel (Great Bear) points to the east (at nightfall), it
is spring to all the world. When the handle points to the south it is
summer, when it points to the west it is autumn, and when it points to
the north it is winter. In the Shu King (Part II, Book I) the Great
Bear is referred to as “the pearl-adorned turning sphere with its
transverse tube of jade”. [342] The Polar Star is the “Pivot of the
Sky”, which revolves in its place, “carrying round with it all the
other heavenly bodies”. In like manner the Taoists taught that “the
body of man is carried round his spirit and by it”. The spirit is thus
the “Pivot of Jade”. That is why the Pivot of Jade is used in the
ritual services of Taoism. [343]
In Norse-Icelandic mythology the World Mill controls the seasons and
the movements of the heavenly bodies. The heavens revolve round the
Polar Star, Veraldar Nagli (“the world spike”). Nine giant maids turn
the world mill. [344]
The Babylonians, who were the pioneer astronomers and astrologers of
Asia, identified the stable and controlling spirit of the night sky
with the Polar Star, which was called “Ilu Sar” (“the god Shar”) or
“Anshar” (“Star of the Height” or “Star of the Most High”). [345]
Isaiah (xiv, 4–14) refers to the supreme star-god when he makes Lucifer
declare: “I will ascend unto heaven, I will exalt my throne above the
stars of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in
the sides of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will be the most High”.
Chinese astronomy and the Chinese calendar are undoubtedly of
Babylonian origin. The Babylonian god of the Pole Star has not been
forgotten. Dr. Edkins once asked a Chinese schoolmaster: “Who is the
Lord of heaven and earth?” He replied “that he knew none but the Pole
Star,” called in the Chinese language Teen-hwang-ta-te, the great
imperial ruler of heaven. [346]
There is a god and a goddess in the Great Bear. “Among the liturgical
works used by the priests of Tao”, says Edkins, “one of the commonest
consists of prayers to Towmoo, a female divinity supposed to reside in
the Great Bear. A part of the same constellation is worshipped under
the name Kwei-sing. A small temple is erected to this deity on the east
side of the entrance to Confucian temples, and he is regarded as being
favourable to literature.” But the chief god of literature is
“Wen-chang”, who is identified with a constellation near the Great Bear
which bears his name. He is prayed to by scholars to assist them in
their examinations. Temples were erected to him on elevated earthen
terraces. “Wen-chang”, says Edkins, “is said to have come down to our
world during many generations at irregular intervals. Virtuous and
highly-gifted men were chosen from history as likely to have been
incarnations of this divinity.” [347]
The five elements controlled by the Great Bear as it swings round the
Polar Star are in China (1) water, (2) fire, (3) wood, (4) metal, and
(5) earth. These elements compose what we call Nature. As we have seen,
they were placed under the guardianship of animal gods. The White Tiger
of the West, for instance, is associated with metal. When, therefore,
metal is placed in a grave, a ceremonial connection with the tiger-god
is effected. “According to the Annals of Wu and Yueh, three days after
the burial of the king, the essence of the element metal assumed the
shape of a white tiger and crouched down on the top of the grave.”
[348] Here the tiger is a protector—a preserver.
Jade being strongly imbued with Yang or “soul substance” was intimately
associated with all the gods, and the various colours of jade were
connected with the colours of the “airts” and of the heavens and earth.
Laufer quotes from the eighteenth chapter of Chou li, which deals with
the functions of the Master of Religious Ceremonies:
“He makes of jade the six objects to do homage to Heaven, to Earth,
and to the Four Points of the compass. With the round tablet pi of
bluish (or greenish) colour, he does homage to Heaven. With the
yellow jade tube tsʼung, he does homage to Earth. With the green
[349] tablet Kuei, he renders homage to the region of the East.
With the red tablet chang, he renders homage to the region of the
South. With the white tablet in the shape of a tiger (hu), he
renders homage to the region of the West. With the black jade piece
of semicircular shape (huang) he renders homage to the region of
the North. The colour of the victims and of the pieces of silk for
these various spirits correspond to that of the jade tablet.” [350]
The shape, as well as the colours, of the jade symbols was of
ritualistic importance.
What would appear to be the most ancient Chinese doctrine regarding the
influences or “breaths” that emanated from Nature, and affected the
living and the dead, is summed up in the term Fung-shui. “Fung” means
wind, and “shui” means “the water from the clouds which the wind
distributes over the world”. Certain winds are good, and certain winds
are bad.
The importance attached to wind and water appears to be connected with
the ancient belief, found in Babylonia and Egypt, that wind is the
“breath of life”, the soul, and that water is the source of all
life—“the water of life”.
“Fung-shui”, says De Groot, “denotes the atmospherical influences which
bear absolute sway over the fate of man, as none of the principal
elements of life can be produced without favourable weather and rains.”
It also means, he adds, “a quasi-scientific system, supposed to teach
men where and how to build graves, temples, and dwellings, in order
that the dead, the gods, and the living may be located therein
exclusively, or as far as possible, under the auspicious influences of
Nature”. [351]
The controllers of wind and water are the White Tiger god of the West,
and the Blue (or green) Dragon god of the East. “These animals”, says
De Groot, “represent all that is expressed by the word Fung-shui, viz.,
both æolian and aquatic influences, Confucius being reputed to have
said that ‘the winds follow the tiger’, and the dragon having, since
time immemorial, in Chinese cosmological mythology played the part of
chief spirit of water and rain.” [352]
When the dead were buried it was considered necessary, according to
Fung-shui principles, to have graves facing the south, and the Dragon
symbol on the left (east) side of the coffin, and the Tiger symbol on
the right (west) side, while the Red Bird of the south was on the
front, and the Black Tortoise of the north on the back.
These symbols were, so to speak, set amidst natural surroundings that
allowed the “free flow” of auspicious influences or “breaths”. A site
for a burial-ground was carefully selected, due account being taken of
the configurations of the surrounding country and the courses followed
by streams. [353]
Not only graves, but houses and towns, were so placed as to secure the
requisite balance between the forces of Nature. De Groot notes that
Amoy is reputed by Chinese believers of the Fung-shui system to owe its
prosperity to two knolls flanking the inner harbour, called “Tiger-head
Hill” and “Dragon-head Hill”. Canton is influenced by the “White
clouds”, a chain of hills representing the Dragon on one side of its
river, and by undulating ground opposite representing the Tiger.
“Similarly”, he says, “Peking is protected on the north-west by the
Kin-shan or Golden Hills, which represent the Tiger and ensure its
prosperity, together with that of the whole empire and the reigning
dynasty. These hills contain the sources of a felicitous watercourse,
called Yu-ho or ‘Jade River’, which enters Peking on the north-west,
and flows through the grounds at the back of the Imperial Palace, then
accumulates its beneficial influences in three large reservoirs or
lakes dug on the west side, and finally flows past the entire front of
the inner palace, where it bears the name of the Golden Water.” [354]
Here we find jade and gold closely associated in the Fung-shui system.
As we have seen, white jade was used when the Tiger god of the West was
worshipped; it is known as “tiger jade”; a tiger was depicted on the
jade symbol. To the Chinese the tiger was the king of all animals and
“lord of the mountains”, and the tiger-jade ornament was specially
reserved for commanders of armies. The male tiger was, among other
things, the god of war, and in this capacity it not only assisted the
armies of the emperors, but fought the demons that threatened the dead
in their graves.
There are traces in China of a tigress shape of the goddess of the
West. Laufer refers to an ancient legend of the country of Chu, which
tells of a prince who in the eighth century B.C. married a princess of
Yün. A son was born to them and named Tou Po-pi. The father died and
the widow returned to Yün, where Tou Po-pi, in his youth, had an
intrigue with a princess who bore him a son. “The grandmother ordered
the infant to be carried away and deserted on a marsh, but a tigress
came to suckle the child. One day when the prince of Yün was out
hunting, he discovered this circumstance, and when he returned home
terror-stricken, his wife unveiled to him the affair. Touched by this
marvellous incident, they sent messengers after the child, and had it
cared for. The people of Chʼu, who spoke a language differing from
Chinese, called suckling nou, and a tiger they called yü-tʼu; hence the
boy was named Nou Yü-tʼu (‘Suckled by a Tigress’). He subsequently
became minister of Chʼu.” [355]
This Far Eastern legend recalls that of Romulus and Remus, who were
thrown into the Tiber but were preserved and rescued; they were
afterwards suckled by a she-wolf. The Cretan Zeus was suckled,
according to one legend, by a sow, and to another by a goat. A Knossian
seal depicts a child suckled by a horned sheep. Sir Arthur Evans
refers, in this connection, to the legends of the grandson of Minos who
was suckled by a bitch; of Miletos, “the mythical founder of the city
of that name”, being nursed by wolves. [356] Vultures guarded the
Indian heroine Shakuntala, the Assyrian Semiramis was protected by
doves, while the Babylonian Gilgamesh and the Persian patriarch
Akhamanish were protected and rescued at birth by eagles. Horus of
Egypt was nourished and concealed by the serpent goddess Uazit, and in
his boyhood made friends of wild animals, as did also Bharata, the son
of the Indian vulture-guarded Shakuntala. Horus figures in the
constellation of Argo as a child floating in a chest or boat like the
abandoned Moses, the abandoned Indian Karna, the abandoned Sargon of
Akkad, and, as it would appear, Tammuz who in childhood lay in a
“sunken boat”. Horus of the older Egyptian legends was concealed on a
green floating island on the Nile—the “green bed of Horus”. [357]
The oldest known form of the suckling legend is found in the Pyramid
Texts of Ancient Egypt. When the soul of the Pharaoh went to the
Otherworld he was suckled by a goddess or by the goddesses of the north
and south. The latter are referred to in the Texts as “the two vultures
with long hair and hanging breasts”. [358] Here the vultures take the
place of the cow-goddess Hathor. In Troy the cow-mother, covered with
stars, becomes the star-adorned sow-mother. [359] Demeter had a sow
form and Athene a goat form, and other goddesses had dove, eagle, wolf,
bitch, &c., forms. The Chinese tigress-goddess is evidently a Far
Eastern animal form of the Great Mother who suckles the souls of the
dead and the abandoned children who are destined to become notables.
Thus behind the wind-god, in the Chinese Fung-shui system, we meet with
complex ideas regarding the source of the “air of life”, and the source
of the food-supply. The Blue Dragon of the East is the Naga form of the
Aryo-Indian Indra, [360] the rain-controller, the fertilizer, who is
closely associated with Vayu, the wind-god; the dragon is the
thunderer, too, like Indra. The close association of the tiger- and
dragon-gods in the Fung-shui system may account for the custom of
decorating jade symbols of the tiger with the thunder pattern. [361]
In jade-lore, as will be seen, we touch on complex religious beliefs
and conceptions not entirely of Chinese origin. Indeed, it is necessary
to leave China and investigate the religious systems of more ancient
countries to understand rightly Chinese ideas regarding jade as a
substitute for gold, pearls, precious stones, &c., and its connection
with vegetation and the Great Mother, the source of all life.
It remains with us to deal with Chinese ideas regarding the soul which
was protected by jade, the concentrated form of “soul substance”.
The Chinese believed that a human being had two souls. One was the
Kwei, that is the soul which partook of the nature of the element Yin
and returned to the earth from which it originally came; [362] the
other soul was the shen which partook of the element Yang. When the
shen is in the living body, it is called Khi or “breath”; after death
“it lives forth as a refulgent spirit, styled ming”. The other soul,
called Kwei, is known as the pʼoh during life; after death it lives on
in the grave beside the body, which is supposed to be protected against
decay by the jade, gold, pearls, shells, &c., and the good influences
“flowing” from east and west.
The shen, like the cicada, may also dwell for a time in the grave or in
the gravestone before it rises on wings to the Sky Paradise, or passes
to the Western Paradise or the Eastern “Islands of the Blest”. Ancient
local and tribal beliefs and beliefs imported at different periods from
different culture centres were evidently fused in China, and we
consequently meet with a variety of ideas regarding the destiny of the
shen. “Departed souls”, says De Groot, “are sometimes popularly
represented as repairing to the regions of bliss on the back of a
crane.” [363] The soul may sail to the Western Paradise in a boat.
“Thou hast departed to the West, from whence there is no returning in
the barge of mercy”, runs an address to the corpse.[363] Here we have
the Ra-boat of Egypt conveying the soul to the Osirian Paradise. As has
been shown, souls sometimes departed on the backs of dragons, or rose
in the air towards cloudland, there to sail in boats or ride on the
backs of birds or kirins, or reached the moon or star-land by climbing
a gigantic tree. Belief in transmigration of souls can also be traced
in China, the result apparently of the importation of pre-Buddhist as
well as Buddhist beliefs from India.
The living performed ceremonies to assist the soul of the dead on its
last journey. Priests chanted:
I salute Ye, Celestial Judges of the three spheres constituting the
higher, middle, and lower divisions of the Universe, and Ye, host
of Kings and nobles of the departments of land and water and of the
world of men! Remember the soul of the dead, and help it forward in
going to the Paradise of the West. [364]
Egyptian, Babylonian, and Indian ideas regarding the Western Paradise
are here significantly mingled.
During life the soul might leave the body for a period, either during
sleep or when one fainted suddenly.
This belief is widespread. The soul, in folk-stories, is sometimes
seen, as in Scotland, as a bee, or bird, or serpent, as in Norway as an
insect or mouse, as in Indonesia and elsewhere as a worm, snake,
butterfly, or mouse, and even, as in different countries, as deer,
cats, pigs, crocodiles, &c. Chinese beliefs regarding souls as
butterflies, cicadas, &c., have already been referred to.
The wandering soul could be “called back” by repeating the individual’s
name. In China, even the dead were called back, and the ceremony of
recalling the soul is prominent in funeral rites, as De Groot shows.
[365] Peoples as far separated as the Mongolian Buriats and the
inhabitants of England, Scotland, and Ireland believed that ghosts
could be enticed to return to the body. [366] The “death-howl” in China
and Egypt, and elsewhere, is evidently connected with this ancient
belief.
Of special interest is the evidence regarding Korean customs and
beliefs. Mrs. Bishop writes: “Man is supposed to have three souls.
After death one occupies the tablet, one the grave, and one the
unknown. During the passing of the spirit there is complete silence.
The under-garments of the dead are taken out by a servant, who waves
them in the air, and calls him by name, the relations and friends
meantime wailing loudly. After a time the clothes are thrown upon the
roof.” When a man dies, one of his souls is supposed to be seized and
carried to the unknown and placed on trial before the Ten Judges, who
sentence it “either to ‘a good place’ or to one of the manifold hells”.
[367]
Professor Elliot Smith, reviewing the Chinese ideas regarding the two
souls, comes to the conclusion that “the early Chinese conceptions of
the soul and its functions are essentially identical with the Egyptian,
and must have been derived from the same source”. [368] As the Chinese
have the shen and the Kwei, so had the Egyptians the Ka and the ba. The
Ka was the spirit of the placenta, “which was accredited with the
attributes of the life-giving and birth-promoting Great Mother and
intimately related to the moon and the earliest totem”. [369] In China
the beliefs and customs connected with the placenta and the moon are
quite Egyptian in character. [370]
Even in the worship of ancestors in China one can trace the influence
of Ancient Egyptian ideas. When the Pharaoh died, he was identified
with the god. King Unis, in the Pyramid Texts, becomes Osiris, who
controls the Nile. “It is Unis”, we read, “who inundates the land.”
Pepi I, in like manner, supplanted the god, and he is addressed as
Osiris, as is also King Mernere—“Ho this Osiris, King Mernere!” runs a
Pyramid Text. [371] The sun-god Ra was similarly supplanted by his son,
the dead Pharaoh.
The souls of Chinese ancestors, who passed to the Otherworld, became
identified with the deities who protected households. Emperors became,
after death, emperors in heaven and their souls were the deified
preservers of their dynasties. Clan and tribal ancestors were
protectors of their clans and tribes, and families were ever under the
care of the souls of their founders. The belief became deeply rooted in
China that the ancestral soul exercised from generation to generation a
beneficent influence over a home. It is not surprising to find,
therefore, that gods are exceedingly numerous in China, and that it is
sometimes difficult to distinguish an ancestor from a god and a god
from an ancestor. The State religion was something apart from domestic
religion. Emperors worshipped the deities that controlled the nation’s
destinies, and families worshipped the deities of the household.
Local and imported beliefs were fused and developed on Chinese soil,
and when, in time, Buddhism was introduced it was mixed with
pre-existing religious systems. Chinese Buddhism is consequently found
to have local features that distinguish it from the Buddhism of Tibet,
Burmah, and Japan, in which countries there was, in like manner,
culture-mixing.
Beliefs connected with jade, which date back to the time when the jade
fished from the rivers of Chinese Turkestan was identified with pearls
and gold, were similarly developed in China. At first the jade was used
to assist birth and to cure diseases. It likewise brought luck, being
an object that radiated the influence of the All-Mother. As the living
had their days prolonged and their youth revived by jade, so were the
dead preserved from decay by the influence of the famous mineral. The
custom ultimately obtained of eating jade, as has already been noted in
these pages. Ground jade or “pure extract of jade” was not only
supposed to promote longevity, but to effect a ceremonial connection
between the worshipper and the spirits or deities. In the Chou li it is
stated that “when the Emperor purifies himself by abstinence, the chief
in charge of the jade works prepares for him the jade which he is
obliged to eat”. [372] It is explained by commentators that “the
emperor fasts and purifies himself before communicating with the
spirits; he must take the pure extract of jade; it is dissolved that he
may eat it”. Jade was also pounded with rice as food for the corpse. “A
marvellous kind of jade”, says Laufer, “was called Yü ying, ‘the
perfection of jade’,” which ensured eternal life. “In 163 B.C. a jade
cup of this kind was discovered on which the words were engraved ‘May
the sovereign of men have his longevity prolonged’.” Immortality was
secured by eating from jade bowls, or, as we have seen, by drinking dew
from a jade bowl. [373]
As has been shown, the Great Mother created jade for the benefit of
mankind, and “the spirit of jade is like a beautiful woman”. [374] Jade
was also “the essence of the purity of the male principle”. [375]
Apparently the god who was husband and son of the Great Mother was
connected with jade. The Mother was the life-giver, and the son, as
Osiris, was “the imperishable principle of life wherever found”. [376]
If men died, the seed of life in the body was preserved by jade
amulets; the plants might shed their leaves, but the life of the plants
was perpetuated by the spirit of jade. “In the second month”, says The
Illustrated Mirror of Jade, “the plants in the mountains receive a
brighter lustre. When their leaves fall, they change into jade.” [377]
The mountain plants in question appear to be the curative herbs that
contained, like jade, the elixir of life, and the chief of these plants
was the ginseng (mandrake), an avatar of the Great Mother. The plant,
or ground jade, or food or moisture from the jade vessel renewed youth
and prolonged life. All the elixirs were concentrated in jade; the
vital principle in human beings and plants was derived from and
preserved by jade.
It is of special interest to find that the Chinese Nu Kwa who caused
the flood to retreat was the creator of the jade which protected
mankind and ensured longevity by preserving the seed or shen of life,
being impregnated with Yang, the male principle. In Babylonia, the seed
of mankind was preserved during the flood by the nig-gil-ma.
In the Sumerian version of the Creation legend, the three great gods
Anu, Enlil, and Enki, assisted by the Great Mother goddess
Ninkharasagga, first created mankind, then the nig-gil-ma, and lastly
the four-legged animals of the field. The mysterious nig-gil-ma is
referred to in the story of the Deluge as “Preserver of the seed of
mankind”, while the ship or ark is “Preserver of Life”, literally “She
that preserves life”. A later magical text refers to the creation after
that of mankind and animals of “two small creatures, one white and one
black”. Man and animals were saved from the flood and the nig-gil-ma
played its or their part “in ensuring their survival”.
Leonard W. King, who has gathered together the surviving evidence
regarding the mysterious nig-gil-ma [378] points out that the name is
sometimes preceded by “the determinative for ‘pot’, ‘jar’, or ‘bowl’”,
and is identical with the Semitic word mashkhalu. In the Tell-el-Amarna
letters there are references to a mashkhalu of silver and a mashkhalu
of stone (a silver vessel and a stone vessel). The nig-gil-ma may be
simply a “jar” or “bowl”. “But”, says Mr. L. King, “the accompanying
references to the ground, to its production from the ground, and to its
springing up ... suggest rather some kind of plant; and this, from its
employment in magical rites, may also have given its name to a bowl or
vessel which held it. A very similar plant was that found and lost by
Gilgamesh, after his sojourn with Ut-napishtim [379]; it too had potent
magical power, and bore a title descriptive of its peculiar virtue of
transforming old age to youth.” The nig-gil-ma may therefore be a
plant, a ship, a stone bowl or jar, or a vessel of silver (the moon
metal). If we regard it as a symbol or avatar of the mother-goddess it
was any of these things and all of these things—the Mother Pot, the
inexhaustible womb of Nature, the Plant of Life containing “soul
substance”, the red clay, the moon-silver, or, as in China, the jade of
which the sacred vessel was made. The Great Mother’s herb-avatar was
the ginseng (mandrake), as in the Egyptian Deluge story it was the red
earth didi from Elephantine placed in the beer prepared for the
slaughtering goddess Hathor-Sekhet as a surrogate of blood and a
soporific drink; the mixture was “the giver of life”, the red aqua
vitae, like the red wine and the juice of red berries in different
areas. [380] The mandrake was the didi of southern Europe and of China.
Dr. Rendel Harris shows that the early Greek magicians and doctors
referred to the male mandrake, which was white, and the female
mandrake, which was black. The black mandrake was personified as the
Black Aphrodite. [381]
The Babylonian reference in a magical text to the nig-gil-ma as “two
small creatures, one white and one black” is therefore highly
significant. Apparently, like jade, the nig-gil-ma symbolized “the male
principle”, and “the spirit” of “a beautiful woman”. Thus mandrake
(ginseng), the Plant of Life, red earth, jade, the pearl and the pot or
jar or bowl, and the Deluge ship, and the ship of the sun-god, were
forms, avatars, or manifestations of the Great Mother who preserved the
seed of mankind and the elixir of life—in the Pot it grew the Plant of
Life, and from it could be drunk the dew of life, the water of life,
plant and water being impregnated with the “spirit” of jade. Jade-lore
is of highly complex character because, as has been indicated, the
early instructors of the Chinese attached to the mineral the
Egypto-Babylonian doctrines regarding the Great Mother and her shells,
pearls, precious stones, gold, silver and copper, herbs, trees,
cereals, red earth, &c. The Babylonian evidence regarding the
nig-gil-ma as a herb, and as a silver or stone jar, pot, or cup, in
which was preserved the seed of mankind (“soul substance”) may explain
why in the Chinese Deluge myth there is no ark or ship. The goddess
provided jade instead of a boat and she created dragons to control the
rain-supply, so that the world might not again suffer from the effects
of a flood.
The virtues of jade were shared to a certain degree by rhinoceros horn,
which, as we have seen, was reputed to shine by night.
Laufer has gathered together sufficient evidence to prove that the
rhinoceros was one of the wild animals known in ancient China. [382] A
hero of the Chou Dynasty, who subdued rebels and established peace
throughout the Empire, “drove away also the tigers, leopards,
rhinoceroses and elephants—and all the people were greatly delighted”.
[383] A native writer says: “To travel by water and not avoid
sea-serpents and dragons—this is the courage of a fisherman. To travel
by land and not avoid the rhinoceros and the tiger—this is the courage
of hunters.” In ancient times certain of the lords attending on the
emperor had a tiger symbol on each chariot wheel, while other lords had
on their wheels crouching rhinoceroses. [384] Laufer expresses the view
that “the strong desire prevailing in the epoch of the Chou for the
horn of the animal (rhinoceros) which was carved into ornamental cups,
and for its valuable skin, which was worked up into armour, had ...
contributed to its final destruction.” [385] The rhinoceros-horn cups
were used, like jade cups, chiefly for religious purposes. Rice-wine
was drunk from them when vows were made, and from them were poured
libations to ancestors. The animal’s skin was used not only for armour,
because of its toughness and durability, but because the rhinoceros was
a longevity animal, and a form of the god of longevity (shou-sing). It
was used, too, for the coffin of the “Son of Heaven” (the Emperor).
“The innermost coffin was formed by hide of water buffalo and
rhinoceros.” This case was enclosed in white poplar timber and the two
outer cases were of catalpa wood. [386] The jade coffin was similarly a
protecting life-giver.
As there were black and white nig-gil-ma, and black and white deities,
so were there black and white rhinoceroses and black and white
elephants. Gautama Buddha entered his mother’s right side “in the form
of a superb white elephant”. [387]
The water-rhinoceros had “pearl-like armour” (a significant comparison
when it is remembered that pearl-lore and jade-lore are so similar),
but not the mountain rhinoceros. It was the horn of the male animal
that had special virtues. The markings on it included a red line, which
was a result of his habit of gazing at the moon; the spots were stars.
As the animal was connected with the “material sky”, the horn was
impregnated with the Yang principle. A horn that “communicated with the
sky” was of the “first quality”. Laufer quotes the statement: “If the
horn of the rhinoceros ‘communicating with the sky’ emits light, so
that it can be seen by night, it is called ‘horn shining at night’ (ye
ming si): hence it can communicate with the spirits and open a way
through the water”. A man who carried in his mouth a piece of
rhinoceros horn found, it was alleged, on diving into the sea, that the
water gave way so as to allow a space for breathing. [388] The
pearl-fishers may therefore have used the magic horn, believing that it
protected and assisted them.
It is recorded of a horn presented to an emperor of the Tʼang Dynasty
that “at night it emitted light so that a space of a hundred paces was
illuminated. Manifold silk wrappers laid around it could not hide its
luminous power. The emperor ordered it to be cut into slices and worked
up into a girdle; and whenever he went out on a hunting expedition, he
saved candle light at night.” With the aid of the horn it was possible
“to see supernatural monsters in water”. [389]
There was warm rhinoceros horn and cold rhinoceros horn, as there was
warm jade and cold jade. A Chinese work of the eighth century mentions
“cold-dispelling rhinoceros horn (pi han si), whose colour is golden.
[390]... During the winter months it spreads warmth which imparts a
genial feeling to man.” Another work speaks of “heat-dispelling
rhinoceros horn (pi shu si).... During the summer months it can cool
off the hot temperature.” Girdles of “wrath-dispelling” horn caused men
“to abandon their anger”; hair-pins, combs, &c., were made from “dust
dispelling” horn. Rhinoceros horn had, like jade, healing properties. A
fourth-century Chinese writer tells that “the horn can neutralize
poison because the animal devours all sorts of vegetable poisons with
its food”. Chinese drug stores still stock shavings of the horn to cure
fever, smallpox, ophthalmia, &c. [391] According to S. W. Williams
[392] “a decoction of the horn shavings is given to women just before
parturition and also to frighten children”. A medicine is prepared from
rhinoceros skin, too. Laufer states that “the skin, as well as the
horn, the blood, and the teeth, were medicinally employed in Cambodja,
notably against heart diseases.... In Japan rhinoceros horn is powdered
and used as a specific in fever cases of all kind.” Dragon bones were
used in like manner in China. It is of importance to note that the
rhinoceros horn derived its healing qualities because the animal fed on
plants and trees provided with thorns. [393] Like the dragon, the
rhinoceros had an intimate connection with certain plants; like the
ginseng-devouring goat, it carried in its blood the virtue of the
plants and herbs it devoured. In Tibet and China the rhinoceros became
confused with the stag, antelope, and goat with one horn. It was the
prototype of the unicorn. In India and Iran it was confused with the
horse. There is in Chinese lore a “spiritual rhinoceros (ling si)” with
the body of an ox, the hump of a zebu, cloven feet, the snout of a pig,
and a horn in front. [394] It may be that in ancient times the lore
connected with the hippopotamus was transferred by the searchers for
pearls, precious stones, and metals to the Chinese “water-rhinoceros”.
Like the composite wonder-beast in the Osirian hall of judgment, which
tore the unworthy soul to pieces, the rhinoceros had its place in
judicial proceedings in China. In its goat form it solved a difficult
case when Kas Yas administered justice by butting the guilty party and
sparing the innocent. [395]
The importance attached to jade in prehistoric Europe raises an
interesting problem. Jade artifacts have been found associated with the
Swiss lake-dwellings, and at “Neolithic sites” in Brittany and Ireland,
as well as in Malta and Sicily, and other parts of Europe. Schliemann
found votive axes of green and white jade (nephrite) in the stratum of
the first city of Troy. It was believed at the time that the European
jade artifacts had been imported from the borders of China, and
Professor Fischer expressed the wish “that before the end of his life
the fortune might be allotted to him of finding out what people brought
them to Europe”. [396] Professor Max Muller believed that the Aryans
were the carriers of jade. “If”, he wrote, “the Aryan settlers could
carry with them into Europe so ponderous a tool as their language,
without chipping a single facet, there is nothing so very surprising in
their having carried along and carefully preserved from generation to
generation so handy and so valuable an instrument as a scraper or a
knife, made of a substance which is Aere perennuis”. [397]
After a prolonged search, European scientists have located nephrite
(jade proper) or jadeite in situ in Silesia, Austria, North Germany,
Italy, and among the Alps. “A sort of nephrite workshop was discovered
in the vicinity of Maurach (Switzerland), where hatchets chiselled from
the mineral and one hundred and fifty-four pieces of cuttings were
found.” [398]
Laufer writes in this connection: “If we consider how many years, and
what strenuous efforts it required for European scientists to discover
the actual sites of jade in Central Europe, which is geographically so
well explored, we may realize that it could not have been quite such an
easy task for primitive man to hunt up these hidden places”. Laufer
thinks that in undertaking to overcome the difficulties experienced in
discovering jade in Europe, early man “must have been prompted by a
motive pre-existing and acting in his mind; the impetus of searching
for jade he must have received somehow from somewhere.... Nothing”, he
says, “could induce me to believe that primitive man of Central Europe
incidentally and spontaneously embarked on the laborious task of
quarrying and working jade. The psychological motive for this act must
be supplied.... From the standpoint of the general development of
culture in the Old World there is absolutely no vestige of originality
in the prehistoric cultures of Europe which appear as an appendix to
Asia.” [399]
Apparently the “psychological motive” for searching for jade in China
and Europe came from the Khotan area in Chinese Turkestan, whence jade
was carried to Babylonia during the Sumerian period. It is probable
that bronze was first manufactured in the jade-bearing area of Asia,
and that the people who carried “the knowledge of bronze-making into
Europe”, as Professor Elliot Smith suggests, “also introduced the
appreciation of jade”. Laufer comments in this connection: “Originality
is certainly the rarest thing in the world, and in the history of
mankind the original thoughts are appallingly sparse. There is, in the
light of historical facts and experience, no reason to credit the
prehistoric and early populations of Europe with any spontaneous ideas
relative to jade.” After receiving jade and adopting the beliefs
attached to it, they set out to search for it, and found it in Europe.
The polished axe pendants of jade found in Malta were evidently charms.
Among the Greeks jade was “the kidney stone”; it cured diseases of the
kidneys. The Spaniards brought jade or jadeite from Mexico, and called
it “the loin stone” (piedra de hijada). Sir Walter Raleigh introduced
it into England, and used the Spanish name from which “jade” is
derived.
Red, green, blue, white, grey, and black jade were used, by reason of
their colours, for various deities in China, and to indicate the rank
of officials. “White jade, considered the most precious, was the
privileged ornament of the emperor; jade green like the mountains was
reserved for the princes of the first and second ranks; water-blue jade
was for the great prefects; the heir apparent had a special kind of
jade.” [400] Mottled jades—some resembling granite—were likewise
favoured for a variety of purposes.
Jade played an important part in Chinese rain-getting ceremonies.
Dragon jade symbols, decorated with fish-scales, were placed on the
altar as offerings and for the purpose of invoking the rain-controlling
“composite wonder beast” and god. Sometimes bronze and silver dragon
symbols were used. According to Laufer, “the jade image of the dragon
remained restricted to the Han period, and was substituted at later
ages by prayers inscribed on jade or metal tablets. A survival of the
ancient custom”, he adds, “may be seen in the large paper or papier
mâché figures of dragons carried around in the streets by festival
processions in times of drought to ensure the benefit of rain.” [401]
In front of these dragons are carried the red ball, which symbolizes
the moon, the source of fertilizing moisture—of dew, of rain, and
therefore of the streams and rivers that flow to the sea.
Jade links with pearls in the ocean surrounding the world, in which
lies a gigantic oyster that gapes after rain falls, and sends forth the
gleaming rainbow. The Greek historian, Isidorus of Charace (c. 300
B.C.), referring to the pearl-fishing in the Persian Gulf, relates a
story about the breeding of pearls being influenced by thunder-storms.
[402] The jade ceremonial object, which roused the dragon, had thus
indirectly a share in pearl production. Pearls were, as we have seen,
likewise produced by dragons, who spat them out during storms. As
certain pearls were supposed to be formed by dew that dropped from the
moon, it may be that the Chinese gigantic oyster was, when it gaped to
send forth the rainbow, receiving the substance of a gigantic pearl
from the celestial regions. The life-prolonging and youth-renewing “Red
Cloud herb” came into existence during a thunder- and rain-storm.
As we have seen, jade contains, according to Far Eastern belief, the
essence of heat as well as of moisture. It contains, too, the essence
of cold—not the cold of winter but the coolness desired in hot weather.
[403] In the Tu yang tsa pien, a Chinese work of the ninth century, it
is recorded that the Emperor of China received from Japan “an engraved
gobang board of warm jade, on which the game could be played in winter
without getting cold, and that it was most highly prized”. It is told
in this connection that “thirty thousand li (leagues) east of Japan is
the island of Tsi-mo, and upon this island the Ninghia Terrace, on
which terrace is the Gobang Player’s Lake. This lake produces the
chess-men which need no carving, and are naturally divided into black
and white. They are warm in winter, cool in summer, and known as cool
and warm jade. It also produces the catalpa-jade, in structure like the
wood of the catalpa tree, which is carved into chess-boards, shining
and brilliant as mirrors.” [404]
Jade is, in short, a “luck stone”: the giver of children, health,
immortality, wisdom, power, victory, growth, food, clothing, &c. It is
“the jewel that grants all desires” in this world and the next, and is
therefore connected with all religious beliefs, while it also plays its
part as a symbol in the social organization, being the medium through
which the mysterious forces of nature exercise their influence in every
sphere of human thought and activity.
CHAPTER XIV
CREATION MYTHS AND THE GOD AND GODDESS CULTS
Are Animistic Beliefs Primitive?—Evidence of a Mummy-imported
Culture in Primitive Communities—Chinese Creation Myth—Chaos
Transformed into Kosmos—Pʼan Ku as the World-artisan—Chinese
World-giant Myth—Tibetan Version—Pʼan Ku and the Egyptian
Ptah—Hammer Gods—Pʼan Ku and the Scandinavian Ymir—Osiris as a
World-giant—Fusion of Egyptian and Babylonian Myths—The Chinese
Ishtars—The Goddess of the Deluge—The Chinese Virgin Mother—Dragon
Boat Ceremonies—The Mountain Goddess in China—Kiang Yuan as the
Divine Mother—Ancient Myths in Chinese Buddhism—The “Poosa” as
Goddess of Mercy—As Controller of Tides—Vision of
Sky-goddess—Island Seat of Goddess Worship—The Chinese Indra.
Although some exponents of the stratification theory incline to regard
Chinese religion as a stunted outcrop of animistic ideas, and chiefly
because of the remarkable persistence through the ages of the worship
of ancestors—the worship of ghost-gods and ghosts identified with
gods—there is really little trace of what is usually referred to as
“the primitive state of mind”. Under the term “animism” have been
included ideas that are less primitive than was supposed to be the case
about a generation ago. The belief, for instance, that there are
spirits in stones, or that the soul of the dead enters a megalithic
monument, or a statue placed in the tomb, may not, after all, belong to
a primitive stage of thought; nor does it follow that because it is
found to be prevalent among savage tribes isolated on lonely islands it
is a product merely of the early “workings of the human mind” when man,
as if by instinct, framed his “first crude philosophy of human
thought”. The fact that savages reached isolated islands, such as, for
instance, Eastern Island, where stone idols were erected, indicates
clearly that they had acquired a knowledge of shipbuilding and
navigation directly or indirectly from a centre of ancient
civilization. It may be, therefore, that they likewise acquired from
the same source ideas regarding the soul and the origin of things, and
that these, instead of being “simple” and “primitive”, are really of
complex character, and have remained in a state of arrested
development, simply because they have been detached from the parent
stem, to be preserved like flower petals pressed in a book, that still
retain a degree of their original brightness and characteristic odour.
In outlying areas, like Australia and Oceania, are found not only
“primitive beliefs”, but definite burial customs that have a long
history elsewhere, including cremation and even mummification. “You get
the whole bag of tricks in Australia”, the late Andrew Lang once
declared to the writer when contending that certain beliefs and customs
found in Egypt, Babylonia, India, and Europe were “natural products of
the primitive mind”. But is it likely that such a custom as
mummification should have “arisen independently” in Australasia? Let us
take, for instance, the case of the mummy from the Torres Straits,
which is preserved in the Mackay Museum in the University of Sydney. It
was examined by Professor G. Elliot Smith, who, during his ten years’
occupancy of the Chair of Anatomy in the Government School of Medicine
in Cairo, had unique opportunities of studying Ancient Egyptian surgery
as revealed by the mummies preserved in Gizeh museum. When he examined
the Papuan mummy at Sydney he found that undeniable Egyptian methods of
a definite period in Egyptian history had been employed. He
communicated his discovery to the Anthropological Section of the
British Association in Melbourne in 1914, and, as an anatomist, was
astonished to hear Professor Myres contending that it seemed to him
natural that people should want to preserve their dead! “If”, Professor
Elliot Smith has written, “Professor Myers had known anything of the
history of anatomy he would have realized that the problem of
preserving the body was one of extreme difficulty which for long ages
had exercised the most civilized peoples, not only of antiquity, but
also of modern times. In Egypt, where the natural conditions favouring
the successful issue of attempts to preserve the body were largely
responsible for the possibility of such embalming, it took more than
seventeen centuries of constant practice and experimentation to reach
the stage and to acquire the methods exemplified in the Torres Straits
mummies.” [405] Arm-chair theories vanish like mist when the light of
scientific evidence is released.
In like manner may be found in the folk-lore and religious literature
of China “mummies” of imported myths, as well as early myths of local
invention that, ancient as they may be, cannot be regarded as
“primitive” in the real sense of the term. The following myth, found in
the literature of Taoism, may be more archaic than the writings of
Kwang-tze, who gives it.
At the beginning of time there were two oceans—one in the south and one
in the north, and there was land in the centre. The Ruler of the
southern ocean was Shu (Heedless), and the Ruler of the northern ocean
was Hu (Hasty), while the Ruler of the Centre was Hwun-tun (Chaos).
“Heedless” and “Hasty” were in the habit of paying regular visits to
the land, and there they met and became acquainted. “Chaos” treated
them kindly, and it was their desire to confer upon him some favour so
as to give practical expression to their feelings of gratitude. They
discussed the matter together, and decided what they should do.
Now Chaos was blind, his eyes being closed, and he was deaf, his ears
being closed, and he could not breathe, having no nostrils, nor eat,
because he was mouthless.
“Hasty” and “Heedless” met daily in the Central land, and each day they
opened an orifice. On the seventh day their work was finished. But when
he had eyes and ears opened, and could see and hear, and could breathe
through his nostrils, and had a mouth with which to eat, old Chaos
died.
The meaning of this Chinese parable seems to be that the Universe had,
in the space of seven days, been “set in order”, Chaos having been
transformed into Kosmos.
Although Taoism has been referred to by some writers of the “Evolution
School” as “an elaboration of animistic lore”, this myth is really a
product of the years that bring the philosophic mind. The three
“Rulers” may have originally been giants, and the story may owe
something to the Babylonian myth of Ea-Oannes, the sea-god, who came
daily from the Persian Gulf to instruct the early Sumerians how to live
civilized lives; but it was evidently some Far Eastern Socrates who
first named the sea-gods “Heedless” and “Hasty”, and tinged the fable
with Taoistic cynicism.
Creation myths are not as “primitive” as some writers would have us
suppose. Considerable progress was achieved before mankind began to
theorize regarding the origin of things. Even the widespread and
so-called “primitive myth” about the egg from which the Universe, or
the first god, was hatched by the “Primeval Goose” may belong to a much
later stage of human development than is supposed by some of those
writers who speculate with so much confidence regarding “the workings
of the human mind”. Even the metaphysicians of Brahmanic India were
prone to speak in parables and fables.
“At the beginning there was nothing”, the Chinese philosophers taught
their pupils. “Long ages passed by. Then nothing became something.” The
something had unity. Long ages passed by, and the something divided
itself into two parts—a male part and a female part. These two
somethings produced two lesser somethings, and the two pairs, working
together, produced the first being, who was named Pʼan Ku. Another
version of the myth is that Pʼan Ku emerged from the cosmic egg.
It is not difficult to recognize in Pʼan Ku a giant god or world-god.
He was furnished with an adze, or, as is found in some Chinese prints,
with a hammer and a chisel. With his implement or implements Pʼan Ku
moves through the universe as the Divine Artisan, who shapes the
mountains and hammers or chisels out the sky, accompanied by the
primeval Tortoise, and the Phœnix, and a dragon-like being who may
represent the primeval “somethings”—the symbols of water, earth, and
air. The sun, moon, and stars have already appeared.
Another version of the Pʼan Ku myth represents him as the Primeval
World-giant, who is destroyed so that the material universe may be
formed. From his flesh comes the soil, from his bones the rocks; his
blood is the waters of rivers and the ocean; his hair is vegetation;
while the wind is his breath, the thunder his voice, the rain his
sweat, the dew his tears, the firmament his skull, his right eye the
moon, and his left eye the sun. Pʼan Ku’s body was covered with vermin,
and the vermin became the races of mankind.
A somewhat similar myth is found in Tibet. When M. Huc sojourned in
that country, he had a conversation with an aged nomad, who said:
“There are on the earth three great families, and we are all of the
great Tibetan family. This is what I have heard the Lamas say, who have
studied the things of antiquity. At the beginning there was on the
earth only a single man; he had neither house nor tent, for at that
time the winter was not cold, and the summer was not hot; the wind did
not blow so violently, and there fell neither snow nor rain; the tea
grew of itself on the mountains, and the flocks had nothing to fear
from beasts of prey. This man had three children, who lived a long time
with him, nourishing themselves on milk and fruits. After having
attained to a great age, this man died. The three children deliberated
what they should do with the body of their father, and they could not
agree about it; one wished to put him in a coffin, the other wanted to
burn him, the third thought it would be best to expose the body on the
summit of a mountain. They resolved then to divide it into three parts.
The eldest had the body and arms; he was the ancestor of the great
Chinese family, and that is why his descendants have become celebrated
in arts and industry, and are remarkable for their tricks and
stratagems. The second son had the breast; he was the father of the
Tibetan family, and they are full of heart and courage, and do not fear
death. From the third, who had inferior parts of the body, are
descended the Tartars, who are simple and timid, without head or heart,
and who know nothing but how to keep themselves firm in their saddles.”
[406]
Pʼan Ku, with his implements, links with the Egyptian artificer god
Ptah of Memphis, who used his hammer to beat out the metal firmament.
Ptah’s name means “to open” in the sense of “to engrave, to carve, to
chisel”; the sun and moon were his eyes; he was “the great artificer in
metals, and he was at once smelter, and caster, and sculptor, as well
as the master architect and designer of everything that exists in the
world”. In the Book of the Dead he (or Shu) is said to have performed
“the ceremony of opening the mouth of the gods with an iron knife”,
[407] as “Hasty” and “Heedless” opened the mouth, eyes, ears, and
nostrils of Chaos in the Chinese myth. The high priest of Memphis was
called Ur Kherp hem, “the great chief of the hammer”. As we have seen,
he was closely associated with the Egyptian potter’s wheel, which
reached China at an early period. Like Ptah, Pʼan Ku is sometimes
depicted as a dwarf, and sometimes as a giant.
Other hammer-gods include the Aryo-Indian Indra, who builds the world
house; the Anatolian Tarku, the Mesopotamian Rammon or Adad, the
northern European Thor. The hammer is apparently identical with adze
and axe, and in Egypt the axe is an exceedingly ancient symbol of a
deity; in Crete the double axe has a similar significance. In Scotland
the hammer is carried by the Cailleach (Old Wife) in her character as
Queen of Winter; she shapes the mountains with it, and causes the
ground to freeze hard when she beats it. The hammer-god is in many
countries a thunderer; to the modern Greeks lightning flashes are
caused by blows of the “sky-axe” (astro-peléki); in Scottish Gaelic
mention is made of the “thunder-ball” (peleir-tarnainach). A
thunder-ball is carried by the Japanese thunder-god, but it is often
replaced by the thunder-drum.
Pʼan Ku plays no conspicuous part in Chinese mythology; he is evidently
an importation. In his character as a world-god he resembles the
primeval giant Ymir of Norse-Icelandic myth, who was similarly cut up
or ground in the “World Mill”, so that the universe might be set in
order.
From the flesh of Ymir the world was formed,
From his blood the billows of the sea,
The hills from his bones, the trees from his hair,
The sphere of heaven from his skull.
Out of his brows the blithe powers made
Midgarth for sons of men,
And out of his brains were the angry clouds
All shaped above in the sky. [408]
Ymir was, like Pʼan Ku, born from inanimate matter. He was nourished by
Audhumbla (Darkness and Vacuity), the cow mother, the Scandinavian
Hathor.
From stormy billow sprang poison drops,
Which waxed into Jotum (giant) form,
And from him are come the whole of our Kin;
All fierce and dread is that race. [409]
Another version of the Ymir myth makes the giant come into existence
like the self-created Ptah:
’Twas the earliest of times when Ymir lived;
Then was sand, nor sea, nor cooling wave,
Nor was Earth found even, nor Heavens on high;
There was Yawning of Deeps, and nowhere grass. [410]
The black dwarfs were parasites on Ymir’s body, as human beings were
parasites on the body of Pʼan Ku.
It may be that the idea of a primeval giant like Pʼan Ku, or Ymir, was
derived from the conception of Osiris as a world-god, which obtained in
Egypt as far back as the Empire period. Erman translates a hymn in
which it is said of the god: “The soil is on thy arm, its corners are
upon thee as far as the four pillars of the sky. When thou movest, the
earth trembles.... [411] The Nile comes from the sweat of thy hands.
Thou spewest out the wind that is in thy throat into the nostrils of
men, and that whereon men live is divine. It is [412] [alike in] in thy
nostrils, the tree and its verdure, reeds, plants, barley, wheat, and
the tree of life.” Everything constructed on earth lies on the “back”
of Osiris. “Thou art the father and mother of men, they live on thy
breath, they eat of the flesh of thy body. The ‘Primæval’ is thy name.”
[413]
The body of Osiris was cut into pieces by Set. As the bones of Pʼan Ku
and Ymir are the rocks, so are the bones of Set the iron found in the
earth, but no myth survives of the cutting up of Set’s body. The black
soil on the Nile banks is the body of Osiris, and vegetation springs
from it.
It may be, however, that it was in consequence of the fusion in some
cultural centre of the Babylonian myth regarding the cutting up of the
dragon Tiamat and the cutting up of the body of Osiris that the
northern Europeans came to hear of an Ymir and the Chinese of a Pʼan Ku
from the early traders in amber, jade, and metals.
When Tiamat was slain, Marduk “smashed her skull”.
He cut the channels of her blood,
He made the North Wind bear it away into secret places....
He split her up like a flat fish into two halves,
One half of her he set in place as a covering for the heavens.
With the other part of Tiamat’s body Marduk made the earth. Then he
fashioned the abode of the god Ea in the deep, the abode of the god Anu
in high heaven, and the abode of Enlil in the air. [414]
In India is found another myth that appears to have contributed to the
Chinese mosaic. At the beginning the Universal Soul assumed “the shape
of a man”. This was Purusha.
“He did not feel delight. Therefore nobody, when alone, feels
delight. He was desirous of a second. He was in the same state as
husband (Pati) and wife (Patni).... He divided this self two fold.
Hence were husband and wife produced. Therefore was this only a
half of himself, as a split pea is of the whole.... The void was
completed by woman.” [415]
It may be that India and China derived the god-splitting idea from a
common source in Central Asia, where such “culture-mixing” appears to
have taken place.
In China itself there are many traces of blended ideas. In the Texts of
Confucianism, for instance, the symbol of the Khien stands for heaven,
and that of the Khwan for earth.
In one of the native treatises it is stated:
“Khien suggests the idea of heaven; of a circle; of a ruler; of a
father; of jade; of metal; of cold; of ice; of deep red; of a good
horse; of an old horse; of a thin horse; of a piebald horse; and of
the fruit of trees.
“Khwan suggests the idea of the earth; of a mother; of cloth; of a
caldron; of parsimony; of a turning lathe; of a young heifer; of a
large waggon; of what is variegated; of a multitude; and of a
handle and support. Among soils it denotes what is black.” [416]
Here we have the Great Father, the god of heaven, who is red and is a
circle (the sun); and the Great Mother, the goddess of Earth, who is
black.
The sky-god is connected with jade and metal. As we have seen, the cult
of the west attributed the creation of jade to the Chinese Ishtar.
Precious metals were in several countries associated with sun, moon,
and stars. The horse is one of the animals associated with sky-gods; it
was, of course, later than the bull, stag, antelope, goat, ram, &c.
Cold as well as warmth was sent by the sky-god, who controls the
seasons.
The mother-goddess is the Caldron—the “Pot”, which, as has already been
noted, was in Ancient Egypt the symbol of the inexhaustible womb of
nature personified by deities like Hathor, Rhea, Aphrodite, Hera,
Ishtar, &c. The “young heifer” has a similar connection, while the
“waggon” seems to be another form of the “Pot”. Cloth was woven by men
and women, but the production of thread was always the work of women in
Ancient Egypt and elsewhere. Apparently the turning lathe was female,
because the chisel was male; it may be that it was because the potter’s
wheel was female that it had to be operated by a man. “A multitude” may
refer to the reproductivity of the Great Mother of all mankind. The
goddess was, perhaps, parsimonious because during a period of the year
the earth gives forth naught, and stores all it receives.
The egg from which Pʼan Ku emerged appears to have been a symbol of the
Mother Goddess of the sacred West, remembered in Chinese legends as Si
Wang Mu, “the mother of the Western King”, and in Japanese as Seiobo,
who was guardian of the World Tree, the giant peach, or the lunar,
cassia tree (Chapter X). Other references to her, under various names,
are scattered through ancient Chinese writings. In the “Annals of the
Bamboo Books” mention is made of “the Heavenly lady Pa”. She favoured
the Chinese monarch, Hwang Ti, who is supposed to have reigned during
2688 B.C. by stopping “the extraordinary rains caused by the enemy”.
[417]
Here we seem to meet with a vague reference to the Deluge legend. The
Babylonian Ishtar was angered at the gods for causing the flood and
destroying mankind, as is gathered from the Gilgamesh epic:
Then the Lady of the gods drew nigh,
And she lifted up the great jewels [418] which Anu had made
according to her wish (and said):
“What gods these are! By the jewels of lapis lazuli which are upon
my neck, I will not forget!
These days I have set in my memory, never will I forget them!
Let the gods come to the offering,
But Bel shall not come to the offering,
Since he refused to ask counsel and sent the deluge,
And handed over my people unto destruction.” [419]
A goddess who protests against the destruction of her human descendants
by means of a flood, caused by the gods, was likely to protect them
against “extraordinary rains”, caused by their human or demoniac
enemies.
As we have seen in previous chapters, the Chinese Deluge legend, in one
of its forms, was attached to the memory of the mythical Empress Nu
Kwa, the sister of the mythical Emperor Fuh-hi, sometimes referred to
as “the Chinese Adam”. Three rebels had conspired with the demons or
gods of water and fire to destroy the world, and a great flood came on.
Nu Kwa caused the waters to retreat by making use of charred reeds
(quite a Babylonian touch!). Then she re-erected one of the four
pillars of the sky against which one of the rebels, a huge giant, had
bumped his head, causing it to topple over.
According to Chinese chronology, this world-flood occurred early in the
“Patriarchal Period” between 2943 B.C. and 2868 B.C.
Another reference to the mother-goddess crops up in a poem by “the
statesman poet, Chu Yuan, 332–295 B.C., who drowned himself”, Professor
Giles writes, [420] “in despair at his country’s outlook, and whose
body is still searched for annually at the Dragon-boat Festival”. The
poem in question is entitled “God Questions”, and one question is:
“As Nu-Chi had no husband, how could she bear nine sons?”
Professor Giles adds: “The Commentary tells us that Nu Chi was a
‘divine maiden’, but nothing more seems to be known about her”. It is
evident that she was a virgin goddess, who, like the Egyptian Nut, was
the spirit of the cosmic waters. [421] It is of interest to find the
memory of the poet associated with the Dragon-boat Festival, which,
according to Chinese belief, had origin because he drowned himself in
the Ni-ro River. There is evidence, however, that the festival had
quite another origin. Dragon-boats were used in China on the fifth day
of the fifth month at water festivals. They were “big ships adorned
with carved dragon ornaments”, the yih bird being painted on the prow.
[422] De Visser says that these boats were used by emperors for
pleasure trips, and music was played on board them. “The bird was
painted, not to denote their swift sailing, but to suppress the
water-gods.” [423] According to De Groot, dragon-boat races were
“intended to represent fighting dragons in order to cause a real dragon
fight, which is always accompanied by heavy rains. The dragon-boats
carried through the streets may also serve to cause rain, although they
are at the same time considered to be substitutes.” [424]
Having drowned himself, the poet became associated with the river
dragon. “Offerings of rice in bamboo”, says Giles, “were cast into the
river as a sacrifice to the spirit of their great hero.” [425] In like
manner, offerings were made to dragons in connection with rain-getting
ceremonies long before the poet was born. It is evident that he took
the place of the dragon-god as the mythical Empress Nu Kwa of the
Patriarchial Period took the place of the Chinese Ishtar, and as Ishtar
took the place of the earlier Sumerian goddess Ninkharasagga, who, with
“Anu, Enlil, and Enki”, “created the black-headed (i.e. mankind)”.
[426]
The same Chinese poet sings of the mother-goddess in his poem, “The
Genius of the Mountain”, which Professor Giles has translated:
“Methinks there is a Genius of the Hills clad in wistaria, girdled
with ivy, with smiling lips, of witching mien, riding on the red
pard, wild cats galloping in the rear, reclining in a chariot, with
banners of cassia, cloaked with the orchid, girt with azalea,
culling the perfume of sweet flowers to leave behind a memory in
the heart.”
Like Ishtar, who laments for her lost Tammuz, this goddess laments for
her “Prince”.
“Dark is the grove wherein I dwell. No light of day reached it
ever. The path thither is dangerous and difficult to climb. Alone I
stand on hill-top, [427] while the clouds float beneath my feet,
and all around is wrapped in gloom.”
This goddess is not only associated with ivy, the cassia tree, &c., but
with the pine. “I shade myself”, she sings, “beneath the spreading
pine.” The poem concludes:
“Now booms the thunder through the drizzling rain. The gibbons howl
around me all the long night. The gale rushes fitfully through the
whispering trees. And I am thinking of my Prince, but in vain; for
I cannot lay my grief.” [428]
The goddess laments for her prince, as does Ishtar for Tammuz.
The mother-goddess is found also in the “Book of Odes” (The Shih King).
She figures as the mother of the Hau-Ki and “the people of Kau” in the
ode which begins as follows:
“The first birth of (our) people was from Kian Yuan. How did she
give birth to our people? She had presented a pure offering and
sacrificed, that her childlessness might be taken away. She then
trod on a toe-print made by God, and was moved in the large place
where she rested. She became pregnant; she dwelt retired; she gave
birth to and nourished (a son), who was Hau-Ki.” [429]
Professor Giles refers to this birth-story “as an instance in Chinese
literature, which, in the absence of any known husband, comes near
suggesting the much-vexed question of parthenogenesis”. [430]
Other Chinese references to miraculous conceptions, given below,
emphasize how persistent in Chinese legend are the lingering memories
of the ancient mother-goddess.
As was the case in Babylonia and Egypt, the rival biological theories
of the god cult and the goddess cult were fused or existed side by side
in ancient China.
The goddess cult influenced Buddhism even when it was adopted in China,
and fused with local religious systems. To the lower classes the
“Poosa”, who brings luck—that is, success and protection—may be either
a Buddha or a goddess. The name is “a shortened form of the Sanskrit
term Bodhisattwa”, and was originally “a designation of a class of
Buddha’s disciples.... The ‘Poosa’ feels more sympathy with the lower
wants of men than the Buddha (Fuh) does.”
One of the holy beings referred to in China as a “Poosa” is Kwan-yin,
the so-called “goddess of mercy”. Dr. Joseph Edkins [431] says that
“this divinity is represented sometimes as male, at others as
female.... She is often represented with a child in her arms, and is
then designated the giver of children. Elsewhere she is styled the
‘Kwan-yin who saves from the eight forms of suffering’ or ‘of the
southern sea’, or ‘of the thousand arms’, &c. She passes through
various metamorphoses, which give rise to a variety in names.”
The “Poosa” of Buddhism or the ancient Chinese faith is a powerful
protector. Dr. Edkins tells that “Chinese worshippers will sometimes
say, for example, that they must spend a little money occasionally to
obtain a favour of Poosa, in order to prevent calamities from assailing
them. I saw”, he relates, “an instance of this at a town on the
sea-coast near Hangchow. The tide here is extremely destructive in the
autumn. [432] It often overflows the embankment made to restrain it,
and produces devastation in the adjoining cottages and fields. A temple
was erected to the Poosa Kwan-yin, and offerings are regularly made to
her, and prayers presented for protection against the tide.”
A vision of this Chinese Aphrodite was beheld about two years before
the British forces captured Canton. “The governor of the province to
which that city belongs”, says Dr. Edkins, “was engaged in
exterminating large bands of roving plunderers that disturbed the
region under his jurisdiction. He wrote to the Emperor on one occasion
a dispatch in which he said that, at a critical juncture in a recent
contest, a large figure in white had been seen beckoning to the army
from the sky. It was Kwan-yin. The soldiers were inspired with courage,
and won an easy victory over the enemy.”
Edkins notes that “the principal seat of the worship of Kwan-yin is at
the island of Poots”. Here the deity “takes the place of Buddha, and
occupies the chief position in the temples”. There are many small caves
on the island dedicated to the use of hermits. “In several of them,
high up on a hill-side”, Dr. Edkins “noticed a small figure of Buddha”.
Here we have an excellent instance of “culture-mixing” in China in our
own day.
Shang-ti, the personal god who rules in the sky, is to the Chinese
Buddhists identical with Indra, the Hindu god of thunder and rain. In
India Indra was in Vedic times the king of the gods, but in the
Brahmanic Age became a lesser being than Brahma, Shiva, and Vishnu.
When Buddha was elevated to the godhead these great deities shrank into
minor positions. In China they stand among the auditors of the supreme
Buddha, as he sits on the lotus flower, and “occupy”, as Edkins found,
“a lower position than the personages called Poosa, Lohan, &c.” [433]
In the next chapter it will be found that floating myths were attached
to the memories of mythical and legendary monarchs in China, and that
not a few of these myths resemble others found elsewhere.
CHAPTER XV
MYTHICAL AND LEGENDARY KINGS
Pʼan Ku as the Divine Ancestor—The Mythical Age—Gods as Kings—The
Prometheus of China—Fu Hi as Adam—Doctrine of World’s Ages in
China—Links with Babylonia and India—Legendary Kings—The Chinese
Osiris—Reign of the “Yellow God”—Empress and Silk-worm
Culture—Royal Sons of Star-gods—Yaou, Son of the Red Dragon—Shun,
Son of the Rainbow—The Hea Dynasty—The Emperor Yu—Star Myths—Yu and
the River God—Yu as Pʼan Ku—The Flood Myth in Legends of Yu—The
Dynasty of Shang—Moon and Egg Myths—The Wicked Wu—A Hated Queen—The
Dynasty of Chou—A Chinese Gilgamesh—The Pious King Wen—Divination
by Tortoise and Grass—The Chous as Invaders—Historical
Dynasties—Ancient Iranian Traders—Trade and Civilization promoted
by the Dread of Death.
Pʼan Ku, the first “man” or “god”, was the ancestor of three
families—the rulers of Heaven, Earth, and Mankind. In Tibet, as we have
seen, the first man had three sons, who divided his body between them,
and they were the ancestors of the three human races. Like the
Babylonians, the Chinese had dynastic lists of antediluvian kings. Pʼan
Ku’s descendants ruled the nine divisions of the prehistoric empire or
world. There were ten dynastic periods, the first being that of the
“Nine Heads” (kings), the second that of the “Five Dragons”, and so on.
The five dragon kings were connected with the five planets: Venus,
Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, and Saturn, and therefore with the five
elements, for Venus was the Star of Metal, Jupiter that of Wood,
Mercury that of Water, Mars the Star of Fire, and Saturn the Star of
Earth. Thus every part of the terrestrial surface, when identified with
one or more elements on account of its shape, is under the influence of
the corresponding metals, and also under that of the constellations
through which these planets move. [434] As we have seen, the spirits of
dragon swords appeared in the sky as stars. The star-gods, like the
dragons, were fathers of some of the famous kings of China.
Towards the end came the period “Having Nests”, which indicates that
houses were built. Then came the period of Sui-zan, “the
Fire-producer”, who has been referred to as the “Prometheus of China”.
A new age was ushered in by Fu Hsia or Fu Hi, the so-called “Adam of
China”. He is the first monarch of China’s legendary history, and was
supposed to reign from 2953 till 2838 B.C. Some regard him as the
leader of a colony which settled in Shensi. But he is more like a
mythical culture hero. He was the offspring of a miraculous conception,
and had dealings with dragons. Like the Babylonian Ea he instructed the
people how to live civilized lives. Before Fu-hi came, they lived like
animals; they knew their mothers but not their fathers, and they ate
raw flesh. They kept records by means of knotted cords, and he
instructed them in the mysteries of lineal figures, which had a mystic
significance. These were eight in number—the eight kwâ or trigrams,
which represented: (1) the sky; (2) water of lakes and marshes; (3)
fire, lightning, and the sun; (4) thunder; (5) wind and wood; (6) water
as in rain, springs, streams, clouds, and the moon; (7) a hill; (8) the
earth.
Fu-hi also instructed the people to worship spirits, and he instituted
sacrifices. He kept in a park six kinds of animals, and sacrificed
twice a year at the two solstices, causing the days to be regarded as
sacred, so that the people might show gratitude to heaven.
According to the Taoists, Fu-hi disturbed the primal unity, and caused
the people to begin to deteriorate.
Here we touch on the doctrine of the World’s Ages. Like the Indians of
the Brahmanic period, the Chinese Taoists believed that the first age
was a perfect one, and that mankind gradually deteriorated. In the
Indian Krita Age “all men were saintly, and therefore they were not
required to perform religious ceremonies.... There were no gods in the
Krita Age, and there were no demons.” [435]
Lao Tze, who will be dealt with more fully in the next chapter,
exclaims: “I would make people return to the use of knotted cords”. His
disciple, Kwang Tze, lamented that the paradisaical state of the early
ages had been disturbed by law-makers. Decadence set in with the
“Prometheus” and the “Adam”, and continued until the people became
“perplexed and disordered, and had no way by which they might return to
their true nature, and bring back their original condition”. [436]
“It is remarkable”, says Legge, “that at the commencement of Chinese
history, Chinese tradition placed a period of innocence, a season when
order and virtue ruled in men’s affairs.” This comment is made in
connection with the following passage in the Shu King (Book XXVII, “The
Marquis of Lu on Punishments”): “The King said, ‘According to the
teachings of ancient times, Khih Yu was the first to produce disorder,
which spread among the quiet, orderly people, till all became robbers
and murderers, owl-like and yet self-complacent in their conduct,
traitors and villains, snatching and filching, dissemblers and
oppressors’”. [437]
In some accounts of the early period, Fu Hi is succeeded by his sister,
the Empress Nu Kwa, the heroine of the Deluge.
Fu Hi’s usual successor, however, is Shen-nung (2838–2698 B.C.), the
Chinese Osiris, who introduced the agricultural mode of life and
instructed the people how to make use of curative herbs. He was
worshipped as the god of agriculture. Thus an Ode sets forth:
That my fields are in such good condition,
Is matter of joy to my husbandmen.
With lutes, and with drums beating,
We will invoke the Father of Husbandry,
And pray for sweet rain,
To increase the produce of our millet fields,
And to bless my men and their wives. [438]
Shen-nung was not content with two annual sacrifices, and fixed two
others at the equinoxes, “that in spring to implore a blessing on the
fruit of the earth, and that in autumn, after the harvest was over, to
offer the first fruits to the ruler of heaven”.
After Shen-nung died the emperor Hwang-Ti (“The Yellow God”) ascended
the throne. He was in the literal sense the “Son of Heaven”, for his
real father was the thunder-god, and he had therefore “a dragon-like
countenance”. As in the case of Osiris, who was reputed to have reigned
over Egypt, it is difficult to conclude whether he was a deified
monarch or a humanized deity. He belongs, of course, to the mythical
period of the “five Tis” in Chinese legendary history.
The account of his origin sets forth that one night his mother
witnessed a brilliant flash of lightning which darted from the vicinity
of the star chʼoo in the Great Bushel (the “Great Bear”) and lit up the
whole country. Her Majesty became pregnant, but did not give birth to
her son until twenty-five months later. Hwang Ti was able to speak as
soon as he was born. When he ascended the throne, he possessed the
power of summoning spirits to attend at the royal palace, and his
allies in battle included tigers, panthers, and bears, as those of
Rama, the hero of the Indian epic, the Rámáyana, included bears and
gigantic monkeys. Hwang Ti was a lover of peace, and because he caused
peaceful conditions to prevail, phœnixes nested in his garden, or, like
swallows, perched on the palace roof and terraces and sang in the
courtyard. Other spirit-birds haunted the residence of the “Yellow
God”.
He built a large temple so that he might not be prevented by bad
weather from offering up sacrifices and performing other religious
ceremonies at any season of the year, and he instructed the people in
their duties towards the spirits, their ancestors, and himself. He
fixed the holy days and introduced music in temple worship. His wife
undertook the duty of nourishing silk-worms and producing silk. An
enclosure on the north side of the temple was planted with mulberry
trees, and in this grove the Empress and the ladies of her court
attended to the silk-worms specially kept for the silk required for
religious ceremonies. Her Majesty was the goddess as her husband was
the god, and had therefore to promote reproduction and growth. She
therefore visited also the enclosure on the southern side of the temple
in which grew the cereals and fruits offered to the deities.
Hwang Ti was specially favoured by the goddess known as “the heavenly
lady Pao”, who on one occasion stopped the heavy and destructive rains
that had been caused by the enemy.
When the Emperor was in his seventy-seventh year, he retired from the
world, like an Indian ascetic, to practise austerities beside the Jo
water. He died in his one hundredth year. Some tell that when he was
ascending to heaven an earthquake occurred; others hold that he never
died but was transformed into a dragon. After he passed away, either as
a soul or dragon, to associate with the immortals, a wooden image of
him was made and worshipped by princes.
His successor is said to have been the Emperor Che, whose dynastic
title was Shao-Hao. This monarch was the son of a star god. One night
his mother beheld a star, which resembled a rainbow, floating on a
stream in the direction of a small island. After retiring to rest she
dreamed that she received the star, and, in due course, she gave birth
to her son. Phœnixes visited the royal palace on the day that he
ascended the throne. This monarch had some mysterious association with
the west—probably with the goddess of the west—and is said to have
commanded an army of birds.
He was followed by the Emperor Chuen-Heugh (Kao-Yang). He, too, was the
son of a star-god. It chanced that his mother witnessed the Yao-Kwang
star passing through the moon like a rainbow. She gave birth to her son
in the vicinity of the Jo water. There was a shield and spear on his
head at birth, a tradition which recalls that when the Indian princess
Pritha gave birth to Karna, son of Surya, the sun-god, he was fully
armed.
Chuen-Heugh was a great sage. “He invented calendaric calculations and
delineations of the heavenly bodies,” and composed a piece of music
called “The Answer to the Clouds”.
Next came the Emperor Kuh (Kao-sin) who, like Richard III, had teeth
when he was born. He similarly rose from the rank of a State prince to
the Imperial throne. The State of Yew-Kae was conquered by him. His
son, named Che, proved to be unworthy, and his younger son, Yao, was
selected as his successor.
The Emperor Yao was the son of a red dragon, as well as of the Emperor,
and was not born until fourteen months after conception. He is said to
have been ten cubits in height when full grown. There were two pupils
in each of his eyes. He was a great sage and wonderful happenings
occurred during his reign.
A mysterious grass grew on the palace stairs. It bore a pod on each day
of the month. He selected as his colleague and successor the sage Shun,
who had held an undistinguished position. It is told that this
selection was approved by five star-gods whose spirits appeared as five
old men and walked about among the islands of the River Ho. On another
occasion a bright light came from the river; then beautifully-coloured
vapours arose and a dragon-horse appeared, carrying in its mouth a
scaly cuirass for Shun, whose appointment was thus definitely approved
by Heaven. Thirty years later a tortoise rose from the water and rested
on the altar. On its back was an inscribed order instructing Yao to
resign in favour of Shun. This divine command was duly obeyed.
Shun’s mother had conceived after seeing a rainbow. As has been stated,
a rainbow was believed to emanate from the gigantic oyster that lay in
mid ocean. When the child was born his mother and father detested him,
because his body was black and his eyes had double pupils, and because
he had a dragon face and a large mouth. When he became a youth he
reached the height of six cubits, and was thus like the Egyptian Horus
and the Norse hero Sigurd, a veritable giant. His parents endeavoured
on more than one occasion to cause his death by giving him difficult
tasks to perform, and acting treacherously towards him. On one occasion
they ordered him to plaster a granary, and when he was engaged at the
work they set fire to the building. But Shun was clad in “bird’s work
clothing”, which seems to indicate that he had power to assume bird
form, and he flew away. He was next ordered to deepen a well. He went
to work obediently, and while engaged in his task the well was suddenly
filled up with stones. But Shun had “dragon’s work clothing”, or was
able to assume a dragon form, and contrived to escape through the side
of the well. Like Hercules, he performed all his difficult tasks and
escaped without injury.
Although Shun is usually said to have been selected by Yaou as his
successor, a vague tradition states that he dethroned Yaou by force and
kept him a prisoner. Before long, however, he degraded the young ruler
and took his place.
On ascending the throne, Shun publicly worshipped the spirit of Shang
Ti (Ruler of Heaven, the personal god). He enacted new laws, so that
the government of the Empire might be regulated and strengthened, and
he was the first monarch to create Mandarins. Shun is credited with
selecting his successor Yu.
The Emperor Yu was the first monarch of the Dynasty of Hea. According
to tradition he was the son of a star-god. It is told that one night
his mother saw a falling star and became pregnant. She afterwards
swallowed a pearl that had been dropped by a spirit. In due course she
gave birth to Yu.
A similar myth is attached to the memory of the Irish Christian saint
Ciaran of Saigir, which was probably taken over from some ancient
Celtic hero, the son or grandson of Sirona (the aged one or
star-goddess). A Gaelic poem, believed to have been composed in the
ninth century, sets forth:
Liadaine (his mother) was asleep
On her bed (a saying not wrong).
When she turned her face to heaven
A star fell into her mouth.
Thence was born the marvellous child,
Ciaran of Saigir who is proclaimed to thee
And thence (a saying without pride)
Luaigne (Liadaine’s husband) said he (Ciaran) was not his son.
[439]
Osiris, as the son of the cow-goddess, was a son of the moon, from
which fell a fertilizing ray of light. The Egyptian deities had star
forms. As stars, they rose from malachite pools and perched in
swallow-shape on the branches of the world-tree of the Great Mother.
Hathor and Isis were personified as the star Sirius, from which fell
the tear, or drop of dew, that caused the low Nile to have increase and
rise in flood. As the morning star, the goddess was the mother of the
rising sun. Much star-lore surviving from ancient times remains to be
gleaned.
When the star-deity’s son, the Chinese Emperor Yu, was born, he had the
mouth of a tiger. “His ears had three orifices; his head bore the
resemblance of the star Kow and Kʼeen. On his breast seemed a figure in
gem of the Great Bear.” When he grew up he reached the height of 9
cubits, 6 inches. [440]
The Irish hero, Cuchullin, was likewise a marvellous youngster. He had
“seven toes to each foot, and to either hand as many fingers; his eyes
were bright, with seven pupils apiece”, and so on.
Yu was probably a historical character, to whose memory many floating
myths and legends were attached. He figures as the hero of a deluge.
One night, during his youth, he dreamt that while bathing in the Ho
(the Yellow River) he drank up the water. He also beheld a white fox
with nine tails—a particularly good omen. This was during the reign of
Yau. Shun came to know about him and showed him special favour, causing
him to be promoted until he became an influential man in the Empire.
The gods were well pleased because he was loved by them. One day, as Yu
stood on the banks of the River Ho, gazing at the water, a god appeared
as a tall, white-faced man, with the body of a fish, like the
Babylonian Ea. He addressed Yu and said: “I am the spirit of the Ho.
Wan-ming shall regulate the waters.”
The god then gave Yu a plan of the Ho, which gave full details
regarding the regulating of the waters, and sank into the river.
A good deal of controversy has been engaged in as to what Yu was
supposed to have done. In the Shu King (“The Tribute of Yu” chapter) it
is stated: “Yu divided the land, following the course of the hills, he
cut down the trees. He determined the highest hills and largest rivers
(in the several regions).... The (waters of the) Hang and Wei were
brought to their proper channels.” Other rivers were similarly
controlled. [441]
In another section Yu says: “When the floods were lifted to the
heavens, spreading far and wide, surrounding the hills and submerging
the mounds, so that the common people were bewildered and dismayed, I
availed myself of four vehicles, [442] and going up the hills I felled
the trees.... After that I drained off the nine channels, directing
them into the four seas; I dug out ditches and canals and brought them
into rivers.” [443]
In the fourth book of the Shu King, “The Great Plan”, it is said: “I
have heard that in old time Khwan dammed up the inundating waters, and
thereby threw into disorder the arrangement of the five elements. God
was consequently roused to anger, and did not give him the Great Plan
with its nine divisions, and thus the unvarying principles (of Heaven’s
method) were allowed to go to ruin.” [444]
In one of the Odes it is stated that “when the waters of the Deluge
spread vast abroad, Yu arranged and divided the regions of the land”.
[445]
It has been suggested by some that Yu constructed a great embankment to
prevent the Yellow River changing its course—a task even greater than
constructing the Great Wall, and that he formed dams and opened
irrigating channels. It may be that he did much work in reclaiming land
and regulating the government of the Empire. But there can be little
doubt that the traditions surviving from his age were mixed with the
older traditions regarding the Babylonian flood. Yu is no mere canal
cutter. He hews the rocks and forms chasms between the mountains, like
Pʼan Ku, the Chinese Ptah or Indra, he constructs the embankments of
lakes, and makes channels for the great rivers, and he drains the
marshes. The grounds are made habitable and fit for cultivation. There
are even faint echoes of the Osirian legend in the stories regarding
his achievements.
After Yu had finished his work, Heaven presented him with a
dark-coloured mace. [446] He was destined to become Emperor of the nine
provinces, we are told, but it is doubtful if the Empire was really so
large during his reign. After Shun resigned, Yu ascended the throne.
The vegetation then became luxuriant, and green dragons lay on the
borders of the Empire. Yellow dragons rose from the rivers when Yu
crossed them. His reign lasted for forty-five years.
The sixth Emperor of the Hea Dynasty was another famous man. This was
Shao-Kʼang. His father had been murdered, and his mother took flight
and concealed herself. She gave birth to her son during her reign in
Shan-tung, when he became a herdsman. Like Horus, he was searched for
by the monarch who had usurped the throne, and he had to take to flight
and become a cook. In time he was able to collect an army and win a
great victory, which enabled him to regain the throne of his father.
The last few Emperors of the Dynasty of Hea were weak and licentious
men. It is told of Kʼung-Kea, the fourteenth of his line, that he was
the cause of much misfortune, and caused the government to decay. Among
the terrible things he did was to eat a female dragon which had been
slain and pickled for him. Kwei, the seventeenth Emperor, was the first
to introduce men-drawn carriages, but the omens of his reign foretold
the approaching doom of the dynasty; the five planets wandered from
their courses, and stars fell like rain in his tenth year. He was
overthrown by Tʼang, the founder of the Dynasty of Shang.
Tʼang had seven names, one of which was Li. He was descended from the
Empress Keen-tieh, who, having prayed for a son, entered a river to
bathe. A dark swallow came nigh and dropped a variegated egg from her
mouth, which the Empress swallowed. She became pregnant, and gave birth
to a son named See, who, when he grew up, was appointed by Yao,
Minister of Instruction, and was given the principality of Shang.
Thirteen generations later the wife of one of See’s descendants gave
birth to Tʼang, the future Emperor. She had become pregnant after
seeing a white vapour passing through the moon. The child had whiskers
at birth, and his arms had four joints. He grew to the height of nine
cubits.
Wonderful things happened to prove that Tʼang was the chosen by Heaven
to reign over the Empire. When he visited the altar of Yao, he dropped
a jewel into the water. “Lo! yellow fishes leapt up in pairs; a
blackbird followed him, and stood on the altar, where it changed into a
black gem.” There also appeared a black tortoise, which had on its back
characters intimating that Tʼang was to become the Emperor. A spirit
appeared on Mount Pei at the same time. “Another spirit, dragging a
white wolf, with a hook in his mouth, entered the court of Shang. The
virtue of metal waxed powerful; silver overflowed from the hills.”
Tʼang himself dreamed that “he went to the sky and licked it. After
this he became possessor of the Empire.” [447]
When the Dynasty of Shang began to decline, the rulers became weak and
profligate. It is told of Wu-Yih, who reigned for only four years
(1198–1194 B.C.), he was “without any right principle. He made an image
of a man, and called it ‘the Spirit of Heaven’. Then he ‘gamed with it’
(played dice, or at chess), causing someone to play for the image. ‘The
Spirit of Heaven’ was unsuccessful, on which he disgraced it, and made
a leather bag, which he filled with blood, and then placed aloft and
shot at (the image was probably in the bag as well), calling this
‘shooting at Heaven’.... In the fourth year of his reign, while hunting
between the Ho and the Wei, Wu-Yih suddenly died. Tsʼeen says that he
was struck dead by lightning; and people recognize in that event the
just and appropriate vengeance of Heaven which he had insulted.” [448]
The Kafirs of Africa “play at a game of chance before their idols, and,
should chance be against them, kick and box their idols; but if, after
this correction, on pursuing their experiments they should continue
unsuccessful, they burn the hands and feet off them in the fire; should
ill fortune still attend them, they cast the idols on the ground, tread
them under foot, dash them about with such force as to break them to
pieces. Some, indeed, who show greater veneration for the images,
content themselves with fettering and binding them until they have
obtained their end; but should this not take place as early as their
impatience looks for, they fasten them to a cord and gradually let them
down into the water, even to the bottom, thus trusting to force them to
be propitious”. [449] It may be that Wu-Yih (Wuh-I) was engaged in some
such ceremony when he disgraced and tortured his god.
A successor is remembered as the first man who used ivory chop-sticks.
The Viscount of Ke admonished him, saying: “Ivory chop-sticks will be
followed by cups of gem; and then you will be wanting to eat bears’
paws and leopards’ wombs, and proceed to other extravagances. Your
indulgence of your desires may cost you the Empire.” This was Chou-sin,
an intemperate and extravagant tyrant. He came under the influence of a
beautiful but wicked woman, called Ta-ke, whom he married. “The most
licentious songs were composed for her amusement and the vilest dances
exhibited.” A park was laid out for her amusement. “There was a pond of
wine; the trees were hung with flesh; men and women chased each other
about quite naked.” Drinking bouts were common in the palace, and when
the princes began to rebel, new and terrible tortures were introduced.
The queen had constructed a copper pillar, which was greased all over.
It was laid above a charcoal fire, and culprits were ordered to walk on
it. When they slipped and fell into the fire, Ta-ke was “greatly
delighted”.
The Dynasty of Shang was overthrown by King Wu, the founder of the
Dynasty of Chou. Wu was descended from the famous lady Kian Yuan,
already referred to (see Index). After treading in the toe-print (or
foot-print) made by God, she gave birth to her son, Hau Ki, suffering
no pain. Like Gilgamesh, Sargon, Romulus and Remus, Karna, and other
famous heroes, the child was exposed after birth, the lady’s husband,
according to one Chinese commentator, having been displeased with what
had taken place. In the Shih King the ode, which relates the legend of
Hau Ki, says:
He was placed in a narrow lane,
But the sheep and oxen protected him with loving care.
He was placed in a wide forest,
Where he was met by the wood-cutters.
He was placed on the cold ice,
And a bird screened and supported him with its wings.
When the bird went away,
Hau Ki began to wail.
His cry was long and loud,
So that his voice filled the whole way. [450]
The ode goes on to tell that when Hau Ki grew up he promoted husbandry
and founded the sacrifices of his house. Some of the Osirian-Tammuz
traditions were attached to his memory, but, as Legge says, “he has not
displaced the older Shan-nung, with whom, on his father’s side, he had
a connection as ‘the Father of Husbandry’”. [451]
Before Wu became Emperor, a red man came out of the river to secure the
support of allies, and phœnixes brought messages to the effect that the
reigning dynasty was doomed. The empire could not be enjoyed by the
Shang King; “the powerful spirits of the earth have left it; all the
spirits are whisked away; the conjunction of the five planets in Fang
brightens all within the four seas”. [452] King Wen, the father of Wu,
to whom this revelation had been made, was a ruler in the west, and
knew that his son’s mission in life was the regeneration of the empire.
The dynasties of Hsia (Hea) and Shang
Had not satisfied God with their government;
So throughout the various States
He sought and considered
For a State on which he might confer the rule.
God said to King Wen:
I am pleased with your conspicuous virtue,
Without noise and without display,
Without heat and without change,
Without consciousness of effort,
Following the pattern of God.
God said to King Wen:
Take measures against hostile States,
Along with your brethren,
Get ready your engines of assault,
To attack the walls of Tsʼung. [453]
After Wu became the Emperor the worship of ancestors was promoted, and
dragons, tortoises, and phœnixes made regular appearances, while
vegetation flourished, and the mugwort grew so plentifully that a
palace could be erected from it.
After Wu died spirit-birds appeared, and a mysterious bean, which was
an elixir, grew up. The Crown Prince was still a minor, and for seven
years the Duke of Chou acted as regent. Accompanied by the young king
the duke visited the Ho and the Lo. The king dropped a gem into the
water, and after day declined “rays of glory came out and shrouded all
the Ho (Yellow River), and green clouds came floating in the sky. A
green dragon came to the altar, and went away. They did the same at the
Lo, and the same thing happened.” A tortoise appeared, and on its shell
were writings that told of the fortunes of the empire till the
dynasties of Tsʼin and Han. [454]
The tortoise-shell and stalks of a variety of grass were long used in
China for purposes of divination. What the tortoise and the grass
revealed was supposed to be the will of the spirits. Nowadays lots are
drawn, spirit-writing is believed in, and revelations are supposed to
be made when a bean symbol is tossed in the air, as is a coin in the
West; when the flat side is uppermost the tosser is supposed to receive
a refusal to his prayer.
The Chou Dynasty was founded, according to Chinese dating, in 1122
B.C., and lasted until 249 B.C. It has been suggested that although the
Chous claimed to be descended from one of Shun’s ministers, they were
really foreigners partly or wholly of Tartar origin. King Wu introduced
the sacrifice of human beings to the spirits of ancestors, and favoured
the magicians, whom he appointed to high positions in his court. His
empire consisted of a confederacy of feudal states, and its strength
endured so long as the central state remained sufficiently powerful to
exact tribute.
After holding sway for about eight hundred years, the Chou Dynasty, and
with it the Feudal Age, came to an end. The State of Chin or Tsʼin,
which had been absorbing rival states, became so powerful that, in 221
B.C., its king, Shih-huang-ti, became the first Emperor of China. He
resolved that the future history of China should begin with himself,
and issued a decree commanding that all existing literature should be
burned, except medical and agricultural books, and those dealing with
divination. Those who disobeyed his order and attempted to conceal the
forbidden books were put to death. Fortunately, however, some devoted
scholars succeeded in preserving for posterity a number of the classics
which would otherwise have perished. This extraordinary decree has cast
a shadow over the fame of the first emperor, who was undoubtedly a
great man.
During the early years of the Chin or Tsʼin Dynasty the Great Wall to
the west and north of China was constructed, so as to protect the
empire against the barbarians who were wont to raid and pillage the
rich pastoral and agricultural lands, and impose their sway on the
industrious Chinese. “The building of the Great Wall”, says Kropotkin,
“was an event fraught with the greatest consequences, and one may say
without exaggeration that it contributed powerfully to the premature
downfall of the Roman Empire.” The Mongolian and Turki peoples who had
been attempting to subdue China were forced westward, and tribal and
racial movements were set in motion that ultimately led to the
invasions of Europe by nomadic fighting pastoralists from Asia. [455]
The Great Wall is said to have been built in ten years in a straight
line of about 1200 miles, the average width at the base being 25 feet,
and the average height 30 feet. Strong “block-house” towers were
constructed in the wall for the accommodation of bodies of troops.
It was during this Dynasty that China and related forms of that name,
based on “Tsʼin” or “Chin”, came into use in the west. The dynasties
that followed the Chin or Tsʼin (221–200 B.C.) are as follows:
The Han Dynasty 200 B.C. – 200 A.D.
The Minor Dynasties 200 A.D. – 600 ,,
The Tʼang Dynasty 600 ,, – 900 ,,
The Sung Dynasty 900 ,, – 1200 ,,
The Mongol Dynasty 1200 ,, – 1368 ,,
The Ming Dynasty 1368 ,, – 1644 ,,
The Manchu Dynasty 1644 ,, – 1900 ,,
The evidence afforded by Chinese archæology, and Chinese religious
beliefs, symbols, and customs tends to emphasize that the early
inhabitants of Shensi province were strongly influenced by
culture-drifts from the mid-Asian colonies of the ancient
civilizations. Hunting and pastoral peoples adopted the agricultural
mode of life, and with it the elements of a complex civilization which
had its origin in those areas where grew wild the cereals first
cultivated by man.
The Chinese are a mixed race. In the north the oblique-eyed,
yellow-skinned element predominates. Like the Semites, who overran
Sumeria and adopted Sumerian modes of thought and life, so did the
Mongoloid tribes overrun northern China and became a sedentary people.
Petty kingdoms grew up, and in time found it necessary to unite against
the hordes who invaded and plundered their lands. The invaders included
Siberian nomads, Manchus, Mongolo-Turki peoples, the Sacæ (western
Scythians), and the blue-eyed Usuns or Wusuns who are believed to have
been congeners of the kurgan-builders of southern Siberia and southern
Russia. It was against Manchus and Mongols that the Great Wall was
erected, after northern China had been united as a result of those
conquests which made petty kings over-lords of ever-widening areas.
During the Han Dynasty southern China was subdued. There the
brownish-skinned Man-tze stock is most in prominence. Ancient
Indonesian intrusions have left their impress on the racial blend.
Along the sea-coasts of China the sea-traders exercised their
influence, and in time their mode of life was adopted by the conquerors
from the inland parts of the growing empire. The types of vessels used
by the ancient Egyptians, the Phœnicians, the peoples of the Persian
Gulf, the Indians, Burmese, Indonesians, and Polynesians became common
on the Chinese coast and rivers. Maritime enterprise was stimulated, as
we have seen, by the Far Eastern Columbuses who searched for the elixir
of life and the fabled “Islands of the Blest”. “The Chinese,” writes
Mr. Kebel Chatterton, “in their own independent way went on developing
from the early Egyptian models (of ships), and have been not inaptly
called the Dutchmen of the east in their nautical tendencies.” [456] It
is believed that they were the inventors of the rudder, which took the
place of the ancient steering-oar.
Along their coastal sea-routes the Chinese were brought into touch with
southern peoples, with whom they traded. Chinese records throw light on
the articles that were in demand at markets. “In Nan-čao”, [457] an
ancient text reveals, “there are people from Pʼo-lo-men (Burma), Pose
(Malay), Še-po (Java), Pʼo-ni (Borneo), Kʼun-lun (a Malayan country),
and of many other heretic tribes, meeting at one trading-mart, where
pearls and precious stones in great number are exchanged for gold and
musk.” [458] The early traders by sea and land attached great
importance to medicines and elixirs, and precious stones and metals,
and pearls.
The overland trade-routes through Iran brought the Chinese into direct
touch with Lesser Fu-lin (Syria), and ultimately with Greater Fu-lin
(the Byzantine Empire). The vine and other plants with ancient
religious associations were imported into China, and the Chinese peach
tree reached Europe. With the peach went silk. “It is not impossible,”
says Laufer, “that these two gifts were transmitted by the
silk-dealers, first to Iran (in the second or first century B.C.), and
thence to Armenia, Greece, and Rome (in the first century A.D.).” [459]
As the cuckoos hatched in the nests of hedge-sparrows, meadow-pipits,
and wagtails overcome and eject the offspring of their foster-parents,
so did the vigorous nomadic peoples who absorbed the elements of
ancient civilizations overcome and eject the offspring of their
“foster-parents”. The Babylonian Empire perished, and Irania, which had
been stimulated by it to adopt civilized conditions of life, became, in
turn, the nursery of vigorous states. Recent discoveries have brought
to light evidence which shows that the Iranian peoples “once covered an
immense territory, extending all over Chinese Turkestan, migrating into
China, coming into contact with the Chinese, and exerting a profound
influence on nations of other stock, notably Turks and Chinese. The
Iranians were the great mediators between the West and the East,
conveying the heritage of Hellenistic ideas to central and eastern
Asia, and transmitting valuable plants and goods of China to the
Mediterranean area.” [460]
The laws of supply and demand operated then as now on the trade-routes,
which brought communities of regular traders into touch after they had
cultivated plants or manufactured articles to offer in exchange for
what they received. Before these routes could, however, have hummed
with commerce, a considerable advance in civilization had to be
achieved. States had to be organized and laws enforced for the
protection of property and property owners.
The Iranians, who obtained silk from China, were not the originators of
the culture represented by this commodity; they simply stimulated the
demand for silk. Chinese civilization dates back to the time when the
early prospectors and explorers came into touch with backward peoples,
and introduced new modes and conditions of life. These pioneers did not
necessarily move along the routes that were ultimately favoured by
merchants, nor even those followed by migrating tribes in quest of
green pastures. They wandered hither and thither searching for gold and
gems and herbs, sowing as they went the seeds of civilization, which
did not, however, always fall on good ground. But in those places where
the seed took root and the prospects of development were favourable,
organized communities gradually grew up with an assured food-supply.
This was the case in Shensi province, in which was settled the “little
leaven” that ultimately “leavened the whole lump” of northern China. It
was after the empire became united under the Tsʼin Dynasty that
organized trade with the west assumed great dimensions, and was
regularly maintained under assured protection.
Myths as well as herbs and gems and garments were exchanged by traders.
With the glittering jewel was carried the religious lore associated
with it; with the curative herb went many a fable of antiquity. Laufer
has shown in his The Diamond how Hellenistic lore connected with that
gem crept into Chinese writings. It is consequently possible to trace
in the mosaic of Chinese beliefs and mythology certain of the cultural
elements that met and blended and were developed on the banks of the
Yellow River.
Elixirs and charms were in great demand in all centres of ancient
civilizations. It can be held, therefore, that behind the commerce of
early times, as behind the early religious systems, lay the haunting
dread of death. Gems warded off evil, and imparted vitality to those
who possessed them, and curative herbs renewed youth by restoring
health. Even the dead were benefited by them. Progress was thus, in a
sense, increasing efficiency in the quest of longevity in this world
and the next.
In China, as elsewhere, the dread of death, as expressed in the
religious system, promoted the arts and crafts; artists, engravers,
architects, builders, jewellers, and scribes, as well as priests and
traders, were engaged in the unceasing conflict against the all-dreaded
enemy of mankind, the God of Death. The incentive that caused men to
undertake perilous journeys by land and sea in quest of elixirs, to
live laborious lives in workshops and temples, and to grasp at the
mythical straws of hope drifted along trade-routes from other lands,
was the same as that which sent the Babylonian Gilgamesh to explore the
dark tunnel of the Mountain of Mashu and cross the Sea of Death, and it
is found on the ninth tablet of the most ancient epic in the world:
Gilgamesh wept bitterly, and he lay stretched out upon the ground.
He cried: “Let me not die like Ea-bani!
Grief hath entered into my body, and
I fear death....” [461]
CHAPTER XVI
MYTHS AND DOCTRINES OF TAOISM
Taoism and Buddhism—The Tao—Taoism and Confucianism—Lao Tze and
Osiris—The “Old Boy” Myth—Lao Tze goes West—Kwang Tze—Prince who
found the Water of Life—The “Great Mother” in Taoism—Taoism and
Egyptian Ptahism—Doctrine of the Logos—Indian Doctrines in
China—Taoism and Brahmanism—Metal Searchers as Carriers of Egyptian
and Babylonian Cultures—The Tao and Water—The Tao as “Mother of All
Things”—Fertilizing Dew and Creative Tears—The Tao and Artemis—The
Gate Symbol—Tao and Good Order—The World’s Ages in Taoism—Taoists
rendered Invulnerable like Achilles, &c.—The Tao as the Elixir of
Life—Breathing Exercises—The Impersonal God—Lao Tze and Disciples
deified and worshipped.
There are three religions in China, or, as native scholars put it,
“three Teachings”, namely Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism. Pure
Taoism, as taught by Lao Tze, is, like the Buddhism of its founder,
Siddhartha Gautama, metaphysical and mystical. It is similarly based on
a vague and somewhat bewildering conception of the origin of life and
the universe; it recognizes a creative and directing force which, at
the beginning, caused Everything to come out of Nothing. This force,
when in action, is called the Tao. It is so called from the time when
it began to move, to create, to cause Unity to be. The Tao existed
before then, but it was nameless, and utterly incomprehensible. It
existed, some writers say, even when there was nothing. Others go the
length of asserting that it existed before there was nothing. We can
understand what is meant by “nothing”, but we cannot understand what
the Nameless was before it was manifested as the Tao.
The Tao is not God; it is impersonal. Taoists must make unquestioning
submission to the Tao, which must be allowed to have absolute sway in
the individual, in society, in the world at large. Taoism does not,
like Buddhism, yearn for extinction, dissolution, or ultimate loss of
identity and consciousness in the nebulous Nirvana. Nor does it, like
Buddhism, teach that life is not worth living—that it is sorrowful to
be doomed to be reborn. Rather, it conceives of a perfect state of
existence in this world, and of prolonged longevity in the next. All
human beings can live happily if they become like little children,
obeying the law (Tao) as a matter of course, following in “the way”
(Tao) without endeavouring to understand, or having any desire to
understand, what the Tao is. The obedient, unquestioning state of mind
is reached by means of Inaction—mental Inaction. The Tao drifts the
meritorious individual towards perfection, out of darkness into light.
Those who submit to the Tao know nothing of ethical ideals; they are in
no need of definite beliefs. It is unnecessary to teach virtue when all
are virtuous; it is unnecessary to have rites and ceremonies when all
are perfect; it is unnecessary to be concerned about evil when evil
ceases to exist. The same idea prevailed among the Brahmanic sages of
India, whose Krita or Perfect Age was without gods or devils. Being
perfect, the people required no religion.
Confucianism is not concerned with metaphysical abstractions, or with
that sense of the Unity of all things and all beings in the One, which
is summed up in the term “Mysticism”. It maintains a somewhat agnostic,
but not irreligious frame of mind, confessing inability to deal with
the spirit world, or to understand, or theorize about, its mysteries.
It recognizes the existence of God and of spirits. “Respect the
spirits,” said Confucius, “but keep them at a distance....” He also
said: “Wisdom has been imparted to me. If God were to destroy this
wisdom (his system of ethics) the generations to come could not inherit
it.”
Whether or not Confucius ever heard of the system of Lao Tze is
uncertain. If he did, it certainly made no appeal to him. His own
system of instruction was intensely practical. It was concerned mainly
with ethical and political ideals—with political morality. He was no
believer in Inaction. The salvation of mankind, according to his
system, could be achieved by strict adherence to the ideals of right
living and right thinking, and a robust and vigorous application of
them in the everyday life of individuals and the State.
The reputed founder or earliest teacher of Taoism was Lao Tze, about
whom little or nothing is known. He is believed to have been born in
604 B.C., and to have died soon after 532 B.C. Confucius was born in
551 B.C., and died in 479 B.C. There are Chinese traditions that the
two sages met on at least one occasion, but these are not credited by
Western or modern native Chinese scholars. Confucius makes no direct
reference to Lao Tze in his writings.
Lao Tze [462] means “Old Boy”, as Osiris, in his Libyan form, is said
to mean the “Old Man”. [463] He was given this name by his followers,
because “his mother carried him in her womb for seventy-two years, so
that when he was at length cut out of it his hair was already white”.
Julius Cæsar was reputed to have been born in like manner; so was the
Gaelic hero, Goll MacMorna, who, as we gather from Dunbar, was known in
the Lowlands as well as the Highlands; the poet makes one of his
characters exclaim,
My fader, meikle Gow mas Mac Morn,
Out of his moderis (mother’s) wame was shorn.
The same legend clings to the memory of Thomas the Rhymer, who is
referred to in Gaelic as “the son of the dead woman” (mac na mna
marbh), because his mother died before the operation was performed.
Shakespeare’s Macduff “was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped”.
[464]
It may be that this widespread birth-story had its origin in Egypt.
Plutarch, in his treatise on the Mystery of Osiris and Isis, tells that
Set (the ancient god who became a devil) was “born neither at the
proper time, nor by the right place”, but that he “forced his way
through a wound which he had made in his mother’s side”.
Different forms of the legend are found in China. According to the
traditions preserved in the “Bamboo Books”, which are of uncertain
antiquity, the Emperor Yao was born fourteen months after he was
conceived, the Emperor Yu emerged from his mother’s back, and the
Emperor Yin from his mother’s chest. The Aryo-Indian hero, Karna, a
prominent figure in the Mahábhárata, emerged from one of his mother’s
ears; he was a son of Surya, the sun-god.
According to Taoist lore (after Buddhism and Taoism were partly fused
in China), Lao Tze appeared from time to time in China during the early
dynasties in different forms, and with different names. He had the
personal knowledge of the decline of the influence of the Tao from the
Perfect Age. After Fu-hi and other sovereigns disturbed the harmonies
of heaven and earth, “the manners of the people, from being good and
simple, became bad and mean”. He came to cleanse the stream of
spiritual life at its source, and was ultimately reborn as Lao Tze,
under the Plum Tree of Longevity, having been conceived under the
influence of a star in the constellation of the Great Bear. Li (plum
tree) was his surname.
Lao Tze is said to have held a position in the Royal Library of Kau.
When he perceived that the State showed signs of decadence, he resolved
to leave the world, like the Indian heroes, Yudhishthira and his
brothers. He went westwards, apparently believing, as did Confucius,
“that the Most Holy was to be found in the West”. On entering the pass
of Hsien-Ku (in modern Ling-pao, Ho-nan province) the Warden, Yin Hsi,
a Taoist, welcomed the sage and set before him a dish of tea. Lao Tze
sat down to drink tea with his friend. This was the beginning of the
tea-drinking custom between host and guest in China. [465]
Said the Warden, “And so you are going into retirement. I pray you to
write me a book before you leave.”
Lao Tze consented, and composed the Tao Teh King, [466] which is
divided into two parts, and contains over 5000 words.
When he had finished writing, he gave the manuscript to the Warden,
bade him farewell, and went on his way. It is not known where he died.
The most prominent of Lao Tze’s disciples was Kwang Tze, who lived in
the fourth century B.C. Sze-ma Khien, the earliest Chinese historian of
note, who died about 85 B.C., says that Kwang Tze wrote “with purpose
to calumniate the system of Confucius and exalt the mysteries of Lao
Tze”. But although he wrote much, “no one could give practical
application to his teaching”. Other famous Taoist writers were Han Fei
Tze, who committed suicide in 233 B.C., and Liu An, prince of Hwai-nan,
and grandson of the founder of the Han Dynasty, who took his own life
in 122 B.C., having become involved in a treasonable plot.
Another form of the legend is that this prince discovered the Water of
Life. As soon as he drank of it, his body became so light that he
ascended to the Celestial Regions in broad daylight and was seen by
many. As he rose he let fall the cup from which he had drunk. His dogs
lapped up the water and followed him. Then his poultry drank from the
cup and likewise rose in the air and vanished from sight. Apparently it
was not only the poor Indians “with untutored minds” who thought their
dogs (not to speak of their hens) would be admitted to the “equal sky”,
there to bear them company.
It is generally believed by Oriental scholars that both Taoism and
Confucianism are of greater antiquity than their reputed founders.
Confucius insisted that he was “a transmitter, not a maker”, and Lao
Tze is found to refer to “an ancient”, “a sage”, and “a writer on war”,
as if he had been acquainted with writings that have not come down to
us.
There is internal evidence in the Taoistic texts of Lao Tze and Kwang
Tze that the idea of the Tao had an intimate association in early times
with the ancient Cult of the West—the cult of the mother-goddess who
had her origin in water. The priestly theorists instructed the
worshippers of the Great Mother that at the beginning she came into
existence as an egg, or a lotus bloom from which rose the Creator, the
sun-god, or that she was a Pot containing water from which all things
have come—the pot being the inexhaustible womb of Nature, and the
symbol of the Great Mother-goddess.
But they themselves were not satisfied with this myth. They recognized
that there was at work at the beginning a force—a law which “opened the
way”, a phrase which may have had a physical significance but
ultimately became a mystical one. In Chinese Taoism, this force is the
Tao which is manifested in order, stability, and rightness; it is
Truth.
The Ancient Egyptian philosophers believed, at as remote a time as the
Pyramid Texts period (c. 2500 B.C.), that everything had origin in
Mind. The Universe was the idea of Ptah, the “opener”; he conceived it
in his “Heart” (Mind); when he expressed the idea, the Universe came
into existence.
Ptah, the great, is the mind and tongue of the gods....
It (the mind) is the one that bringeth forth every successful
issue.
It is the tongue which repeats the thought of the mind:
It (the mind) was the fashioner of all gods...
At a time when every divine word
Came into existence by the thought of the mind,
And the command of the tongue. [467]
Although Breasted first thought that this fragment was a survival from
the Empire period (c. 1500 B.C.), he has since become convinced, like
Erman, that it must, on the basis of orthography, be relegated to the
Pyramid Age.
“Is there not here,” Breasted asks, “the primeval germ of the later
Alexandrian doctrine of the ‘Logos’?” [468]
In India Brahma (neuter) was the World Soul, “that subtle essence”
which, according to the composers of the Upanishads, exists in
everything that is, but cannot be seen. The personal Brahma, as
Prajapati, arose, at the beginning, from this impersonal World Soul.
“Mind (or Soul, manas),” an Indian sage has declared, “was created from
the non-existent. Mind created Prajapati. Prajapati created offspring.
All this, whatever exists, rests absolutely on mind.”
Another Indian sage writes:
“At first the Universe was not anything. There was neither sky, nor
earth, nor air. Being non-existent, it resolved, ‘Let me be.’ It
became fervent. From that fervour smoke was produced. It again
became fervent. From the fervour fire was produced. Afterwards the
fire became ‘rays’ [469] and the ‘rays’ condensed into a cloud,
producing the sea. A magical formula (Dasahotri) was created.
Prajapati is the Dasahotri.”
When the Rev. Dr. Chalmers of Canton translated the Taoist Texts into
English in 1868 [470], he wrote: “I have thought it better to leave the
word ‘Tao’ untranslated, both because it has given the name to the
sect—the Taoists—and because no English word is its exact equivalent.
Three terms suggest themselves—‘the Way’, ‘Reason’, and ‘the Word’; but
they are all liable to objection. Were we guided by etymology, ‘the
Way’ would come nearest to the original, and in one or two passages the
idea of a Way seems to be in the term; but this is too materialistic to
serve the purpose of a translation. ‘Reason’ again seems to be more
like a quality or attribute of some conscious Being than Tao is. I
would translate it by ‘the Word’ in the sense of the Logos, but this
would be like settling the question which I wish to leave open, viz.
what amount of resemblance there is between the Logos of the New
Testament and this Tao, which is its nearest representative in
Chinese.”
The New Testament doctrine of the Logos may here be reproduced by way
of comparison, the quotation being from Dr. Weymouth’s idiomatic
translation, which may be compared with the authorized versions: [471]
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came
into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing that exists came
into being. In Him was Life, and that Life was the Light of men.
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not
overpowered it.
There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a
witness, in order that he might give testimony concerning the
Light—so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light,
but he existed that he might give testimony concerning the Light.
The true Light was that which illumines every man by its coming
into the world. He was in the world, and the world came into
existence through Him, and the world did not recognize Him.
The meaning of the word “Tao”, says Max Von Brandt, “has never been
explained or understood,” and he adds, “Like the Hellenistic ‘Logos’,
it is at once the efficient and the material cause.” [472] Professor G.
Foot Moore says, “Tao is literally ‘way’; like corresponding words in
many languages, ‘course’, ‘method’, ‘order’, ‘norm’.” [473] Archdeacon
Hardwick [474] was “disposed to argue” that the system of Taoism was
founded on the idea of “some power resembling the ‘Nature’ of modern
speculators. The indefinite expression ‘Tao’ was adopted to denominate
an abstract cause, or the initial principle of life and order, to which
worshippers were able to assign the attributes of immateriality,
eternity, immensity, invisibility.”
Canon Farrar has written in this connection: “We have long personified
under the name of Nature the sum total of God’s law as observed in the
physical world; and now the notion of Nature as a distinct, living,
independent entity seems to be ineradicable alike from our literature
and our systems of philosophy.” [475]
Dr. Legge comments on this passage: “But it seems to me that this
metaphorical use of the word ‘nature’ for the Cause and Ruler of it
implies the previous notion of Him, that is, of God, in the mind.”
[476]
Dr. Legge notes that in Lao Tze’s treatise “Tao appears as the
spontaneously operating cause of all movement in the phenomena of the
universe.... Tao is a phenomenon, not a positive being, but a mode of
being.” [477]
Others have rendered Tao as “God”. But “the old Taoists had no idea of
a personal God,” says Dr. Legge.
De Groot [478] refers to Tao as “the ‘Path’, the unalterable course of
Nature,” and adds that the “reverential awe of the mysterious
influences of Nature is the fundamental principle of an ancient
religious system usually styled by foreigners Tao-ism.”
The idea of the Chinese Tao resembles somewhat that of the Indian
Brahma (neuter). Lao Tze says: “It (Tao) was undetermined and
perfected, existing before the heaven and the earth. Peaceful was it
and incomprehensible, alone and unchangeable, filling everything, the
inexhaustible mother of all things. I know not its name, and therefore
I call it Tao. I seek after its name and I call it the Great. In
greatness it flows on for ever, it retires and returns. Therefore is
the Tao great.”
In his chapter “The Manifestation of the Mystery”, Lao Tze says:
“We look at it (Tao), and we do not see it, and we name it ‘the
Equable’.
“We listen to it, and we do not hear it, and we name it ‘the
Inaudible’.
“We try to grasp it, and do not get hold of it, and we name it ‘the
Subtle’.
“With these three qualities, it cannot be made the subject of
description; and hence we blend them together and obtain ‘The
One’.”
Some scholars, like Joseph Edkins and Victor von Strauss, have
contended that Lao Tze was attempting to express the ideas of Jehovah
in Hebrew theology. Others incline to the belief that the influence of
Indian Brahmanic speculations had reached China at an early period and
inaugurated the intuitional teaching found in Lao Tze’s treatise.
The idea of the first cause had arisen in India before the close of the
Vedic Age. At the beginning:
There was neither existence nor non-existence,
The Kingdom of air, nor the sky beyond.
What was there to contain, to cover, in—
Was it but vast, unfathomed depths of water?
There was no death there, nor Immortality:
No sun was there, dividing day from night.
Then was there only THAT, resting within itself.
Apart from it, there was not anything.
At first within the darkness veiled in darkness,
Chaos unknowable, the All lay hid.
Till straitway from the formless void made manifest
By the great power of heat was born the germ. [479]
The Great Unknown was by the later Vedic poets referred to by the
interrogative pronoun “What?” (Ka).
In the Indian Khandogya Upanishad, the sage tells a pupil to break open
a fruit. He then asks, “What do you see?” and receiving the reply,
“Nothing”, says, “that subtle essence which you do not perceive there,
of that very essence this great Nyagrodha tree exists. Believe me, my
son, that which is the subtle essence, in it all that exists has
itself. It is the True. It is self; and thou, my son, art it.” [480]
The idea of the oneness and unity of all things is the basic principle
of mysticism.
There is true knowledge. Learn thou it is this:
To see one changeless Life in all the lives,
And in the Separate, One Inseparable. [481]
Dr. Legge in his commentary on The Texts of Taoism, asks his readers to
mark well the following predicates of the Tao:
“Before there were heaven and earth, from of old, there It was
securely existing. From It came the mysterious existence of
spirits; from It the mysterious existence of Ti (God). It produced
heaven. It produced earth.” [482]
Lao Tze had probably never been in India, but that passage from his
writings might well have been composed by one of the Brahmanic sages
who composed the Upanishads.
The explanation may be that in Brahmanism and Taoism we have traces of
the influence of Babylonian and Egyptian schools of thought. No direct
proof is available in this connection. It is possible, however, that
the ancient sages who gave oral instruction to their pupils were the
earliest missionaries on the trade-routes. The search for wealth had,
as has been shown, a religious incentive. It is unlikely, therefore,
that only miners and traders visited distant lands in which precious
metals and jewels were discovered. Expeditions, such as those of the
Egyptian rulers that went to Punt for articles required in the temples,
were essentially religious expeditions. It was in the temples that the
demand for gold and jewels was stimulated, and each temple had its
workshops with their trade secrets. The priests of Egypt were the
dyers, and they were the earliest alchemists [483] of whom we have
knowledge. Such recipes as are found recorded in the Leyden papyrus
were no doubt kept from the common people.
Associated with the search for metals was the immemorial quest of the
elixir of life, which was undoubtedly a priestly business—one that
required the performance of religious ceremonies of an elaborate
character. Metals and jewels, as we have seen, as well as plants,
contained the “soul substance” that was required to promote health and
to ensure longevity in this world and in the next. It was, no doubt,
the priestly prospectors, and not the traders and working miners, who
first imparted to jade its religious value as a substitute for gold and
jewels.
When the searchers for wealth introduced into India and China the god
Ptah’s potter’s wheel they may well have introduced too the doctrine of
the Logos, found in the pyramid-age Ptah hymn quoted above, in which
the World Soul is the “mind” of the god, and the active principle “the
tongue” that utters “the Word”.
If they did so—the hypothesis does not seem to be improbable—it may be
that as Buddhism was in India mixed with Naga worship, and was imported
into Tibet and China as a fusion of metaphysical speculations and crude
idolatrous beliefs and practices, the priestly philosophies of Egypt
and Babylonia were similarly associated with the debris of primitive
ideas and ceremonies when they reached distant lands. As a matter of
fact, it is found that in both these culture centres this fusion was
maintained all through their histories. Ptah might be the “Word” to the
priests, but to the common people he remained the artisan-god for
thousands of years—the god who hammered out the heavens and set the
world in order—a form of Shu who separated the heavens from the earth,
as did Pʼan Ku in China.
In India and China, as in ancient Egypt, the doctrine of the Logos, in
its earliest and vaguest form, was associated with the older doctrine
that life and the universe emerged at the beginning from the womb of
the mother-goddess, who was the active principle in water, or the
personification of that principle.
In one of the several Indian creation myths, Prajapati emerges, like
the Egyptian Sun-god Horus, from the lotus-bloom floating on the
primordial waters. The lotus is the flower form of the Great Mother,
who in Egypt is Hathor.
Another myth tells that after the heat caused the rays to arise, and
the rays caused a cloud to form, and the cloud became water, the
Self-Existent Being (here the Great Father) created a seed. He flung
the seed into the waters, and it became a golden egg. From the egg came
forth the personal Brahma (Prajapati). [484] Because Brahma came from
the waters (Narah), and they were his first home or path (ayana), he is
called Narayana. [485]
Here we have the “path” or “way”, the Chinese Tao in one of its phases.
When the Tao (neuter) became “active”, it did not manifest itself as a
Great Father, however, but as a Great Mother. The passive Tao is
nameless; the active Tao has a name. Lao Tze’s great treatise, The Tao
Teh King, opens:
“The Tao that can be trodden is not the enduring and unchanging Tao.
The name that can be named is not the enduring and unchanging name,
(Conceived of as) having no name, it is the Originator of heaven
and earth;
(Conceived of as) having a name, it is the Mother of all things.”
[486]
The creation myths embedded in the writings of Lao Tze are exceedingly
vague.
“The Tao produced One; One produced Two; Two produced Three; Three
produced All things. All things leave behind them the Obscurity
(out of which they have come), and go forward to embrace the
Brightness (into which they have emerged), while they are
harmonized by the Breath of Vacancy.” [487]
Another passage seems to indicate that the One, first produced, was the
Mother, and that the two produced by her were Heaven and Earth—the god
of the sky and the goddess of the earth:
“Heaven and Earth (under the guidance of Tao) unite together and
send down the sweet dew, which, without the direction of men,
reaches equally everywhere as of its own accord.” [488]
The fertilizing dew, like the creative tears of Egyptian and Indian
deities, gave origin to earth and its plants, and to all living things.
But no such details are given by Lao Tze. He is content to suggest that
the Tao as “the Honoured Ancestor” appears to have been before God.
In his chapter, “The Completion of Material Forms”, he refers to the
female valley spirit. “The valley,” says Legge, “is used metaphorically
as a symbol of ‘emptiness’ or ‘vacancy’, and the ‘spirit of the valley’
is ‘the female mystery’—the Tao which is ‘the mother of all things’.”
Chalmers renders Chapter VI as follows:
“The Spirit (like perennial spring) of the Valley never dies. This
(Spirit) I call the abyss-mother. The passage of the abyss-mother I
call the root of heaven and earth. Ceaselessly it seems to endure,
and it is employed without effort.”
Dr. Legge’s rendering is in verse:
The valley spirit dies not, aye the same;
The female mystery thus do we name.
Its gate, from which at first they issued forth,
Is called the root from which grew heaven and earth.
Long and unbroken does its power remain,
Used gently, and without the touch of pain. [489]
The symbolism of this short chapter is of special interest, and seems
to throw light on the origin of the myths that were transformed by Lao
Tze into philosophical abstractions. We find the “female mystery” or
“abyss mother” is at once a gate (or passage) and a “root”. The Greek
goddess Artemis was both. She was the guardian of the portals, and was
herself the portals; she was the giver of the mugwort (the Chinese knew
it), and was herself the mugwort (Artemisia), as Dr. Rendel Harris has
shown. [490] She opened the gate of birth as the goddess of birth, her
“key” being the mugwort, and she opened the portal of death as the
goddess of death. As the goddess of riches she guarded the door of the
treasure-house, and she possessed the “philosopher’s stone”, which
transmuted base metals into gold. Artemis was a form of the Egyptian
Hathor, Aphrodite being another specialized form. Hathor was associated
with the lotus and other water plants, and was Nub, the lady of gold,
who gave her name to Nubia; she was the goddess of miners, and
therefore of the Sinaitic peninsula; she was the “gate” of birth and
death. The monumental gateways of Egypt, India, China, and Japan appear
to have been originally goddess portals. [491]
The goddess of the early prospectors and miners was, as has been said,
a water-goddess. In the writings of Lao Tze, his female and active Tao,
“the Mother of all Things”, is closely associated with water. The
chapter entitled “The Placid and Contented Nature” refers to water, and
water as “an illustration of the way of the Tao, is”, Dr. Legge
comments, “repeatedly employed by Lao Tze”.
“The highest excellence is like (that of) water. The excellence of
water appears in its benefiting all things.” [492]
Lao Tze, dealing with “The Attribute of Humility”, connects “water”
with “women”:
“What makes a great state is its being (like a low-lying
down-flowing stream); it becomes the centre to which tend (all the
small states) under heaven.
“(To illustrate from) the case of all females:—the female always
overcomes the male by her stillness.” [493]
Water is soft, but it wears down the rocks.
“The softest thing in the world dashes against and overcomes the
hardest; that which has no (substantial) existence enters where
there is no crevice.” [494]
The Tao acts like water, and (The Tao) “which originated all under the
sky is”, Lao Tze says, “to be considered as the mother of all of them.
When the mother is found, we know what her children should be.” [495]
A passage which has puzzled commentators is,
“Great, it (the Tao) passes on (in constant flow). Passing on, it
becomes remote. Having become remote, it returns. Therefore the Tao
is great.” [496]
The reference may be to the circle of water which surrounds the world.
It is possible Lao Tze had it in mind, seeing that he so often compares
the action of the Tao to that of water—the Tao that produces and
nourishes “by its outflowing operation”.
Like “soul substance”, the Tao is found in all things that live, and in
all things that exercise an influence on life. The Tao is the absolute,
or, as the Brahmanic sages declared, the “It” which cannot be seen—the
“It” in the fruit of the tree, the “It” in man. Lao Tze refers to the
“It” as the “One”.
In his chapter, “The Origin of the Law”, he writes:
The things which from of old have got the One (the Tao) are:
Heaven, which by it is bright and pure;
Earth endowed thereby firm and sure;
Spirits with powers by it supplied;
Valleys kept full throughout their void;
All creatures which through it do live;
Princes and Kings who from it get
The model which to all they give. [497]
The Tao may produce and nourish all things and bring them to maturity,
but it “exercises no control over them”. [498]
Man must begin by taking control of himself: he must make use of the
light that is within him. The wise man “does not dare to act” of his
accord. When he has acted so that he reaches a state of inaction, the
Tao will then drift him into a state of perfection. He must guard the
mother (Tao) in himself by attending to the breath. “The management of
the breath,” says Dr. Legge, “is the mystery of the esoteric Buddhism
and Taoism.” [499] “When one knows,” Tao Tze has written, “that he is
his mother’s child, and proceeds to guard (the qualities of) the mother
that belongs to him, to the end of his life he will be free from peril.
Let him keep his mouth closed, and shut up the portals (of his
nostrils), and all his life he will be exempt from laborious exertion.”
[500]
By giving “undivided attention to the breath” (the vital breath), and
bringing it “to the utmost degree of pliancy”, he “can become as a
(tender) babe. When he has cleansed away the most mysterious sights (of
his imagination), he can become without a flaw.” [501]
The doctrine of Inaction pervades the teaching of Lao Tze, which is
quite fatalistic. Salvation depends on the individual and the state
allowing the Tao to “flow” freely.
“If the Empire is governed according to Tao, evil spirits will not
be worshipped as good ones.
“If evil spirits are not worshipped as good ones, good ones will do
no injury. Neither will the Sages injure the people. Each one will
not injure the other. And if neither injures the other, there will
be mutual profit.”
A native commentator writes in this connection:
“Spirits do not hurt the natural. If people are natural, spirits
have no means of manifesting themselves, and if spirits do not
manifest themselves, we are not conscious of their existence as
such. Likewise, if we are not conscious of the existence of spirits
as such, we must be equally unconscious of the existence of
inspired teachers as such; and to be unconscious of the existence
of spirits and of inspired teachers is the very essence of Tao.”
[502]
The scholarly sage thus reached the conclusion that it is a blessed
thing to know nothing, to be ignorant. Good order is necessary for the
workings of the Tao, and good order is secured by abstinence from
action, and by keeping the people in a state of simplicity and
ignorance, so that they may be restful and child-like in their
unquestioning and complete submission to the Tao. “The state of
vacancy,” says Lao Tze, “should be brought to the utmost degree....
When things (in the vegetable world) have displayed their luxuriant
growth, we see each of them return to its root. This returning to their
root is what we call the state of stillness.” [503]
There would be no virtues if there were no vices, no robberies if there
were no wealth.
“If,” the Taoists argued, “we would renounce our sageness and discard
our wisdom, it would be better for the people a hundredfold. If we
could renounce our benevolence and discard our rightness, the people
would again become filial and kindly. If we could renounce our artful
contrivances and discard our scheming for gain, there would be no
thieves and robberies.” [504]
Here we meet with the doctrine of the World’s Ages, already referred
to. Men were perfect to begin with, because, as Lao Tze says, “they did
not know they were ruled”. “In the age of perfect virtue,” Kwang Tze
writes, “they attached no value to wisdom.... They were upright and
correct, without knowing that to be so was righteousness; they loved
one another, without knowing that to do so was benevolence; they were
honest and leal-hearted without knowing that it was loyalty; they
fulfilled their engagements, without knowing that to do so was good
faith; in their simple movements they employed the services of one
another, without thinking that they were conferring or receiving any
gift. Therefore their actions left no trace, and there was no record of
their affairs.”
To this state of perfection, Lao Tze wished his fellow-countrymen to
return.
That the idea of the Tao originated among those who went far and wide,
searching for the elixir of life, is suggested by Lao Tze’s chapter,
“The Value Set on Life”. He refers to those “whose movements tend to
the land (or place) of death”, and asks, “For what reason?” The answer
is, “Because of their excessive endeavours to perpetuate life”.
He continues:
“But I have heard that he who is skilful in managing the life
entrusted to him for a time travels on the land without having to
shun rhinoceros or tiger, and enters a host without having to avoid
buff coat or sharp weapon. The rhinoceros finds no place in him
into which to thrust its horn, nor the tiger a place in which to
fix its claws, nor the weapon a place to admit its point. And for
what reason? Because there is in him no place of death.” [505]
It would appear that Lao Tze was acquainted not only with more ancient
writers regarding the Tao, but with traditions regarding heroes
resembling Achilles, Siegfried, and Diarmid, whose bodies had been
rendered invulnerable by dragon’s blood, or the water of a river in the
Otherworld; or, seeing that each of these heroes had a spot which was a
“place of death”, with traditions regarding heroes who, like El Kedir,
plunged in the “Well of Life” and became immortals, whose bodies could
not be injured by man or beast. The El Kedirs of western Asia and
Europe figure in legends as “Wandering Jews” or invulnerable heroes,
including those who, like Diarmid, found the “Well of Life”, and those
who had knowledge of charms that rendered them invisible or protected
them against wounds. The Far Eastern stories regarding the inhabitants
of the “Islands of the Blest”, related in a previous chapter, may be
recalled in this connection. Having drunk the waters of the “Well of
Life” and eaten of the “fungus of immortality”, they were rendered
immune to poisons, and found it impossible to injure themselves. When,
therefore, we find Lao Tze referring to men who had no reason to fear
armed warriors or beasts of prey, it seems reasonable to conclude that
these were men who had found and partaken of the elixir of life, or had
accumulated “stores of vitality” by practising breathing exercises and
drinking charmed water, or by acquiring “merit”, like the Indian
ascetics who concentrated their thoughts on Brahma (neuter).
In the chapter, “Returning to the Root”, in his Tao Teh King, Lao Tze
appears to regard the Tao as a preservative against death. He who in
“the state of vacancy” returns to primeval simplicity and perfectness
achieves longevity through the workings of the Tao.
“Possessed of the Tao, he endures long; and to the end of his
bodily life is exempt from all danger of decay.” [506]
Here the Tao acts like the magic water that restores youth. It is “soul
substance”, and is required by the Chinese gods as Idun’s apples are
required by the Norse gods. Says Lao Tze:
“Spirits of the dead receiving It (Tao) become divine; the very
gods themselves owe their divinity to its influence; and by It both
heaven and earth were produced”. [507]
There were floating traditions in China in Lao Tze’s time regarding men
who had lived for hundreds of years. One was “the patriarch Phăng”, who
is referred to by Confucius [508] as “our old Phăng”. It was told that
“at the end of the Shang Dynasty (1123 B.C.) he was more than 767 years
old, and still in unabated vigour”. We read that during his lifetime he
lost forty-nine wives and fifty-four sons; and that, after living for
about 1500 years, he died and left two sons, Wu and I, who “gave their
names to the Wu-i or Bu-i Hills, from which we get our Bohea tea”.
[509]
Kwang Tze refers to Phăng. But instead of telling that he had
discovered and partaken of the elixir of life, as he must have done in
the original story, he says that he “got It (the Tao), and lived on
from the time of the lord Yu to that of the five chiefs”. [510]
Others who got It (the Tao) in like manner were, according to Kwang
Tze, the prehistoric Shih-wei who “adjusted heaven and earth”, Fu-hsi
who “by It penetrated to the mystery of the maternity of the primary
matter”, the sage Hwang-Ti who “by It ascended the cloudy sky”, Fu
Yueh, chief minister of Wu-ting (1324–1264 B.C.), who got It and after
death mounted to the Eastern portion of the Milky Way, where, riding on
Sagittarius and Scorpio, he took his place among the stars. Various
spirits “imbibed” It likewise and owed their power and attributes to It
(the Tao). [511]
Kwang Tze tells that a man once addressed a Taoist sage, saying, “You
are old, sir, while your complexion is like that of a child; how is it
so?”
The reply was, “I have become acquainted with the Tao”. [512]
Here the Tao is undoubtedly regarded as the elixir of life—as “soul
substance” that renews youth and promotes longevity. It was not,
however, a thing to eat and drink—the “plant of life” or “the water of
life”—but an influence obtained like the spiritual power, the “merit”,
accumulated by the Brahmanic hermits of India who practised “yogi”. As
the mystery of creation was repeated at birth when a new soul came into
existence, so did the Tao create new life when the devotee reached the
desired state of complete and unquestioning submission to its workings.
There were some Taoists who, like the Brahmanic hermits, sought refuge
in solitary places and endeavoured to promote longevity by management
of the breath, adopting what Mr. Balfour has called a “system of mystic
and recondite calisthenics”. As we have seen, Lao Tze makes reference
to “breathing exercises”, but apparently certain of his followers
regarded the performance of these exercises as the sum and substance of
his teachings, whereas they were but an aid towards attaining the state
of mind which prepared the Taoist for submission to the Tao. Kwang Tze
found it necessary to condemn the practices of those “scholars” who,
instead of pursuing “the path of self cultivation”, endeavoured to
accumulate “the breath of life” so that they might live as long as the
patriarch Phăng. In his chapter, “Ingrained Ideas”, he writes:
“Blowing and breathing with open mouth; inhaling and exhaling the
breath; expelling the old breath and taking in new; passing their
time like the (dormant) bear, and stretching and twisting (the
neck) like a bird; all this simply shows the desire for longevity”.
[513]
The genuine devotees “enjoy their ease without resorting to the rivers
and seas”, they “attain to longevity without the management (of the
breath)”, they “forget all things and yet possess all things by
cultivating the qualities of placidity, indifference, silence,
quietude, absolute vacancy and non-action”. These qualities “are the
substance of the Tao and its characteristics”. [514]
It seems undoubted, however, that the system of Lao Tze, whereby
“spiritual fluid” flowed into the placid, receptive mind, originated in
the very practices here condemned—in the quest of “soul substance”
contained in water, herbs, metals, and gems. As Indian and Chinese
sages retired to solitudes and endured great privations, so that they
might accumulate “merit”, so did the searchers for herbs, metals, and
gems penetrate desert wastes and cross trackless mountains, so as to
accumulate the wealth which was “merit” to them. They were inspired in
like manner by genuine religious enthusiasm.
The Taoists never forgot the “Elixir”. Taoism began with the quest of
that elusive and mystical “It” which renewed youth and ensured
immortality, or prolonged longevity after death, and the later Taoists
revived or, perhaps one should say, perpetuated the search for “the
Water of Life”, and the “Plant of Life”, the “Peach of 3000 years”, or
“10,000 years”, the gem trees, gold, pearls, jade, &c. The fear of
death obsessed their minds. They wished to live as long as the
Patriarch Phăng on this earth, or to be transferred bodily to the
Paradise of the West, the Paradise of Cloudland or Star-land, or that
of the “Islands of the Blest”. Besides, it was necessary that the
earthly life should be prolonged so that they might make complete
submission to the Tao. Their lives had to be passed in tranquillity;
they were not to reflect on the past or feel anxiety regarding the
future. The fear of death in the future tended to disturb their peace
of mind, and they were therefore in need of water which, like the water
of Lethe, would make them forget their cares, or some other elixir that
would inspire them with confidence and give them strength. Kwang Tze
might censure the ascetics for confusing “the means” with “the end”,
but ordinary men have always been prone to attach undue importance to
ceremonies and rites—to concentrate their thoughts on the performance
of rites rather than in accumulating “merit”, and to believe that
“merit” can be accumulated by the performance of the rites alone.
The explanation of the state of affairs censured by Kwang Tze seems to
be that the transcendental teachings of Lao Tze and himself, in which
the vague idea of the Logos was fused with belief in a vague elixir of
life, were incomprehensible not only to the masses but even to
scholars, and that the practices and beliefs of the older faith on
which Lao Tze founded his system were perpetuated by custom and
tradition by other adherents to the cult of which he was a teacher.
Ordinary men, who were not by temperament or mental constitution or
training either mystics or metaphysicians, required something more
concrete than the elusive Tao of Lao and Kwang; they clung to their
beliefs in the efficacy of life-prolonging herbs, jewels, metals,
coloured stones, water, fresh air, &c. Withal, they required something
to worship, having always been accustomed to perform religious
ceremonies and offer up sacrifices. They could not worship or sacrifice
to an abstraction like the Tao. Nor could they grasp the idea of an
impersonal God as expressed in the writings of Kwang Tze, who taught:
“God is a principle which exists by virtue of its own
intrinsicality, and operates spontaneously without
self-manifestation”.
The people clung to their belief in a personal God, or personal gods
including dragon-gods, and when the old deities believed in by their
ancestors were discredited by their teachers, they deified Lao Tze and
his disciples as the Indians deified Buddha and the Rishis. Lao Tze was
sacrificed to in the second century B.C., and a superb temple was
erected to him. One of the Emperors who embraced the Taoist faith
caused the statue of Lao Tze to be carried into his palace, with pomp
and ceremony. The ordinary priests in the temples of China were called
Taoists.
When Buddhism began to exercise an influence in China between the third
century B.C. and the first century A.D., the Taoists borrowed from the
Buddhists, while the Buddhists, in turn, borrowed from the Taoists. The
myth then arose that when Lao Tze “went west”, he was reborn in India
as the Buddha. But the Taoists clung also to the older myth that after
Lao Tze died, he ascended to Cloudland and became the personal god of
heaven, Shang Ti, the Supreme and Divine Emperor. It was as Shang Ti, a
term which includes the spirits of deceased Emperors of China, he was
worshipped not only in temples but at domestic shrines, along with the
various groups of demi-gods, some of whom were identified with the
disciples of Lao Tze. The Chinese Shang Ti, like the ancient Egyptian
sun-god Ra and the Babylonian Marduk (Merodach), was the divine father
of the living monarch.
CHAPTER XVII
CULTURE MIXING IN JAPAN
Races and Archæological Ages—The “Pit-dwellers”—Ainu Myths and
Legends—Mummification—Sacred Animals, Herbs, and Trees—Ainu
Cosmogony—Ainu Deluge Legend—Pearl-lore in Japan—Mandrake in Korea,
Japan, and China—The Japanese “Dragon-Pearl” as Soul—Links with
America—Medicinal Herbs and Jewels—The “God-Body”—Sanctity of
Beads—The Coral, Shells, Coins, Fruit, and Feathers of
Luck-gods—Jade in Japan—No Jade Necklaces in China—Japanese
Imperial Insignia the Mirror, Sword, and Jewel—Shinto Temples and
Artemis Gateways—Mikado as Osiris—The Shinto Faith—Yomi—Food of the
Dead—The Souls of Mikados and Pharaohs—The Kami as Gods, &c.—Gods
of the Cardinal Points.
There was not only “culture” mixing but also a mixing of races in
ancient times throughout the Japanese Archipelago. Distinct racial
types can be detected in the present-day population. “Of these,” says
the Japanese writer, Yei Ozaki, [515] “the two known as the patrician
and the plebeian are the most conspicuous. The delicate oval face of
the aristocrat or Mongoloid, with its aquiline nose, oblique eyes,
high-arched eyebrows, bud-like mouth, cream-coloured skin, and slender
frame, has been the favourite theme of artists for a thousand years,
and is still the ideal of beauty to-day. The Japanese plebeian has the
Malayan cast of countenance, high cheek-bones, large prognathic mouth,
full, straight eyes, a skin almost as dark as bronze, and a robust,
heavily-boned physique. The flat-faced, heavy-jawed, hirsute Ainu type,
with luxuriant hair and long beards, is also frequently met with among
the Japanese. Such are the diverse elements which go to comprise the
race of the present time.”
The oblique-eyed aristocrats—the Normans of Japan—appear to have come
from Korea, and to have achieved political ascendancy as a result of
conquest in the archæological “Iron Age”, when megalithic tombs of the
corridor type, covered with mounds, were introduced. [516] They brought
with them, in addition to distinctive burial customs, a heritage of
Korean religious beliefs and myths regarding serpent- or dragon-gods of
rivers and ocean, air and mountains. After coming into contact with
other peoples in Japan, their mythology grew more complex, and assumed
a local aspect. Chinese and Buddhist elements were subsequently added.
There was no distinct “Bronze Age” in Japan. “Ancient bronze objects
are,” says Laufer, “so scarce in Japan, that even granted they were
indigenous, the establishment of a Bronze Age would not be justified,
nor is there in the ancient records any positive evidence of the use of
bronze.” [517] Although stone implements have been found, it is
uncertain whether there ever was, in the strict Western European sense,
a “Neolithic Age”. The earliest inhabitants of the islands could not
have reached them until after ships came into use in the Far East, and
therefore after the culture of those who used metals had made its
influence felt over wide areas.
As we have seen (Chapter III), the most archaic ships in the Kamschatka
area in the north, and in the Malayan area in the south, were of
Egyptian type, having apparently been introduced by the early
prospectors who searched for pearls and precious stones and metals. In
the oldest Japanese writings, the records of ancient oral traditions,
gold and silver are referred to as “yellow” and “white” metals existing
in Korea, while bronze, when first mentioned, is called the “Chinese
metal” and the “Korean metal”. [518] “The bronze and iron objects found
in the ancient graves have simply,” says Laufer, “been imported from
the mainland, and plainly are, in the majority of cases, of Chinese
manufacture. Many of these, like metal mirrors, certain helmets, and
others, have been recognized as such; but through comparison with
corresponding Chinese material, the same can be proved for the rest.”
[519] At the beginning of our era, the Japanese, as the annals of the
Later Han Dynasty of China record, purchased iron in Korea. The Chinese
and Koreans derived the knowledge of how to work iron from the interior
of Siberia, the Turkish Yakut there being the older and better
iron-workers. [520]
The racial fusion in ancient Japan was not complete. Although the
Koreans, Chinese, and Malayans intermarried and became “Japanese”,
communities of the Ainu never suffered loss of identity, and lived
apart from the conquerors and those of their kinsmen who were absorbed
by them.
An outstanding feature of Japanese archæology is that Culture A appears
to have been a higher one than Culture B, which is represented by Ainu
artifacts. Culture A is that of a pre-Ainu people whom the Ainu found
inhabiting parts of the archipelago, and called the Koro-pok-guru. The
name signifies “the people having depressions”, and is usually rendered
by Western writers as “Pit-dwellers”. In the Japanese writings the
Koro-pok-guru are referred to as “the small people” and “earth
spiders”.
During the winter season the Koro-pok-guru lived in pit-houses, with
conical or beehive roofs. The depth of these earth houses was greater
on slopes and exposed heights than on low-lying ground. In summer they
occupied beehive houses erected on the level. Their “kitchen-midden”
deposits have yielded pottery, including well-shaped vases, and
arrowheads of flint, obsidian, reddish jasper or dark siliceous rock.
Like the “pit-dwellers” of Saghalin and Kamschatka, the Koro-pok-guru
were seafarers and fishers. Their houses were erected on river banks
and along the sea coast.
Culture B deposits are devoid of pottery. The Ainu have never been
potters; their bowls and spoons were in ancient times made of wood.
They claim to have exterminated the Koro-pok-guru, who appear to have
had affinities with the present inhabitants of the northern Kuriles, a
people of short stature, with roundish heads, the men having short,
thick beards, and being quite different in general appearance from the
“hairy Ainu” with long, flowing beards. Some communities of Ainu
present physical characteristics that suggest the blending in ancient
times of the “long beards” and “short beards”. The pure Ainu are the
hairiest people in the world. They are broad-headed and have brown eyes
and black beards, and are of sturdy build. Their tibia and humerus
bones are somewhat flat. In old age some resemble the inhabitants of
Great Russia.
The Ainu [521] are hunters and fishers. Their women cultivate millet
(their staple food) and vegetables, and gather herbs and roots among
the mountains. According to their own traditions, they came from Sara,
which means a “plain”. Their “culture hero”, Okikurumi, descended from
heaven to a mountain in Piratoru, [522] having been delegated by the
Creator to teach the Ainu religion and law. Before this hero returned
to heaven, he married Turesh Machi, [523] and he left his son,
Waruinekuru, to instruct the Ainu “how to make cloth, to hunt and fish,
how to make poison and set the spring-bow in the trail of animals”.
When Okikurumi first arrived among the Ainu, the crust of the earth was
still thin and “all was burning beneath”. It was impossible for people
to go a-hunting without scorching their feet. The celestial hero
arranged that his wife should distribute food, but made it a condition
that no human being would dare to look in her face. She went daily from
house to house thrusting in the food with her great hands.
An inquisitive Ainu, of the “Peeping Tom” order, resolved to satisfy
his curiosity regarding the mysterious food-distributor. One morning he
seized her and pulled her into his house, whereupon she was immediately
transformed into a wriggling serpent-dragon. A terrible thunderstorm
immediately broke out, and the house of “Peeping Tom” was destroyed by
lightning.
This is an interesting Far Eastern version of the Godiva legend [524]
of Coventry.
Greatly angered by the breaking of the taboo, Okikurumi returned to the
celestial regions. His dragon-wife is not only a Godiva, but another
Far Eastern Melusina. [525]
Okikurumi is said to have worn ear-rings. He had therefore a solar
connection. The Aryo-Indian hero, Karna, son of Surya, the sun-god, who
emerged from an ear of his human mother, Princess Pritha, was similarly
adorned at birth with ear-rings. The Ainu have from the earliest times
considered it essential that they should all wear ear-rings, and the
ears of males and females are bored in childhood. It was similarly a
ceremonial practice in ancient Peru to bore the ears of Inca princes.
Jacob objected to his wives wearing ear-rings, and buried those
so-called “ornaments” with the gods of Laban under an oak at Shechem.
[526] Bracelets and “ear-ornaments” were similarly favoured as
religious charms and symbols by the Ainu.
It is of special interest to note that mummification was practised by
some Ainu tribes or families. Whether or not they acquired this custom
from the Koro-pok-guru is uncertain. Women tattooed their arms, their
upper and lower lips, and sometimes their foreheads. Tattooing and
mummification similarly obtained among the Aleutian Islanders. The same
peculiar methods of preserving corpses obtained among the Ainu, the
Aleutians, and certain Red Indian tribes of North America. [527]
Another link between the Old and New Worlds is afforded by
American-Asiatic bone plate armour. [528]
Like the Ostiaks and other Siberian tribes, the Ainu worship the bear.
Their bear feasts are occasions for heavy drinking and much dancing and
singing. Drunkenness is to them “supreme bliss”.
The bear-goddess was the wife of the dragon-god. She had a human lover,
and that is why bears, her descendants, “are half like a human being”.
The salmon is divine, and its symbol is worshipped. Folk-tales are told
regarding salmon taking human shape, as do the seals in Scottish Gaelic
stories. As in China and Japan, the fox is the most subtle of all
beasts. It supplanted the tiger as chief god, according to an Ainu
folk-tale. There is a great tortoise-god in the sea and an owl-god on
the land, and their children have intermarried. The cock is of
celestial origin. It was, at the beginning, sent down from heaven by
the Creator to ascertain what the world looked like, but tarried for so
long a time, being well pleased with things, that it was forbidden to
return. Hares are mountain deities.
The oldest trees are the oak and pine, and they are therefore sacred,
and the oldest and most sacred herb is the mugwort. In Kamschatka the
pine is associated with the mugwort. The mugwort is connected with
goddesses of the Artemis order. [529] Sacred, too, was the willow, and
specially sacred the mistletoe that grew on a willow tree. An elixir
prepared from the mistletoe was supposed to renew youth, and therefore
to prolong life and cure diseases. Siberians venerate the herb willow.
[530] The drink prepared from it was a soporific for human beings, wild
animals, and deities. Far Eastern deities had apparently to be soothed
as well as invoked as, it may be recalled, was Hathor-Sekhet in the
Egyptian “flood myth”, when she was given beer poured out from jars, so
that she might cease from slaughtering mankind. [531]
When the Ainu performed religious ceremonies, shavings and whittled
sticks of willow were used, and libations of intoxicating liquors
provided. Deities were made drunk, as in Babylonia, [532] and then
provided with a soothing anti-intoxicant. The Ainu set up their willow
sticks at wells and around their dwellings. They had no temples, and
when they worshipped the sun, a shaven willow stick was placed at the
east end of a house.
The moon-god came next in order to the sun-god. The fire-god was
invoked to cure disease. There was a subtle connection between fire and
mistletoe, perhaps because fire was obtained by friction of soft and
hard wood, and an intoxicating elixir prepared from a tree or its
parasite was believed to be “fire water”—that is, “water of life”.
Offerings were made to gods of ocean, rivers, and mountains.
The world was supposed to be floating on and surrounded by water, and
to be resting on the spine of a gigantic fish which caused earthquakes
when it moved. There were two heavens—one above the clouds and another
in the Underworld. A hell, from which the volcanoes vomit fire, was
reserved for the wicked.
Like the Chinese, the Ainu tell stories of visits paid to Paradise. A
man, whose wife had been spirited away, appealed to the oak-god, who
provided him with a golden horse on which he rode to the sky. He
reached a beautiful city in which people went about singing constantly.
They smelled a stranger, and, the smell being offensive to them, they
appealed to the chief god to give him his wife. The god promised to do
so if the visitor would agree to go away at once. He consented readily,
and returned to the oak-god, who told him his wife was in hell, and
that the place was now in confusion because the chief god had ordered a
search to be made for her. Soon afterwards the lost woman was restored
to her husband. This man was given the golden horse to keep, and all
the horses in Ainu-land are descended from it.
Another man once chased a bear on a mountain side. The animal entered a
cave, and he followed it, passing through a long, dark tunnel. He
reached the beautiful land of the Underworld. Feeling hungry, he ate
grapes and mulberries, and, to his horror, was immediately transformed
into a serpent. He crawled back to the entrance and fell asleep below a
pine tree. In his dream the goddess of the tree appeared. She told him
he had been transformed into a serpent because he had eaten of the food
of Hades, and that, if he wished to be restored to human shape, he must
climb to the top of the tree and fling himself down. When he awoke, the
man-serpent did as the goddess advised. After leaping from the tree
top, he found himself standing below it, while near him lay the body of
a great serpent which had been split open. He then went through the
tunnel and emerged from the cave. But later he had another dream, in
which the goddess appeared and told him he must return to the
Underworld because a goddess there had fallen in love with him. He did
as he was commanded to do, and was never again seen on earth.
A story tells of another Ainu who reached this Paradise. He saw many
people he had known in the world, but they were unable to see him. Only
the dogs perceived him, and they growled and barked. Catching sight of
his father and mother he went forward to embrace them, but they
complained of being haunted by an evil spirit, and he had to leave
them.
The Ainu have a Deluge Myth which tells that when the waters rose the
vast majority of human beings were destroyed. Only a remnant escaped by
ascending to the summit of a high mountain. [533]
Although the Ainu claimed to have exterminated the Koro-pok-guru, it is
possible that they really intermixed with them and derived some of
their religious ideas and myths from them, and that, in turn, the
Japanese were influenced by both Ainu and Koro-pok-guru ideas and
myths. The aniconic pillars and the female goddess with fish
termination (the Dragon Mother) figure in Japanese as well as Ainu
religion. Both are found in Kamschatka, too. Dr. Rendel Harris,
commenting on the pillar and fish-goddess idols of the Kamschatdals,
[534] recalls “the various fish forms of Greek and Oriental religions,
the Dagon and Derceto of the Philistines, the Oannes of the Assyrians,
[535] Eurynome of the Greek legends, and the like”. The pillar,
sometimes shown to be clad with ivy, links with the symbols of Hermes
and Dionysos. He adds: “The Kamschatdals and other Siberian tribes
manufacture for themselves intoxicating and stupefying drinks which
have a religious value, and are employed by their Shamans in order to
produce prophetic states of inspiration”. The Japanese manufactured
sake from rice with precisely the same motive, and, like the Ainu,
offered their liquor to the gods.
What attracted the Koro-pok-guru and the Ainu to Japan? As we have seen
(Chapter III), the primary incentive for sea-trafficking and
prospecting by sea and land was the desire to obtain wealth in the form
of pearls, precious stones, and metals. Now, pearls are found round the
Japanese coasts. Marco Polo has recorded that in his day the people of
Japan practised the mortuary custom (obtaining also in China) of
placing pearls in the mouths of the dead. “In the Island of Zipangu
[536] (Japan),” he says, “rose-coloured pearls were abundant, and quite
as valuable as white ones.” Kaempfer, writing in the eighteenth
century, stated that the Japanese pearls were found in small varieties
of oysters (akoja) resembling the Persian pearl oyster, and also in
“the yellow snail-shell”, the taira gai (Placuna), and the awabi or
abalone (Haliotis). A pearl fishery formerly existed in the
neighbourhood of Saghalin Island. As pearls have from the earliest
times been fished from southern Manchurian rivers, in Kamschatka, and
on the south coast of the Sea of Okhotsk, it may be that the earliest
settlers in Japan were prehistoric pearl-fishers. It is of special
interest to note here that, according to G. A. Cooke, pearls and
ginseng (mandrake) were formerly Manchurian articles of commerce. [537]
The herbs and pearls were, as we have seen, regarded as “avatars” of
the mother-goddess.
In Korea ginseng is cultivated under Government supervision. “It is”,
Mrs. Bishop writes, [538] “one of the most valuable articles which
Korea exports, and one great source of its revenue.” A basket may
contain ginseng worth £4000. “But,” she adds, “valuable as the
cultivated root is, it is nothing to the value of the wild, which grows
in Northern Korea, a single specimen of which has been sold for £40! It
is chiefly found in the Kang-ge Mountains, but it is rare, and the
search so often ends in failure, that the common people credit it with
magical properties, and believe that only men of pure lives can find
it.” The dæmon who is “the tutelary spirit of ginseng ... is greatly
honoured” (p. 243). A ready market is found in China for Korean
ginseng. “It is a tonic, a febrifuge, a stomachic, the very elixir of
life, taken spasmodically or regularly in Chinese wine by most Chinese
who can afford it” (p. 95).
In Japan, ginseng, mushroom, and fungus are, like pearls, promoters of
longevity, and sometimes, says Joly, “masquerade as phalli”: they are
“Plants of Life” and “Plants of Birth”, like the plants searched for by
the Babylonian heroes Gilgamesh and Etana, and like the dragon-herbs of
China. [539]
In Shinto, the ancient religion of the Japanese, prominence is given to
pearls and other precious jewels, and even to ornaments like artificial
beads, which were not, of course, used merely for personal decoration
in the modern sense of the term; beads had a religious significance. A
sacred jewel is a tama, a name which has deep significance in Japan,
because mi-tama is a soul, or spirit, or double. Mi is usually referred
to as an “honorific prefix” or “honorific epithet”, but it appears to
have been originally something more than that. A Japanese commentator,
as De Visser notes, has pointed out in another connection [540] that mi
is “an old word for snake”, that is, for a snake-dragon. Mi-tama,
therefore, may as “soul” or “double” be all that is meant by
“snake-pearl” or “dragon-pearl”. [541] The pearl, as we have seen,
contained “soul substance”, the “vital principle”, the blood of the
Great Mother, like the “jasper of Isis” worn by women to promote birth,
and therefore to multiply and prolong life; in China and Japan the
pearl was placed in the mouth of the dead to preserve the corpse from
decay and ensure longevity or immortality. The connection between
jewels and medicine is found among the Maya of Central America. Cit
Bolon Tun (the “nine precious stones”) was a god of medicine. The
goddess Ix Tub Tun (“she who spits out precious stones”) was “the
goddess of the workers in jade and amethysts”. She links with Tlaloc’s
wife.
According to Dr. W. G. Aston [542] tama contains the root of the verb
tabu, “to give”, more often met with in its lengthened form tamafu.
“Tama retains its original significance in tama-mono, a gift thing, and
toshi-dama, a new year’s present. Tama next means something valuable,
as a jewel. Then, as jewels are mostly globular in shape, [543] it has
come to mean anything round. At the same time, owing to its precious
quality, it is used symbolically for the sacred emanation from God
which dwells in his shrine, and also for that most precious thing, the
human life or soul.... The element tama enters into the names of
several deities. The food-goddess is called either Ukemochi no Kami or
Uka no mi-tama.” Phallic deities are also referred to as mi-tama. The
mi-tama is sometimes used in much the same sense as the Egyptian Ka: it
is the spirit or double of a deity which dwells in a shrine, where it
is provided with a shintai (“god body”)—a jewel, weapon, stone, mirror,
pillow, or some such object.
The jewels (tama) worn by gods and human beings were not, as already
insisted upon, merely ornaments, but objects possessing “soul
substance”. These are referred to in the oldest Shinto books. In
ancient Japanese graves archæologists have found round beads (tama),
“oblong perforated cylinders” or “tube-shaped beads” (kuda-tama), and
“curved” or “comma-shaped [544] beads” (maga-tama). According to W.
Gowland, “the stones of which maga-tama are made are rock-crystal,
steatite, jasper, agate, and chalcedony, and more rarely chrysoprase
and nephrite (jade)”. He notes that “the last two minerals are not
found in Japan”. [545]
Henri L. Joly, writing on the tama, says [546] it is also “represented
in the form of a pearl tapering to a pointed apex, and scored with
several rings. It receives amongst other names Nio-i-Hojiu, and more
rarely of Shinshi, the latter word being used for the spherical jewel,
one of the three relics left to Ninigi no Mikoto [547] by his
grandmother, Amaterâsu. [548] The necklace of Shinshi, mentioned in the
traditions, was lost, and in its place a large crystal ball, some three
or four inches in diameter, is kept and carried by an aide-de-camp of
the Emperor on State occasions.”
[**ERROR: Contains unhandled entity &c.;]
The pearl (tama) is “one of the treasures of the Takaramono, a
collection of objects associated with the Japanese gods of luck, which
includes the hat of invisibility (Kakuregasa), a lion playing with a
jewel, a jar containing coral, coins, &c.; coral branches (sangoju),
the cowrie shell (kai), an orange-like fruit, the five-coloured feather
robe of the Tennins, the winged maidens of the Buddhist paradise,
copper cash, &c.” [549] But although the tama may correspond to the
mani of the Indian Buddhists, it was not of Buddhist origin in Japan;
the Buddhists simply added to the stock of Japanese “luck jewels”.
The tama of jade has raised an interesting problem. Nephrite is not
found in Japan. “It is difficult”, says Laufer, “to decide from what
source, how and when the nephrite or jadeite material was transmitted
to Japan.” Referring to jade objects found in the prehistoric Japanese
graves, he says: “The jewels may go back, after all, to an early period
when historical intercourse between Japan and China was not yet
established; they [550] represent two clearly distinct and
characteristic types, such as are not found in the jewelry of ancient
China. If the Japanese maga-tama and kuda-tama would correspond to any
known Chinese forms, it would be possible to give a plausible reason
for the presence of jade in the ancient Japanese tombs; but such a
coincidence of type cannot be brought forward. Nor is it likely that
similar pieces will be discovered in China, as necklaces were never
used there anciently or in modern times. We must therefore argue that
the two Japanese forms of ornamental stones were either indigenous
inventions or borrowed from some other non-Chinese culture sphere in
south-eastern Asia, the antiquities of which are unknown to us.” [551]
The tama is of great importance in Shinto religion. At Ise, [552] “the
Japanese Mecca”, which has long been visited by pious pilgrims, a
virgin daughter of the Mikado used to keep watch over the three
imperial insignia—the mirror, the sword, and the jewel (tama)—which had
been handed down from Mikado to Mikado. There were no idols in the
temples. The Shintai was carefully wrapped up and kept in a box in the
“holy of holies”, a screened-off part of the simple and unadorned
wooden and thatched little temple. The temple was entered through a
gateway—the tori wi, a word which means “bird-perch”, in the sense of a
hen-roost. “As an honorary gateway”, says Dr. Aston, “the tori-wi is a
continental institution identical in purpose and resembling in form the
toran of India, the pailoo of China, and the hong-sal-mun of Korea.”
[553] When this symbol of Artemis [554] was introduced into Japan is
uncertain. “Rock gates” were of great sanctity in old Japan. There is
one at Ise—the “twin-rocks of Ise”.
The mirror was the shintai (god-body) of the sun-goddess; the sword was
the shintai of the dragon; and the jewel (tama) was the shintai of the
Great Mother, who was the inexhaustible womb of nature. At sacred Ise,
the chief deities worshipped were Ama-terâsu, the goddess of the sun,
and Toyouke-hime, the goddess of food. [555] The high-priest was the
Mikado, who was a Kami (a god), and called “the Heavenly Grandchild”,
his heir being “august child of the sun”, and his residence “the august
house of the sun”. [556] After the Mikado had ascended the throne, the
Ohonihe (great food offering) ceremony was performed. It was “the most
solemn and important festival of the Shinto religion”, says Aston, who
quotes the following explanation of it by a modern Japanese writer:
“Anciently the Mikado received the auspicious grain from the Gods
of Heaven and therewithal nourished the people. In the Daijowe (or
Ohonihe) the Mikado, when the grain became ripe, joined unto him
the people in sincere veneration, and, as in duty bound, made
return to the Gods of Heaven. He thereafter partook of it along
with the nation. Thus the people learnt that the grain which they
eat is no other than the seed bestowed on them by the Gods of
Heaven.”
The Mikado was thus, in a sense, a Japanese Osiris.
Shinto religion was in pre-Buddhist days a system of ceremonies and
laws on which the whole social structure rested. The name is a Chinese
word meaning “the way of the gods”, the Japanese equivalent being Kami
no michi. But although the gods were numerous, only a small proportion
of them played an important part in the ritual (norito), which was
handed down orally by generations of priests until after the fifth
century of our era, when a native script, based on Chinese characters,
came into use.
Old Shinto was concerned chiefly with the food-supply, with
child-getting, with the preservation of health, and protection against
calamities caused by floods, droughts, fire, or earthquakes. It has
little or nothing to say regarding the doctrine of immortality. There
was no heaven and no hell. The spirits of some of these deities who
died like ordinary mortals went to the land of Yomi, as did also the
spirit of the Mikado, but little is told regarding the mysterious
Otherworld in which dwelt the spirits of disease and death. “In one
passage of the Nihon-gi,” says Aston, [557] “Yomi is clearly no more
than a metaphor for the grave.” It thus resembled the dark Otherworld
or Underworld of the Babylonians, from which Gilgamesh summoned the
spirit of his dead friend, Ea-bani. [558] No spirit of a god could
escape from Yomi after eating “the food of the dead”. When the
Babylonian god Adapa, son of Ea, was summoned to appear in the
Otherworld, his father warned him not to accept of the water and food
which would be offered him. [559] The goddess Ishtar was struck with
disease when she entered Hades in quest of her lover, the god Tammuz,
and it was not until she had been sprinkled with the “water of life”
that she was healed and liberated. [560]
The Mikado, being a god, had a spirit, and might be transferred to Yomi
or might ascend to heaven to the celestial realm of his ancestress, the
sun-goddess. Some distinguished men had spirits likewise. But there is
no clear evidence in the Ko-ji-ki or the Nihon-gi that the spirits of
the common people went anywhere after death, or indeed, that they were
supposed to have spirits. Some might become birds, or badgers, or
foxes, and live for a period in these forms, and then die, as did some
of the gods. There are no ghosts in the early Shinto books. [561]
The ancient Pharaohs of Egypt, like the ancient Mikados of Japan, were
assured of immortality. The mortuary Pyramid Texts “were all intended
for the king’s exclusive use, and as a whole contain beliefs which
apply only to the king”. There are vague references in these texts to
the dead “whose places are hidden”, and to those who remain in the
grave. [562] The fate of the masses did not greatly concern the solar
cult.
Before dealing with the myths of Japan, it is necessary to consider
what the term kami, usually translated “gods”, signified to the
devotees of “Old Shinto”. The kami were not spiritual beings, but many
of them had spirits or doubles that resided in the shintai (god body).
Dr. Aston reminds us that although kami “corresponds in a general way
to ‘god’, it has some important limitations. The kami are high, swift,
good, rich, living but not infinite, omnipotent, or omniscient. Most of
them had a father and mother, and of some the death is recorded.” [563]
It behoves us to exercise caution in applying the term “animistic” to
the numerous kami of Japan, or in assuming that they were worshipped,
or reverenced rather, simply because they were feared. Some of the kami
were feared, but the fear of the gods is not a particular feature of
Shinto religion with its ceremonial hand-clappings and happy laughter.
Dr. Aston quotes from Motöori, the great eighteenth century Shinto
theologian, the following illuminating statement regarding the kami:
“The term kami is applied in the first place to the various deities
of heaven and earth who are mentioned in the ancient records as
well as to their spirits (mi-tama) which reside in the shrines
where they were worshipped. Moreover, not only human beings, but
birds, beasts, plants, and trees, seas and mountains, and all other
things whatsoever which deserve to be dreaded and revered for the
extraordinary and pre-eminent powers which they possess are called
kami. They need not be eminent for surpassing nobleness, or
serviceableness alone. Malignant and uncanny beings are also called
kami if only they are objects of general dread. Among kami who are
human beings, I need hardly mention, first of all, the successive
Mikados—with reverence be it spoken.... Then there have been
numerous examples of divine human beings, both in ancient and
modern times, who, although not accepted by the nation generally,
are treated as gods, each of his several dignity, in a single
province, village, or family.”
In ancient Egypt the reigning monarch was similarly a god—a Horus while
he lived and an Osiris after he died, while a great scholar like
Imhotep (the Imuthes of the Greeks in Egypt who identified him with
Asklepois) might be deified and regarded as the son of Ptah, the god of
Memphis. Egypt, too, had its local gods like Japan; so had Babylonia.
The Japanese theologian proceeds to say:
“Amongst kami who are not human beings, I need hardly mention
Thunder (in Japanese Nuru kami or the sounding-god). There are also
the Dragon and Echo (called in Japanese Ko-dama or the Tree
Spirit), and the Fox, who are kami by reason of their uncanny and
fearful natures. The term kami is applied in the Nihon-gi and
Manjoshiu to the tiger and the wolf. Isanagi (the creator-god) gave
to the fruit of the peach and to the jewels round his neck names
which implied that they were kami.” [564]
Here we touch on beliefs similar to those that obtained in China where
the dragon and tiger figure so prominently as the gods of the East and
the West. The idea that the peach was a kami appears to be connected
with the Chinese conception of a peach world-tree, a form of the Mother
Goddess, the fruit of which contains her “life substance” or shen as do
the jewels like the pearl and jade objects; the peach is a goddess
symbol as the phallus is a symbol of a god.
Motöori adds:
“There are many cases of seas and mountains being called kami. It
is not their spirits which are meant. The word was applied directly
to the seas or mountains themselves as being very awful things.”
[565]
There were a beneficent class and an evil class of kami. Beneficent
deities provided what mankind required or sought for; they were
protectors and preservers. Four guardians of the world were called “Shi
Tenno”. They were posted at the cardinal points like the Chinese Black
Tortoise (north), the Red Bird (south), the White Tiger (west), and the
Blue or Green Dragon (east). The Japanese colour scheme, however, is
not the same as the Chinese. At the north is the blue god Bishamon or
Tamoten; at the south the white-faced warrior Zocho; at the west the
red-faced Komoku with book and brush or a spear; and at the east the
warrior with green face, named Jikoku, who is sometimes shown trampling
a demon under foot.
In India the north is white and the south black, and in Ceylon the
Buddhist colours of the cardinal points are yellow (north), blue
(south), red (west), and white (east).
Although it is customary to regard the coloured guardians of the
Japanese world as of Buddhist origin, it may well be that the original
Japanese guardians were substituted by the Hindu and Chinese divinities
imported by the Buddhists. The dragon-gods of China and Japan were
pre-Buddhistic, as De Visser has shown, [566] but were given, in
addition to their original attributes, those of the naga (serpent or
dragon) gods introduced by Buddhist priests.
CHAPTER XVIII
JAPANESE GODS AND DRAGONS
Japanese Version of Egyptian Flood Myth—A Far Eastern
Merodach—Dragon-slaying Story—The River of Blood—Osiris as a Slain
Dragon—Ancient Shinto Books—Shinto Cosmogony—Separation of Heaven
and Earth—The Cosmic “Reed Shoot” and the Nig-gil-ma—The Celestial
Jewel Spear—Izanagi and Izanami—Births of Deities and Islands—The
Dragons of Japan—The Wani—Bear, Horse, and other
Dragons—Horse-sacrifice in Japan—Buddhist Elements in Japanese
Dragon Lore—Indian Nagas—Chinese Dragons and Japanese Water-Snakes.
There is no Shinto myth regarding the creation of man; the Mikados and
the chiefs of tribes were descendants of deities. Nor is there a Deluge
Myth like the Ainu one, involving the destruction of all but a remnant
of mankind. The Chinese story about Nu Kwa, known to the Japanese as
Jokwa, was apparently imported with the beliefs associated with the
jade which that mythical queen or goddess was supposed to have created
after she had caused the flood to retreat, but it does not find a place
in the ancient Shinto books. There is, however, an interesting version
of the Egyptian flood story which has been fused with the Babylonian
Tiamat dragon-slaying myth. Susa-no-wo, [567] a Far Eastern Marduk,
slays an eight-headed dragon and splits up its body, from which he
takes a spirit-sword—an avatar of the monster.
Hathor-Sekhet, of the Egyptian myth, was made drunk, so that she might
cease from slaying mankind, and a flood of blood-red beer was poured
from jars for that purpose. Susa-no-wo provides sake (rice beer) to
intoxicate the dragon which has been coming regularly—apparently once a
year—for a daughter of an earth god. When he slays it, the River Hi is
“changed into a river of blood”.
Another version of the Egyptian myth, as the Pyramid Texts bear
evidence, appears to refer to the “Red Nile” of the inundation season
as the blood of Osiris, who had been felled by Set at Nedyt, near
Abydos. [568] Lucian tells that the blood of Adonis was similarly
believed to redden each year the flooded River of Adonis, flowing from
Lebanon, and that “it dyed the sea to a large space red”. [569] Here
Adonis is the Osiris of the Byblians. Osiris, as we have seen, had a
dragon form; he was the dragon of the Nile flood, and the
world-surrounding dragon of ocean. [570] He was also the earth-giant;
tree and grain grew from his body. [571] The body of the eight-headed
Japanese dragon was covered with moss and trees.
Susa-no-wo, as the rescuer of the doomed maiden, links with Perseus,
the rescuer of Andromeda from the water-dragon. [572] The custom of
sacrificing a maiden to the Nile each year obtained in Ancient Egypt.
In the Tiamat form of the Babylonian myth, Marduk cut the channels of
the dragon’s blood and “made the north wind bear it away into secret
places”. [573] The stories of Pʼan Ku of China and the Scandinavian
Ymir, each of whose blood is the sea, are interesting variants of the
legend. [574]
The Japanese dragon-flood myth is merely an incident in the career of a
hero in Shinto mythology, which is a mosaic of local or localized and
imported stories, somewhat clumsily arranged in the form of a connected
narrative.
Our chief sources of information regarding these ancient Japanese myths
are the Shinto works, the Ko-ji-ki and the Nihon-gi. [575] Of these
works, the Ko-ji-ki (“Records of Ancient Matters”) is the oldest; it
was completed in Japanese in A.D. 712; the Nihon-gi (“Chronicles of
Japan”) was completed in A.D. 720 in the Chinese language.
Although the myths, formerly handed down orally by generations of
priests, were not collected and systematized until about 200 years
after Buddhism was introduced into Japan, they were not greatly
influenced by Indian ideas. Dragon-lore, however, became so complex
that it is difficult to sift the local from the imported elements.
In the preface to the Ko-ji-ki, Yasumaro, the compiler, in his summary,
writes:
“Now when chaos had begun to condense, but force and form were not
yet manifest, and there was nought named, nought done, who could
know its shape? Nevertheless Heaven and Earth first parted, and the
Three Deities performed the commencement of Creation; the Passive
and Active Essences then developed, and the Two Spirits became the
Ancestors of all things.”
The myth of the separation of Heaven and Earth dates back to remote
antiquity in Egypt. Shu, the atmosphere-god, separated the sky-goddess
Nut from the earth-god Seb. In Polynesian mythology Rangi (Heaven), and
Papa (Earth), from whom “all things originated”, were “rent apart” by
Tane-mahuta, “the god and father of forests, of birds, of insects”. But
in this case the earth is the mother and the sky the father. [576]
About the “Three Deities” referred to by Yasumaro, we do not learn
much. The idea of the trinity may have been of Indian origin. The
Passive and Active Essences recall the male Yang and its female Yin
principles of China. These are represented in the Ko-ji-ki by Izanagi
(“Male who Invites”) and Izanami (“Female who Invites”).
Dr. Aston translates the opening passage of the Nihon-gi as follows:
“Of old, Heaven and Earth were not yet separated, and the In and
the Yo not yet divided. They formed a chaotic mass like an egg,
which was of obscurely defined limits, and contained germs. The
purer and clearer part was thinly diffused and formed Heaven, while
the heavier and grosser element settled down and became Earth. The
finer element easily became a united body, but the consolidation of
the heavy and gross element was accomplished with difficulty.
Heaven was therefore formed first, and Earth established
subsequently. Thereafter divine beings were produced between them.”
Here we meet with the cosmic egg, from which emerged the Chinese Pʼan
Ku, the Indian Brahma, the Egyptian Ra or Horus, and one of the
Polynesian creators. It might be held that China is the source of the
Japanese myth, because the In and the Yo are here, quite evidently the
Yang and the Yin, representing not Izanagi and Izanami as in the
Ko-ji-ki, but the deities of heaven and earth. But the Ko-ji-ki form of
the myth may be the oldest, and we may have in the Nihon-gi evidence of
Chinese ideas having been superimposed on those already obtaining in
Japan, into which they were imported from other areas.
But to return to the Creation myth. An ancient native work, the
Kiu-ji-ki, which has not yet been translated into English, refers to
seven generations of gods, beginning with one of doubtful sex, in whose
untranslatable name the sun, moon, earth, and moisture are mentioned.
This First Parent of the deities was the offspring of Heaven and Earth.
The last couple is Izanagi and Izanami, brother and sister, like Osiris
and Isis, who became man and wife.
According to the Ko-ji-ki the first three deities came into being in
Takama-no-hara, the “Plain of High Heaven”. They were alone, and
afterwards disappeared, i.e. died. The narrative continues: “The names
of the deities that were born next from a thing that sprouted up like
unto a reed-shoot when the earth, young and like unto floating oil,
drifted about medusa-like, [577] were the
Pleasant-Reed-Shoot-Prince-Elder-Deity, next the
Heavenly-Eternally-Standing-Deity. These two Deities were likewise born
alone, and hid their persons.” [578] Earth and mud deities followed,
and also the other deities who were before Izanagi and Izanami.
It may be that the “reed-shoot” was the Japanese nig-gil-ma. (See
Chapter XIII.) As in one of the early Sumerian texts, the mysterious
plant, impregnated with preserving and perpetuating “life substance”,
was the second product of Creation.
Izanagi and Izanami were told by the elder deities that they must
“make, consolidate, and give birth to this drifting land”. They were
then given the Ame no tama-boko, the “Celestial Jewel-spear”. It is
suggested that the spear is a phallic symbol. The jewel (tama) is “life
substance”. Izanagi and Izanami stood on “the floating bridge of
heaven”, which Aston identifies with the rainbow, or, as some Japanese
scholars put it, the “Heavenly Rock Boat”, or “Heavenly Stairs”, and
pushed down the tama-boko and groped with it until they found the
ocean. According to the Ko-ji-ki, they “stirred the brine until it went
curdle-curdle (koworo-koworo)”, that is, as Chamberlain suggests,
“thick and glutinous”. Others think the passage should be translated so
as to indicate that the brine gave forth “a curdling sound”. When the
primæval waters and the oily mud began to “curdle” or “cook”, the
deities drew up the spear. Some of the cosmic “porridge” dropped from
the point and formed an island, which was named Onogoro
(“self-curdling”, or “self-condensed”). The deities descended from
heaven and erected on the island an eight-fathom house [579] with a
central pillar. Here we meet with the aniconic pillar, the “herm” of
Kamschatkan religion, the pillar of the Vedic world-house erected by
the Aryo-Indian god Indra, the “branstock” of Scandinavian religion,
the pillar of the “Lion Gate” of Mycenæ; the “pillar” is the “world
spine”, like the Indian Mount Meru. [580] “The central pillar of a
house (corresponding to our king-post) is,” writes Dr. Aston, “at the
present day, an object of honour in Japan as in many other countries.
In the case of Shinto shrines, it is called Nakago no mibashira
(‘central august pillar’), and in ordinary houses the Daikoku-bashira.”
[581]
Izanagi and Izanami become man and wife by performing the ceremony of
going round the pillar and meeting one another face to face. Their
first-born is Hiruko (leech-child). At the age of three he was still
unable to stand upright, and was in consequence placed in a reed boat
and set adrift on the ocean.
Here we have what appears to be a version of the Moses story. The
Indian Karna, who is similarly set adrift, was a son of Surya, god of
the sun. The Egyptian Horus was concealed after birth on a floating
island, and he was originally a solar deity with a star form. [582] Ra,
the Egyptian sun-god, drifted across the heavens on reed floats before
he was given a boat. Osiris was, after death, set adrift in a chest.
When the Egyptians paid more attention to the constellations than they
did in the early period of their history, they placed in the
constellation of Argo the god Osiris in a chest or boat. In the Greek
period Canopus, the chief star of the constellation of Argo, is the
child Horus in his boat. Horus was a reincarnation of Osiris. The
Babylonian Ea originally came to Eridu in a boat, which became
transformed into a fish-man. As the sign for a god was a star, Ea was
apparently supposed to have come from one. Lockyer refers to Egyptian
and Babylonian temples, which were “oriented to Canopus”. [583]
Sun-gods were the offspring of the mother-star, or their own souls were
stars by night. “Hiruko,” says Aston, “is in reality simply a masculine
form of Hirume, the sun female.” [584] The sun and moon had not,
however, come into existence when he was set adrift, and it may be that
as the “leech-child” he was a star. He became identified in time with
Ebisu (or Yebisu), god of fishermen, and one of the gods of luck.
Izanagi and Izanami had subsequently as children the eight islands of
Japan, and although other islands came into existence later, Japan was
called “Land-of-the-Eight-great-Islands” (Oho-ya-shima-kuni). “When,”
continues the Ko-ji-ki, “they (Izanagi and Izanami) had finished giving
birth to countries they began afresh, giving birth to deities (kami).”
These included “Heavenly-Blowing Male”, “Youth of the Wind”, the
sea-kami, “Great-Ocean-Possessor”, “Foam Calm”, “Foam Waves”,
“Heavenly-Water-Divider”, or “Water-Distributor”
(Ame-no-mi-kumari-no-kami), and the deities of mountains, passes, and
valleys.
According to the Nihon-gi, the gods of the sea to whom Izanagi and
Izanami gave birth are called Watatsumi, which means “sea children”,
or, as Florenz translates it, “Lords of the Sea”. Wata, so like our
“water”, is “an old word for sea”. It is probable that, as De Visser
says, “the old Japanese sea-gods were snakes or dragons”. [585]
In the Ko-ji-ki two groups of eight deities are followed by “the Deity
Bird’s-Rock-Camphor-Tree-Boat”, another name for this kami being
“Heavenly Bird-Boat”. Then came the food-goddess, “Deity
Princess-of-Great-Food”. She was followed by the fire-god, kagu-tsuchi.
This deity caused the death of his mother Izanami, having burned her at
birth so severely that she sickened and “lay down”. Before she died, an
interesting group of deities, making a total of eight from “Heavenly
Bird-Boat” to the last named, “Luxuriant Food Princess”, came into
being. From her vomit sprang “Metal-Mountain Prince” and
“Metal-Mountain Princess”; from her fæces came “Clay Prince” and “Clay
Princess” (earth deities); and from her urine crept forth Mitsu-ha
no-Me, which Japanese commentators explain as “Female-Water-snake”, or
“The Woman who produces the Water”. In the first rendering ha is
regarded as meaning “snake” (dragon), and in the second as “to
produce”. Neither Florenz nor De Visser can decide which explanation is
correct. [586] The dragon was, of course, a water-producer, or
water-controller, or a “water-confiner”, who was forced to release the
waters, like the “drought demon”, slain by the Aryo-Indian god Indra,
and the water-confiner of the Nile, whose blood reddened the river
during inundation.
When Izanami died, the heart of Izanagi was filled with wrath and
grief. Drawing his big sabre, he, according to the Ko-ji-ki, cut off
the head of the fire-god; or, as the Nihon-gi tells, cut him into three
pieces, each of which became a god. Other gods sprang from the pieces,
from the blood drops that bespattered the rocks, the blood that clung
to the upper part of the sabre, and the blood that leaked out between
the fingers of Izanagi.
According to the Nihon-gi, the blood dripping from the upper part of
the sword became the gods Kura-okami, Kura-yama-tsumi, and
Kura-mitsu-ha. The meaning of the character kura is “dark”, and
Professor Florenz explains it as “abyss, valley, cleft”, [587] and
notes that okami means “rain” and “dragon”. According to De Visser,
Kura-okami is a dragon- or snake-god who controls rain and snow, and
had Shinto temples “in all provinces”. Another reading in the Nihon-gi
states that one of the three gods who came into being from the pieces
of the fire-god’s body was Taka-okami, a name which, according to a
Japanese commentator, means “the dragon-god residing on the mountains”,
while Kura-okami means “the dragon-god of the valleys”. [588] The
second god born from the blood drops from the upper part of the sword,
Kura-yama-tsumi, is translated “Lord of the Dark Mountains”, and
“Mountain-snake”; and the third, Kura-mitsu-ha, is “Dark-water-snake”
or “Valley-water-snake”. According to the Ko-ji-ki, the deities
Kura-okami and Kura-mitsu-ha came from the blood that leaked out
between Izanagi’s fingers.
It is of interest to note here that other dragon deities to which
Izanagi and Izanami gave origin, included the mizuchi or “water
fathers”, which are referred to as “horned deities”, “four-legged
dragons”, or “large water-snakes”. As Aston notes, [589] these “water
fathers” had no individual names; they were prayed to for rain in times
of drought. Another sea-dragon child of the great couple was the wani,
which appears to have been a combination of crocodile and shark. Aston
thinks that wani is a Korean word. De Visser, on the other hand, is of
opinion that the wani is the old Japanese dragon-god or sea-god, and
that the legend about the Abundant Pearl Princess (Toyo-tama-bime)
[590] who had a human lover and, like Melusina, transformed herself
from human shape into that of a wani (Ko-ji-ki) or a dragon (Nihon-gi),
was originally a Japanese serpent-dragon, which was “dressed in Indian
garb by later generations”. [591] Florenz, the German Orientalist,
thinks the legend is of Chinese origin, but a similar one is found in
Indonesia. “Wani,” De Visser says, “may be an Indonesian word,” and it
is possible, as he suggests, that “foreign invaders, who in prehistoric
times conquered Japan, came from Indonesia and brought the myth with
them.” [592]
There is a reference in the Nihon-gi (Chapter I) to a “bear-wani, eight
fathoms long”, and it has been suggested that “bear” means here nothing
more than “strong”. [593] The Ainu, however, as we have seen (Chapter
XVII), associated bear and dragon deities; the bear-goddess was the
wife of the dragon-god, and that goddess had, like the Abundant Pearl
Princess, a human lover. “Bear-wani” may therefore have been a
bear-dragon. There was a dragon-horse “with a long neck and wings at
its sides”, which flew through the air, and did not sink when it trod
upon the water, [594] and there were withal Japanese crow-dragons,
toad-dragons, fish-dragons, and lizard-dragons.
The horse played as prominent a part in Japanese rain-getting and
rain-stopping ceremonies as did the bear among the Ainu. White, black,
or red horses were offered to bring rain, but red horses alone were
sacrificed to stop rain. Like the Buriats of Siberia and the
Aryo-Indians of the Vedic period, the Japanese made use of the
domesticated horse at the dawn of their history. No doubt it was
imported from Korea. There is evidence that at an early period human
beings were sacrificed to the Japanese dragon-gods of rivers, lakes,
and pools. Human sacrifices at tombs are also referred to. In the
Nihon-gi, under the legendary date 2 B.C., it is related that when a
Mikado died his personal attendants were buried alive in an upright
position beside his tomb. [595]
In his notable work on the dragon, M. W. de Visser [596] shows that the
Chinese ideas regarding their four-legged dragon and Indian Buddhist
ideas regarding nagas were introduced into Japan and fused with local
ideas regarding serpent-shaped water-gods. The foreign elements added
to ancient Japanese legends have, as has been indicated, made their
original form obscure. In the dragon place-names of Japan, however, it
is still possible to trace the locations of the ancient Shinto gods who
were mostly serpent-shaped. An ancient name for a Japanese dragon is
Tatsu. De Visser notes that Tatsu no Kuchi (“Dragon’s mouth”) is a
common place-name. It is given to a hot spring in the Nomi district, to
a waterfall in Kojimachi district, to a hill in Kamakura district,
where criminals were put to death, and to mountains, &c., elsewhere.
Tatsu ga hana (“Dragon’s nose”) is in Taga district; Tatsukushi
(“Dragon’s skewer”) is a rock in Tosa province; and so on. Chinese and
Indian dragons are in Japanese place-names “ryu” or “ryo”. These
include Ryo-ga-mine (“Dragon’s peak”) in Higo; Ryu-ga-take (“Dragon’s
peak”) in Ise; Ryu-kan-gawa (“Dragon’s rest river”) in Tokyo, &c.
The worship of the Water Fathers or Dragons in Japan was necessary so
as to ensure the food-supply.
CHAPTER XIX
RIVAL DEITIES OF LIFE AND DEATH, SUNSHINE AND STORM
Izanagi visits Hades—Origin of Thunder Deities—The Flight from
Hades—Japanese Version of the “Far-travelled Tale”—The Sacred Peach
Tree—Izanami as Goddess of Death—Births of Sun and Moon from Eyes
of Izanagi—The Sun-goddess’s Necklace—Susa-no-wo as “Impetuous Male
Deity”—Connection with Typhoon and Rain—A Japanese Indra—Vitalizing
and Blighting Tears of Deities—Deities Born from Jewels and
Sword—The Harrying of Heaven—Flight of Sun-goddess—How Light was
Restored—The Sacred Mirror—Banishment of Susa-no-wo.
After Izanagi had slain his son, the fire-god, and brought into being
new gods, including dragons, he was seized with longing to see Izanami
once more. Accordingly he set out to find her in Yomi (“Yellow
stream”), the dark Hades of the Underworld. “The orthodox Japanese
derivation of Yomi,” says Chamberlain, “is from yoru, ‘night’, which
would give us for Yomo-tsu-kuni some such rendering as ‘Land of
Gloom’.” Another view is that “Yomi” is a mispronunciation of “Yama”,
the name of the Aryo-Indian god of death. [597]
When Izanagi reached the gloomy dwelling of his sister, she raised the
door, and he spoke to her, saying: “Thine Augustness, my lovely young
sister! the lands that I and you made are not yet finished; so come
back”. She replied out of the darkness: “It is sorrowful that you did
not come hither sooner, for I have eaten of the food of Yomi.
Nevertheless, it is my desire to return. I will therefore speak with
the kami of Yomi.” [598] She added in warning, “Look not at me!”
Izanami then went back to the place she had come from. She tarried
there for so long a time that Izanagi grew impatient. At length he felt
he could not wait any longer, so he broke off the end tooth of his
hair-comb, which is called the “male pillar”, and thus made a light,
and entered. [599] He found his sister. Her body was rotting, and
maggots swarmed over it. The Ko-ji-ki proceeds:
“In her head dwelt the Great Thunder, in her breast dwelt the Fire
Thunder, in her belly dwelt the Black Thunder, in her private parts
dwelt the Cleaving Thunder, in her left hand dwelt the Young
Thunder, in her right hand dwelt the Earth Thunder, in her left
foot dwelt the Rumbling Thunder, in her right foot dwelt the
Couchant Thunder; altogether eight thunder deities had been born
and dwelt there.”
Horrified at the spectacle, Izanagi drew back suddenly; whereupon his
sister exclaimed, “You have put me to shame!” and became angry.
Here Izanagi has broken a taboo, as did the Japanese youth who married
the dragon-maid, Abundant Pearl Princess, and as did the husband of
Melusina in the French legend. It was an ancient custom in Japan to
erect “parturition houses”. These were one-roomed huts to which women
retired so as to give birth to children unseen. Ernest Satow tells that
on the island of Hachijo, until comparatively recent times, “women,
when about to become mothers, were ... driven out to the huts on the
mountain-side, and according to the accounts of native writers, left to
shift for themselves, the result not infrequently being the death of
the new-born infant”. [600] It was taboo for a man to enter a
“parturition house”. Apparently Izanami had retired to a “parturition
house” in Yomi.
Enraged against Izanagi, because he had put her to shame, Izanami
commanded the Ugly Females of Yomi to pursue and slay him.
At this point in the mythical narrative begins a version of the
widespread folk-story about the young man who makes escape from his
enemy or enemies, and in the course of his flight throws down articles
that are transformed into obstacles, or into things which tempt the
pursuers to tarry and eat. [601]
The first article that Izanagi cast down behind him was his wreath or
head-dress, which was instantly turned into grapes. This is according
to the Ko-ji-ki; the Nihon-gi makes the head-dress the second obstacle.
His pursuer (Ko-ji-ki) or pursuers (Nihon-gi), having devoured the
grapes, resumed the chase. Then Izanagi, as he fled, broke his
hair-comb and threw it down; it instantly turned into bamboo sprouts.
While these were being pulled up and eaten, he continued his flight.
The Ko-ji-ki (but not the Nihon-gi) here introduces another set of
pursuers. Izanami, finding that her brother had outwitted the Ugly
Female (or Females), “sent the eight Thunder-Deities with a thousand
and five hundred warriors of Hades to pursue him. Izanagi, drawing the
ten-grasp sabre that was augustly girded on him, fled forward,
brandishing it in his back hand (brandishing it behind him); and as the
demons still continued to pursue him, he took, on reaching the base of
the Even Pass of Hades, [602] three peaches that were growing at its
base, and waited and smote (his pursuers therewith) so that they all
fled back.” [603]
Having thus rid himself of his pursuers, Izanagi addressed the peaches,
saying: “As you have helped me, so must ye help all living people in
the Central Land of Reed-Plains, when they are troubled and harassed”.
Here we have not only a native name of China (“Land of Reed-Plains”)
applied to Japan, but also the sacred Chinese peach, a symbol of the
Great Mother, the Western Queen of Immortals (Si Wang Fu). The story of
a hero’s flight from the Underworld has not survived in China, if ever
it existed there. It is, however, found in the myths of Scandinavia.
In the Nihon-gi (Aston) the comment is added to the peach incident:
“This was the origin of the custom of exorcising evil spirits by means
of peaches”.
The peach, like the bean, was in Japan a symbol of the mother-goddess,
as was the shell in Egypt and the pig-shell in Greece.
Izanami herself was the last to pursue Izanagi. When he saw her coming,
Izanagi blocked up the Pass of Yomi with a huge boulder of rock, which
it would take a thousand men to lift, and he stood on one side of it,
while she stood on the other to “exchange leave-takings” (Ko-ji-ki), or
to pronounce the formula of divorce (Nihon-gi).
In the Ko-ji-ki Izanami threatens to slay a thousand inhabitants in the
land of the living, but Izanagi retorts that he will arrange for the
birth of one thousand and five hundred, so that the number born may
exceed the number who must die.
Izanami became thereafter Yomo-tsu-oho-kami (Yomi’s Great Deity). [604]
The rock which blocks the Pass of Yomi became the
“Great-Deity-of-the-Road-Turning-back”.
In the Nihon-gi (Aston’s translation) it is related that Izanagi flung
down various articles on leaving Hades, as the goddess Ishtar in
Babylonian mythology flung down her clothing and ornaments on entering
the dread abode of Erish-ki-gal (Persephone). Having pronounced the
divorce formula:
“He also said, ‘Come no farther’, and threw down his staff, which
was called Funando-no-kami (pass-not-place-deity), or
Kunado-no-kami (come-not-place-deity). Moreover, he threw down his
girdle, which was called Nagachiha-no-kami. Moreover, he threw down
his upper garment, which was called Wadzurahi-no-kami (god of
disease). Moreover, he threw down his trousers, which were called
Aki-guhi-no-kami. Moreover, he threw down his shoes, which were
called Chi-shiki-no-kami.”
On returning to the land of the living, Izanagi exclaimed: “I have come
from a hideous and polluted place. I will therefore perform the
purification of my august body.”
He went to bathe at a river mouth on a plain covered with bush-clover,
beside a grove of orange trees confronting the sun. It is here,
according to the Ko-ji-ki, that he flings down his staff and the
various articles of clothing that are transformed into deities. Two
evil deities were born from the filth of Hades that fell from his
person when he entered the water. He dived, and three sea-gods came
into being. He washed his left eye, and thus gave origin to the goddess
of the sun, Ama-terâsu-oho-mi-kami (The
Heaven-Shining-Great-August-Deity). He washed his right eye, and there
came into being the god of the moon, Tsuki-yomi-no-kami
(Moon-Night-Possessor). He washed his nose, and from it was born
Take-haya-susa-no-wu-no-mikoto [605]
(His-Brave-Swift-Impetuous-Male-Augustness).
Izanagi took off his necklace of jewels or beads (tama), and, shaking
it so that the beads jingled, bestowed it on Ama-terâsu, the sun kami
or goddess, and set her to rule the “Plain of High Heaven”. He
commanded the moon-god to rule the night, and Susa-no-wo to rule the
“Sea Plain”.
“At this point,” as Chamberlain says, “the story loses its unity. The
moon-goddess is no more heard of, and the traditions concerning the
sun-goddess diverge from those concerning the ‘Impetuous-Male-Deity’ in
a manner which is productive of inconsistencies in the rest of the
mythology.” [606]
Chamberlain translates Susa-no-wo as “Impetuous-Male-Deity”, connecting
his name with susama, “to be impetuous”. But, as Aston points out, the
implied noun susa, “impetuosity”, does not exist. There is, however, a
town named Susa in Idzumo, [607] with which area the legends regarding
the god are specially associated. Susa-no-wo may therefore have been
simply “the god of Susa”. Aston, following Dr. Buckley, Chicago,
regards him as a personification of the rain-storm. Japanese writers,
on the other hand, have connected him with Godzu Tenno, an Indian Hades
deity, and with the moon-god, or regarded him as a war-god, while some
European scholars have referred to him as a “rotating-heavens god”.
Having been born from the nose of Izanagi, we should expect Susa-no-wo
to have a connection with wind and “the air of life”, as well as with
rain and the sea. It is of special interest to note in this connection
that, as Aston says, [608] “Japan is annually visited by destructive
typhoons, accompanied by great darkness and a terrific downpour of
rain”. Susa-no-wo is “continually weeping, wailing, and fuming with
rage”, and is “a lover of destruction”, and he is associated with Yomi,
the habitation of the deities that work evil against mankind.
Susa-no-wo may be the Japanese Indra, who brings rain. Japanese
wind-gods were givers of rain, as well as wind. [609] Like Indra,
Susa-no-wo is a dragon-slayer. A festival “celebrated in his honour at
Onomochi in Bingo” is described by a Japanese writer in these words:
[610]
“The procession is a tumultuous trial of speed and strength. Bands
of strong men seize the sacred cars, race with them to the sea, and
having plunged in breast-deep, their burden held aloft, dash back
at full speed to the shrine. There refreshments are served out, and
then the race is resumed, the goal being the central flag among a
number set up in a large plain. Their feet beat time to a wildly
shouted chorus, and they sweep along wholly regardless of obstacles
or collisions.”
Indra, with Agni, the fire-god, was the winner in a race of the gods;
he links with Vayu or Vata, the wind-god, and he wages war against the
Danavas, the demons of ocean. [611]
In China dragon-boat races were held so as to cause rain. Imitation
boats were likewise carried through the streets to the seashore, and
there burned so as to take away evil influences. The boats represented
fighting dragons, and these were rain-bringers. The Japanese imitated
these Chinese customs, but not, however, until about the eleventh
century. [612]
As a trickster among the gods, Susa-no-wo bears some resemblance to the
Scandinavian Loki; he is, like that deity, an ally of the powers of
darkness and destruction, and he similarly suffers banishment from the
celestial land. Susa-no-wo also recalls Nergal, the Babylonian
warrior-god, who conquered Hades, and was “the death spreader”
(Mushtabarrû-mûtanu).
The deities of the sun and moon proceeded to rule the day and the night
as commanded by their parent Izanagi, but Susa-no-wo did not depart to
the ocean, which had been committed to his charge; instead, he cried
and wept until his eight-grasp beard reached the pit of his stomach.
Says the Ko-ji-ki:
“The fashion of his weeping was such as by his weeping to dry up
all the rivers and seas. For this reason the sound of bad deities
was like unto the flies of the fifth moon as they all swarmed, and
in all things every portent of woe arose.”
The reference to the god’s tears causing the green mountains to wither
and the waters to dry up has greatly perplexed Japanese commentators.
But there are statements in Asian and American mythologies regarding
“evil” or “poisonous rain” distributed, to the injury of vegetation, by
dragons that may be sick or badly disposed towards mankind. De Visser
refers to a Buddhist legend about a poisonous Naga that guarded a big
tree and killed all those who took a branch from it; when angry it sent
thunder and rain. [613] Central Asian legends tell that evil rains were
sent out of season by disturbed and enraged dragons. A Chinese story
tells of a sick dragon that, having been roused by prayers, gave “a
badly-smelling rain which would have spoiled the crops if a diviner had
not discovered it in time and cured the dragon at the latter’s
request”. Thereupon a fertilizing rain fell and a very clear spring
dashed forth from a rock. [614]
In Ancient Egypt the deities wept vitalizing tears (see Index). Ra’s
tears gave life to gods and men, the tears of the god Shu and the
goddess Tefnut became incense-bearing trees. The tears of Osiris and
Isis caused life-giving herbs, &c., to grow, but the tears shed on the
world by the evil Set and his partisans produced poisonous plants. When
deities were enraged, their saliva, sweat, and blood on touching the
earth germinated and produced poisonous plants, scorpions, serpents,
&c. [615]
The Chinese Buddhists believed in a Naga that, by means of a single
drop of water, could give rain to one or two kingdoms, and even prevent
the sea from drying up. [616] Similarly a single tear from Isis-Hathor,
as the star Sirius, that fell on the “Night of the Drop”, caused the
Nile to rise in flood.
The blighting and ocean-drying tears of Susa-no-wo were evidently those
of an evil or angry deity, or of one who was sick with sorrow.
Izanagi, beholding the ocean-ruler in tears, asked him why he wailed
and wept.
Susa-no-wo made answer: “I wail because I wish to depart to the land of
my dead mother (Izanami) in the Nether-Distant Land (Yomi, i.e.
Hades)”.
Izanagi was very angry, and said: “If that be so, you shall not dwell
in the ocean domain”. He then banished Susa-no-wo to Afumi. [617]
Susa-no-wo made answer that he would first take leave of his sister,
Ama-terâsu, goddess of the sun. He rose in the air, as does a
thunder-bringing dragon. Says the Ko-ji-ki:
“(With these words) he forthwith went up to Heaven, whereupon all
the mountains shook, and every land and country quaked. So
Ama-terâsu, alarmed at the noise, said: ‘The reason of the ascent
hither of His Augustness my elder brother [618] is surely no good
intent. It is only that he wishes to wrest my land from me.’” [619]
The goddess unbound her hair, twisted it into bunches, put on her
string of five hundred curved jewels (maga-tama, i.e. claw-shaped),
[620] and armed herself with bow and arrows. She stood “valiantly like
unto a mighty man”, and asked her brother why he had ascended.
Susa-no-wo declared he had no evil intention, and she asked him to give
proof of his sincerity and goodwill. He proposed that they should
pledge their faith and produce children. To this she consented, and
they “swore to each other from the opposite banks of the Tranquil River
of Heaven”. [621]
Ama-terâsu asked Susa-no-wo for his sword. He gave it to her and she
broke it into three pieces. She then made a jingling sound with her
jewels, brandished and washed them in the True-Pool-Well of Heaven
[622] and “crunchingly crunched them”. Then from the mist (of her
breath) were born the deities Torrent-Mist-Princess,
Lovely-Island-Princess, and Princess-of-the-Torrent.
Susa-no-wo then asked for and obtained from Ama-terâsu the string of
five hundred curved jewels [623] which was twisted in the left bunch of
her hair. He made a jingling sound with the jewels, washed them in the
Pool, and, having crunched them, “blew them away”. From his breath were
born the god
“Truly-Conqueror-I-Conquer-Conquering-Swift-Heavenly-Great-Great-Ears”,
the god Ame-no-hohi, [624] the god “Prince-Lord of Heaven”, the god
“Prince-Lord of Life”, and the god of Kumano. In all eight
deities—three goddesses and five gods—were born.
From these deities the Japanese noble families have claimed descent.
The Mikados were supposed to be descended from the Conquering God with
Great Ears (Masa-ya-a-katsu-kachi-haya-hi-ama-no-oshi-ho-mi-mi).
Another myth makes the Mikado a descendant of the sun-goddess and
Taka-mi-musubi (the High, August God of Birth and Growth), who, in a
sense, is a Japanese Osiris. He has been compared to the Hindu god
Shiva. Aston says that “musubi” is “the abstract process of growth
personified—that is, a power immanent in nature and not external to
it”. [625] Breasted similarly regards Osiris as “the imperishable
principle of life wherever found”. [626] Shiva, as “the fructifying
principle”, is represented by the phallus. It is believed that this
symbol was the “shintai” (god body) of Musubi. [627]
After the three goddesses and five gods had come into being, Susa-no-wo
declared, “I have undoubtedly gained the victory”. He then proceeded to
harry the celestial regions. He broke down the divisions of the
rice-fields, filled up the ditches, and fouled with excrement and urine
the palace in which the goddess took food. He became even more violent.
Having broken open a hole in the sacred house in which sat Ama-terâsu
superintending the weaving of the garments of deities, he let fall into
it a heavenly piebald horse that had been flayed backwards (a criminal
offence). The celestial female weavers were terrified.
Alarmed by Susa-no-wo’s doings, the sun-goddess entered her cave, the
Heavenly Rock Dwelling, [628] shut the door and made it fast. All the
land became dark.
Then the eight hundred myriad deities took counsel, sitting in the bed
of the River of Heaven, so as to plan how they could entice the
sun-goddess from her hiding-place. They made the cocks (“the
long-singing birds of eternal night”) to crow loud, they caused the
Heavenly Smith to shape a mirror of iron (the “true metal”) from the
Heavenly Metal-Mountains (the mines), and charged the Jewel-Ancestor
(Tama-noya-no-mikoto) to make a complete string of five hundred curved
jewels. A tree was then taken from the celestial Mount Kagu [629] and
on it were hung the mirror, the jewel, cherry bark, and other
offerings. The ritual was recited, and thereafter Ama-no-Uzume (the
Dread Celestial Female), wearing metal head-gear (flowers of gold and
silver) and a sash of club-moss from the celestial mountain, and
holding in her hands a posy of bamboo grass, danced on a tub [630]
until the eight hundred myriad deities laughed. Wondering to hear
sounds of merriment, instead of sounds of woe, the sun-goddess opened
the door of her cave a little and asked why they all laughed. She was
told that the deities rejoiced because they had among them a more
august goddess than herself.
One of the gods then held up the mirror, and the sun-goddess was
astonished to behold a bright deity, not knowing it was her reflected
image, and gradually came forth, fascinated by her own beauty and
brightness. A strong deity took her hand and drew her out while another
deity, Grand Jewel, drew a straw rope behind her so as to prevent her
retreating. [631] In this manner the sun-goddess was enticed to return
and light up the world.
The second expulsion of Susa-no-wo followed. He was fined an immense
fine of table-offerings, his beard was shorn, and his finger and toe
nails were drawn out.
According to the Ko-ji-ki, he begged for food from the food-goddess.
She took “dainty things” from various parts of her body which he
regarded as filth, so he slew her. Then from her head “were born
silk-worms, in her two eyes were born rice-seeds, in her two ears were
born millet, in her nose were born small beans, in her private parts
were born barley, in her fundament were born large beans”. These were
used as seeds. According to the Nihon-gi, they were sown “in the narrow
fields and in the long fields of Heaven”.
The reason for keeping the mirror and jewels (tama) in the shrine of
Ise, and for worshipping the sun-goddess and the food-goddess there,
are thus explained in Shinto mythology. Virgin priestesses danced at
religious ceremonies as did the tub-thumping goddess, and offerings
were suspended from trees as in the celestial regions, while the straw
rope was utilized to keep back demons and to ensure the rising of the
sun by preventing the retreat of the sun-goddess.
The finding of the dragon-sword is dealt with in the next mythical
story.
CHAPTER XX
THE DRAGON-SLAYER AND HIS RIVAL
The Eight-headed Dragon—Sacrifices of Maidens—How the Dragon was
intoxicated and slain—Finding of the Dragon-sword—The Nuptial
House—Adventures of Ohonamochi—The Jealous Brothers—Flight of
Ohonamochi to Hades—Susa-no-wo as Giant-god of Hades—Princess
Forward—Far Eastern Version of Jack-and-the-Beanstalk Story—The
Life-sword, Life-bow and arrows, &c.—Ohonamochi’s Conquest of
Japan—A Japanese Odin—Another Creation Myth—The Elfin Deity in Bird
Skins—A Shining Sea-god.
After Susa-no-wo had been banished from heaven, he descended on
Tori-kami, beside the river Hi, in the province of Idzumo. A chopstick
came floating down the river, so he knew that people were dwelling
near, and he set out to search for them. He soon met an old man and an
old woman who were weeping bitterly; between them walked a lovely
maiden.
“Who are you?” asked Susa-no-wo.
The old man made answer: “I am a god of earth, son of a mountain god,
and my name is Ashi-na-dzu-chi (‘foot-stroker’); this woman is my wife,
and her name is Te-na-dzu-chi (‘hand stroker’); the maiden is my
daughter Kush-inada-hime (‘Miraculous-rice-field-sun-maiden’).”
“Why do you weep?” asked Susa-no-wo.
Said the old man: “I have had eight daughters, but each year the
eight-forked serpent (dragon) of Koshi has come and devoured one after
the other. I weep now because the time is at hand to give
Kush-inada-hime to the serpent.”
“What is the serpent like?”
“Its eyes are red as the winter cherry [632]; it has a body with eight
heads and eight tails, and on its body grow moss and trees. It is so
long that it stretches over eight valleys and eight hills. Its belly is
constantly bloody and inflamed.” [633]
“If this maiden is your daughter,” said Susa-no-wo, “will you give her
to me?”
“You honour me,” the old man made answer, “but I do not know your
name.”
“I am the dear brother of the sun-goddess, and have just descended from
heaven.”
“Most obediently do I offer my daughter to you,” the old man said with
reverence.
Susa-no-wo then transformed the girl into a comb, which he placed in
his hair. Having done this, he bade the old couple to brew rice-beer
(sake). They obeyed him, and he asked them to construct a fence with
eight gates and eight benches, and to place on each bench a vat filled
with the beer.
In time the eight-forked serpent came nigh. It dipped each of its heads
into each of the vats, drank the sake, became drunk, and then lay down
and slept. Susa-no-wo drew his two-handed sword, [634] and cut the
serpent in pieces. The Hi River turned red with blood.
When Susa-no-wo cut the middle tail his sword broke. He marvelled at
this. Taking the point of the sword in his hand, he thrust and split,
and looked inside, and found a keen-cutting blade within this tail. He
took it out and sent it to his sister, Ama-terâsu, the sun-goddess.
This sword is the Kusa-nagi-no-tachi (the “herb-quelling”
dragon-sword).
Susa-no-wo afterwards built a house in the land of Idzumo, at a place
called Suga. Clouds rose up from that place. He made an ode regarding
the eight clouds that formed an eight-fold fence for husband and wife
to retire within the house. Then he appointed the maiden’s father to be
keeper, or head-man of the house.
In this nuptial house children were born to Susa-no-wo and the young
woman he had rescued from the dragon. These children included
Oho-toshi-no-kami (Great Harvest deity), Uka-no-mitama (the August
Spirit of Food), and Ohonamochi (“Great Name Possessor”), the god of
Idzumo, [635] who could assume snake form or human form at will.
Ohonamochi and his eighty brothers desired to marry the Princess of
Yakami in Inaba. On their way thither the eighty brothers tricked a
hare, which came by a distressing injury, but Ohonamochi caused it to
be cured. The grateful hare of Inaba, now called “the Hare Deity”,
promised Ohonamochi, who carried the bag as a servant to his brothers,
that he would get the princess for wife.
The princess afterwards refused to marry any of the eighty brothers,
saying she favoured Ohonamochi. Being enraged, the brothers took
counsel together and said to Ohonamochi: “There is a red boar on this
mountain, named Tema, in the land of Hataki. When we drive it down, you
must catch it. If you fail to catch it, we shall certainly slay you.”
[636]
Having thus spoken, the eighty deities kindled a fire, in which they
heated a great boulder, shaped like to a boar. They rolled the stone
down the mountain-side, and when Ohonamochi seized it he was so
grievously burned that he died.
Then his mother wept and lamented, and ascending to heaven, appealed to
Kami-musu-bi-no-kami (Divine-Producing Wondrous-Deity), one of the
elder gods, [637] who sent Kisa-gahi-hime (Princess Cockle-Shell) [638]
and Umugi-hime (Princess Clam) [639] to restore the dead deity to life.
Kisa-gahi-hime “triturated and scorched her shell”, and Umugi-hime
“carried water and smeared him as with mother’s milk”. [640] Thereupon
Ohonamochi came to life as a beautiful young man and walked again.
The eighty deities again deceived Ohonamochi. They led him to the
mountains. There they cut down a tree, which they split, inserting a
wedge in it, and having made him stand in the middle, they took away
the wedge, and thus killed him.
Ohonamochi’s mother again wailed and wept. She cut the tree, and,
taking him out, restored him to life once more. Then he fled to the
Land of Trees, escaping from his pursuers, who had fixed arrows in
their bows, by dipping under the fork of a tree and disappearing. [641]
Ohonamochi was advised to seek refuge in the Nether-Distant-Land
(Hades), where dwelt Susa-no-wo. Princess Forward met him, and they
exchanged glances, and were married. She then informed her father,
Susa-no-wo, that a very beautiful god had arrived. But Susa-no-wo was
angry, and called the youthful deity “Ugly-Male-God-of-Reed-Plain”, and
commanded him to sleep in the snake-house. The Princess Forward gave
Ohonamochi a snake-scarf, instructing him to wave it thrice when the
snakes threatened to bite him. This he did, and was protected. On the
next night Susa-no-wo placed the young god in the house of centipedes
and wasps, but the princess gave him another scarf that protected him
against attack.
Next day Susa-no-wo shot a “humming arrow” [642] into the middle of a
moor, and made Ohonamochi fetch it back. But when the young god went
out on the moor Susa-no-wo set fire to it all round. Ohonamochi could
perceive no way of escape. As he stood there, a mouse [643] came and
told him of a hollow place in which he could shelter himself.
Ohonamochi hastened to the hole and hid in it till the fire had gone
past. Then the mouse discovered and brought the humming arrow to
Ohonamochi. “The feathers of the arrows were brought in their mouths by
all the mouse’s children” (Ko-ji-ki, p. 73). [644]
Princess Forward lamented for her husband, and Susa-no-wo believed he
was dead. But the princess found Ohonamochi, and took him to the house.
He returned the arrow to Susa-no-wo. This god had many centipedes in
his hair, and bade the youth take them out. Ohonamochi made pretence of
doing this, and Susa-no-wo fell asleep.
Then Ohonamochi tied the hair of Susa-no-wo to the rafters, placed a
great boulder against the door, and fled away with Princess Forward on
his back. He carried away, too, Susa-no-wo’s life-sword and life-bow
and arrows, and the heavenly-speaking lute. [645]
As Ohonamochi fled, the lute touched a tree, and the earth resounded
with its call. Susa-no-wo was awakened by the spirit-call. He pulled
down the great house so as to get out, but was so long delayed in
disentangling his hair from the rafters, that when he went in pursuit
he did not get within call of Ohonamochi until he reached the Even Pass
of Yomi (Hades). [646]
Susa-no-wo shouted to Ohonamochi, advising him to pursue the eighty
half-brothers with the life-sword and life-bow and arrows until they
were swept into the river rapids. “Then, wretch,” said he, “become
Oho-kuni-nushi (Great Master god of the land), and make Princess
Forward thy consort. Set up the temple-pillars at the foot of Mount Uka
on foundations of rock and raise the cross-beams to the Plain of High
Heaven. Dwell there, you villain.”
Ohonamochi pursued and destroyed the eighty deities. “Then,” the
narrative continues, “he began to make the land.”
Here we meet with another Creation myth.
Two children were born to Ohonamochi and Princess Forward; these were
Ki-no-mata-no-kami (Tree-fork-deity) and Mi-wi-no-kami (Deity of August
Wells).
Like Odin, Ohonamochi woos in the course of his career more than one
goddess. One of these, the Princess of Nuna-kaha (Lagoon-river), sings
to him:
“Being a man probably (thou) hast on the various island headlands
that thou seest, and on every beach headland that thou lookest on,
a wife like the young herbs. But as for me, alas! being a woman, I
have no man except thee.” [647]
An elfin deity comes across the ocean to assist Ohonamochi to “make and
consolidate the land”. He is named Sukuna-bikona (the Little Prince
god). Attired in bird [648] skins, the little god sailed in a boat of
the heavenly Kagami. [649]
After Little Prince had for a time assisted to consolidate the land, he
crossed over to Toko-yo-no-kuni (the Eternal Land).
Then came a deity illuminating the sea to assist in consolidating the
land. He asked for a temple on Mount Mimoro and was afterwards
worshipped there. He himself passed to the Eternal Land
(Toko-yo-no-kuni), where grows the orange tree of life. [650] The deity
there who revealed Little Prince is called Crumbling Prince; his legs
do not walk, but he knows everything beneath the Heavens. [651]
CHAPTER XXI
ANCIENT MIKADOS AND HEROES
End of Dynasty of Susa-no-wo—Dynasty of Sun-goddess—The First
Emperor of Japan—Mikado as Descendant of the Sea-god, the “Abundant
Pearl Prince”—A Japanese Gilgamesh—Quest of the Orange Tree of
Life—The “Eternal Land”—The Polynesian Paradise and Tree of
Life—Yamato-Take, National Hero of Japan—Conflicts with Gods and
Rebels—Enchantment and Death of Hero—The Bird-soul—Empress
Jingo—Mikado deified as God of War—Shinto Religion and
Nature-worship—The Goddess Cult in Japan—Adoration of the Principle
of Life in Jewels, Trees, Herbs, &c.—Buddhism—Revival of Pure
Shinto—Culture-mixing in China and Japan—China “not a nation”.
Many children were born to Ohonamochi, but the Celestials would not
give recognition to the Dynasty of Susa-no-wo, and resolved that
Ninigi, the august grandchild of the sun-goddess, should rule Japan.
Ohonamochi was deposed, and several deities were sent down from heaven
to pacify the land for the chosen one.
Ninigi’s wife was Konohana-sakuyahime, and two of their children were
Hohodemi, the hunter, and Ho-no-Susori, the fisherman.
It was Hohodemi who wooed and wed the “Abundant Pearl Princess” and
lived with her for a time in the land under the ocean. [652] After she
gave birth to her child, she departed to her own land, deeply offended
because her husband beheld her in dragon (wani) shape in the
parturition house he had built for her on the seashore.
This child was the father of the first Emperor of Japan, Jimmu Tenno.
[653] The Mikados were therefore descended from the sun-goddess
Ama-terâsu and the Dragon-king of Ocean, the “Abundant Pearl Prince”.
When engaged pacifying the land, Jimmu followed a gigantic crow [654]
that had been sent down from heaven to guide him. He possessed a magic
celestial cross-sword and a fire-striker. His two brothers, who
accompanied him on an expedition across the sea, leapt overboard when a
storm was raging so that the waves might be stilled. They were
subsequently worshipped as gods.
Yamato now becomes the centre of the narrative, Idzumo having lost its
former importance.
Jimmu Tenno reigned until he was 127 years of age, dying, according to
Japanese dating, in 585 B.C. His successor was Suisei Tenno. There
follows a blank of 500 years which is bridged by the names of rulers
most of whom had long lives, some reaching over 120 years.
At the beginning of the Christian era, the Mikado was Sui-nin, who died
at the age of 141 years. This monarch sent the hero Tajima-mori to the
Eternal Land with purpose to bring back the fruit of the “Timeless (or
Everlasting) Fragrant Tree”. The Japanese Gilgamesh succeeded in his
enterprise. According to the Ko-ji-ki:
“Tajima-mori at last reached that country, plucked the fruit of the
tree, and brought of club-moss eight and of spears eight; but
meanwhile the Heavenly Sovereign had died. Then Tajima-mori set
apart of club-moss four and of spears four, which he presented to
the Great Empress, and set up of club-moss four and of spears four
as an offering at the door of the Heavenly Sovereign’s august
mausoleum, and, raising on high the fruit of the tree, wailed and
wept, saying: ‘Bringing the fruit of the Everlasting Fragrant Tree
from the Eternal Land, I have come to serve thee.’ At last he
wailed and wept himself to death. This fruit of the Everlasting
Fragrant Tree is what is now called the orange.”
Chamberlain explains [655] that “club-moss oranges” signifies oranges
as they grow on the branch surrounded by leaves, while spear-oranges
are the same divested of leaves and hanging to the bare twig.
The location of the Eternal Land has greatly puzzled native scholars.
Some suppose it was a part of Korea and others that it was Southern
China or the Loocho Islands. According to the Nihon-gi, Tajima-mori
found the Eternal Land to be inhabited by gods and dwarfs. As it lay
somewhere to the west of Japan, it would appear to be identical with
the Western Paradise which, according to Chinese belief, is ruled over
by Si Wang Mu (the Japanese Seiobo), the “Royal Mother” and “Queen of
Immortals”. Instead of the Chinese Peach Tree of Life, the Japanese had
in their own Western Paradise the Orange Tree of Life. The orange was
not, however, introduced into Japan until the eighth century of our
era. [656] Whether or not it supplanted in the Japanese paradise an
earlier tree, as the cassia tree supplanted the peach tree in the
Chinese paradise, is at present uncertain. It may be that the idea of
the Western Paradise was introduced by the Buddhists. At the same time,
it will be recalled that the Peach Tree of Life grew on the borderland
of Yomi, which was visited by Izanagi.
A similar garden paradise was known to the Polynesians, and especially
the Tahitians. It was called Rohutu noanoa (“Perfumed or Fragrant
Rohutu”). Thither the souls of the dead were conducted by the god
Urutaetae. This paradise “was supposed”, writes Ellis, [657] “to be
near a lofty and stupendous mountain in Raiatea, situated in the
vicinity of Hamaniino harbour and called Temehani unauna, ‘splendid or
glorious Temehani’. It was, however, said to be invisible to mortal
eyes, being in the reva, or aerial regions. The country was described
as most lovely and enchanting in appearance, adorned with flowers of
every form and hue, and perfumed with odours of every fragrance. The
air was free from every noxious vapour, pure, and most salubrious....
Rich viands and delicious fruits were supposed to be furnished in
abundance for the frequent and sumptuous festivals celebrated there.
Handsome youths and women, purotu anae, all perfection, thronged the
place.”
Another Polynesian paradise, called Pulotu, was reserved for chiefs,
who obtained “plenty of the best food and other indulgences”. Its
ruler, Saveasiuleo, had a human head. The upper part of his body
reclined in a great house “in company with the spirits of departed
chiefs”, while “the extremity of his body was said to stretch away into
the sea in the shape of an eel or serpent”. [658]
The Japanese had thus, like the Polynesians, a garden paradise and a
sea-dragon-king’s paradise, as well as the gloomy Yomi. It may be that
the beliefs and stories regarding these Otherworlds were introduced by
the earliest seafarers, who formed pearl-fishing communities round
their shores. The Ainu believe that Heaven and Hell are beneath the
earth, “in Pokna moshiri, the lower world”, but they have no idea what
the rewards of the righteous are. [659] Nothing is definitely known
regarding the beliefs of the earlier and more highly civilized people
remembered as the Koro-pok-guru.
The Mikado Sui-nin was succeeded by the Mikado Kei-ko, who died in A.D.
130, aged 143 years. One of his sons, Yamato-Take, is a famous
legendary hero of Japan. He performed many heroic deeds in battle
against brigands and rebels. At Ise he obtained from his aunt,
Yamato-hime, the priestess, the famous Kusanagi sword, and a bag which
he was not to open except when in peril of his life. He then set out to
subdue and pacify all savage deities and unsubmissive peoples. The
ruler of Sagami set fire to a moor which Yamato entered in quest of a
“Violent Deity”. Finding himself in peril, he opened the bag and
discovered in it a fire-striker (or fire-drill). He mowed the herbage
with the dragon-sword, and, using the fire-striker, kindled a
counter-fire, which drove back the other fire. The Kusanagi
(herb-quelling) sword takes its name from this incident. Yamato-Take
afterwards slew the wicked rulers of that land. He also slew a god in
the shape of a white deer which met him in Ashigara Pass. He lay in
ambush, and with a scrap of chive [660] hit the deer in the eye and
thus struck it dead. Then he shouted three times “Adzuma ha ya” (Oh, my
wife!). The land was thereupon called Adzuma.
Then follows the mysterious story of the death of the hero. He went to
the land of Shinanu, in which Ohonamochi had taken refuge when Japan
was being subdued for the ruler chosen by the sun-goddess, and where,
being pursued and threatened with death, Ohonamochi consented to
abdicate and take up his abode in a temple. The country takes its name
from shina, a tree resembling the lime, [661] and nu or no, “moor”.
Yamato-Take entered this land through Shinanu Pass (Shinanu no saka),
between the provinces of Shinano and Mino. He overcame the deity of the
pass, and went to dwell in the house of Princess Miyazu, of fragrant
and slender arms. She welcomed him with love. In the house of the
princess he left the Kusanagi sword, and went forth against the deity
of evil breath (or influence) on Mount Ibuki. As he climbed the
mountain he met a white boar, big as a bull. Believing it was a
messenger of the deity, he vowed he would slay it when he returned, and
continued to climb the mountain. But the boar was not a messenger; it
was the very deity in person, and it sent a heavy ice-rain. [662] The
rain-smitten and perplexed hero was thus misled by the deity.
On descending the mountain, Yamato-Take reached the fresh spring of
Tama-kura-be (the “Jewel-store-tribe”). He drank from it, and revived
somewhat. The spring was afterwards called Wi-same (the “well of
awakening” or “resting”).
Then Yamato-Take departed, and reached the moor of Tagi, [663]
lamenting the loss of bodily strength. He passed on to Cape Wotsu in
Ise, and there found a sword he had left at a pine tree, and sang:
“O pine tree, my brother,
If thou wert a person,
My sword and my garments
To thee would I give”.
Having sung this song, he proceeded on his way, yearning for his native
land, delightful Yamato, situated behind Mount Awogaki. His next song
was one of love and regret.
“How sweet o’er the skies
From Yamato, my home,
Do its white clouds arise,
Do its white clouds all come.”
His sickness and weariness made him feel more and more faint, and he
sang in his distress:
“Oh! the sharp sabre-sword
I left by the bedside
Of Princess Miyazu—
The sabre-sword”. [664]
Yamato-Take sank and died as soon as he had finished his song.
In time his wives came and built for him a mausoleum, weeping and
moaning the while, because he could not hear them or make answer. Then
Yamato-Take was transformed into a white bird, [665] which rose high in
the air and flew towards the shore. The wives pursued the bird with
lamentations and entered the sea. They saw the bird flying towards the
beach, and followed it. For a time it perched on a rock. Then it flew
from Ise to Shiki, in the land of Kafuchi, where a mausoleum was built
for it, so that it might rest. [666] But the white bird rose again to
heaven and flew away. It was never again seen.
After Mikado Kei-ko, father of Yamato-Take, had passed away, Sei-mu
reigned until he was 108 years old. Then followed the Mikado Chiu-ai.
His capital was in the south-west on the island of Kyushu. A message
came from the goddess through the Empress Jingo, who was divinely
possessed, promising him Korea, “a land to the westward” with
“abundance of various treasures, dazzling to the eye, from gold and
silver downwards”.
The Mikado refused to believe there was a land to the west, and
declared that the gods spoke falsely. Soon afterwards the heavenly
sovereign was struck dead.
Now the Empress Jingo was with child. Having received the instructions
of the deities to conquer Korea for her son, she delayed his birth by
taking a stone and attaching it to her waist with cords. Korea was
subdued, the Empress having made use of the “Jewels of flood and ebb”,
as related in a previous chapter. Her child was born after she returned
to Japan.
Empress Jingo is further credited with subduing and uniting the Empire
of Japan, and again establishing the central power at Yamato. She lived
until she was 100 years old.
Her son Ojin Tenno, [667] who had a dragon’s tail, lived until he was
110 years old, and died in A.D. 310. He was worshipped after death as a
war-god, and the patron of the Minamoto clan. His successor, Nin-toku,
who died at the age of 110, was the last of the mythical monarchs, or
of the monarchs regarding whom miraculous deeds are related. Japanese
history begins and myth ends about the beginning of the fifth century
of the Christian era.
The cult of Hachiman (Ojin Tenno) came into prominence in the ninth
century with the rise of the Minamoto family; its original seat was
Usa, in Buzen province. Hachiman’s shintai (“god body”) is a white
stone, or a fly-brush, or a pillow, or an arm-rest.
Jimmu Tenno, the Empress Jingo, and Yamato-Take were similarly deified
and worshipped. A ninth century scholar, Sugahara Michizane, was
deified as Temmangû, god of scholars. Living as well as dead Mikados
were kami (deities). “The spirits of all the soldiers who died in
battle,” writes Yei Ozaki, [668] “are worshipped as deified heroes at
the Kudan shrine in Tokyo.”
The worship of human ancestors in Japan is due to Chinese influence,
and had no place in old Shinto prior to the sixth century. In the
Ko-ji-ki and Nihon-gi the ancestors of the Mikados and the ruling
classes are the deities and their avatars. As we have seen, the Mikados
were reputed to be descended from the sun-goddess, and from the
daughter of the Dragon King of Ocean, called the “Abundant-Pearl
Princess”, a Japanese Melusina.
It is far from correct, therefore, to refer, as has been done, to
Shinto religion as “the worship of nature-gods and ancestors”. Even the
term “nature-worship” is misleading. The adoration in sacred shrines of
the mi-tama (the “August jewel”, or “Dragon-pearl”, or “spirit”, or
“double”) of a deity is not “the worship of Nature”, but the worship of
“the imperishable principle of life wherever found”. At Ise, the
“Mecca” of Japan, the goddess cult is prominent. Both the sun-goddess
and the food-goddess are forms of the Far Eastern Hathor, the
personification of the pearl, the shell, the precious jewel containing
“life substance”, the sun mirror, the sword, the pillow, the
standing-stone, the holy tree, the medicinal herb, the fertilizing
rain, &c. The Mikado, as her descendant, was the living Horus, an
avatar of Osiris; after death the Mikado ascended, like Ra, to the
celestial regions, or departed, like Osiris, to the Underworld of the
Dead. The Mikado of Japan, like the Pharaoh of Egypt, was a Son of
Heaven.
After Buddhism had been introduced into Japan in the sixth century, it
was fused with Shinto. The Shinto deities figured as avatars of Buddha
in the cult of Ryobu-Shinto. Even the Mikados came under the spell of
Buddhism.
In the eighteenth century began the movement known as the “Revival of
Pure Shinto”. It was promoted chiefly by Motöori and his disciple
Hirata. In time it did much to bring about the revolution which
restored to supreme political power, as the hereditary high priest and
living representative of the sun-goddess, the Mikado of Japan. Shinto
is the official religion of modern Japan; but Buddhism, impregnated
with Shinto elements, is the religion of the masses. “Pure Shinto”,
however, was not “pure” in the sense that Motöori and Hirata professed
to believe. It was undoubtedly a product of culture mixing in early
times. “The Ko-ji-ki and Nihon-gi,” as Laufer says, “do not present a
pure source of genuine Japanese thought, but are retrospective records
largely written under Chinese and Korean influence, and echoing in a
bewildering medley continental-Asiatic and Malayo-Polynesian
traditions.” [669] In China, Korea, Polynesia, &c., a similar process
of culture mixing can be traced. Buddha and Mohammed were not the
earliest founders of cults which have left their impress on the
religious systems of the Far East. Vast areas were influenced by the
cultures of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia.
The history of civilization does not support the hypothesis that the
same myths and religious practices were of spontaneous generation in
widely-separated countries. Culture complexes cannot be accounted for
or explained away by the application of the principles of biological
evolution. As has been shown in these pages, there are many culture
complexes in China and Japan, and many links with more ancient
civilizations.
Touching on the problem of culture mixing in China, Laufer writes:
“In opposition to the prevalent opinion of the day, it cannot be
emphasized strongly enough on every occasion that Chinese civilization,
as it appears now, is not a unit and not the exclusive production of
the Chinese, but the final result of the cultural efforts of a vast
conglomeration of the most varied tribes, an amalgamation of ideas
accumulated from manifold quarters and widely differentiated in space
and time; briefly stated, this means China is not a nation, but an
empire, a political, but not an ethnical unit. No graver error can
hence be committed than to attribute any culture idea at the outset to
the Chinese, for no other reason than because it appears within the
precincts of their empire.” [670]
NOTES
[1] Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe, pp. 26 et seq.
[2] Ibid. See illustrations opposite p. 20.
[3] Professor Cherry The Origin of Agriculture (Mem. and Proc.
Manchester Lit. and Phil. Soc., 1920).
[4] In Babylonian legends civilization is introduced by the “goat-fish”
god Ea, who came from the Persian Gulf.
[5] Those who give Osiris a Libyan origin believe his name signifies
“The Old One”, or “The Old Man”.
[6] The Ancient Egyptians, pp. 41–42.
[7] Breasted’s Religion and Thought in Egypt, p. 18.
[8] S. Squire, Plutarch’s Treatise of Isis and Osiris (Cambridge,
1744).
[9] In Egypt this was the Solutrean stage of the so-called “Palæolithic
Age”.
[10] There was no “Neolithic Age” in Egypt.
[11] The Scope of Social Anthropology (London, 1908), pp. 12–13.
[12] Primitive Man (Proceedings of the British Academy, Vol. VII), p.
50.
[13] The Yakut (in Russian), Vol. I, p. 378.
[14] The Evolution of the Dragon, G. Elliot Smith (London, 1919), pp.
178 et seq.
[15] O. T. Mason, Origins of Invention, p. 166; and Woman’s Share in
Primitive Culture, p. 91.
[16] The Beginnings of Porcelain in China, by Berthold Laufer and H. W.
Nichols (Field Museum of Natural History Publication, 192,
Anthropological Series, Vol. XII, No. 2. Chicago, 1917).
[17] Ibid., pp. 153–154.
[18] The Journal of Egyptian Archæology, April, 1914, p. 14.
[19] Aboriginal Pottery of the Eastern United States, p. 50 (Twentieth
Annual Report, Bureau of American Ethnology, Washington, 1903).
[20] The Khasis, p. 61.
[21] Tao Shuo, chap. ii, p. 2 (new edition, 1912).
[22] The Beginnings of Porcelain in China, pp. 154–5. In “culture
mixing” old local religious beliefs were not obliterated.
[23] Chavannes, Mémoires historiques de Se-ma Tsʼien, Vol. I, pp. 72–4.
[24] The Beginnings of Porcelain in China, p. 160.
[25] Antiquities of India, L. D. Barnett, p. 176.
[26] Madras Government Museum Catalogue of Prehistoric Antiquities, p.
111.
[27] Vedic Index of Names and Subjects, Macdonell and Keith, Vol. I,
pp. 31, 32.
[28] Book I, chap. 194.
[29] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Egypt, pp. 108, 158.
[30] Early Modes of Navigation, Journal of the Anthropological
Institute, Vol. IV, p. 402.
[31] Holmes’s Ancient and Modern Ships, E. K. Chatterton’s Sailing
Ships and their Story, Cecil Torr’s Ancient Ships, Warrington Smith’s
Mast and Sail in Europe and Asia, Elliot Smith’s Ships as Evidence of
the Migrations of Early Culture, and the works of Pâris and Assmann,
and Pitt Rivers (op. cit.).
[32] Sailing Ships and their Story, pp. 25–6.
[33] Ships as Evidence, &c., pp. 5, 6.
[34] Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe, pp. 146 and 191, et seq.
[35] Breasted’s A History of Egypt, pp. 114–5.
[36] Sailing Ships and their Story, pp. 31, 32.
[37] Maspero in his The Dawn of Civilization protests against this
view.
[38] Egyptian Myth and Legend, p. 372.
[39] English translation of M. Huc’s Recollections (London, 1852), p.
21.
[40] E. Kebel Chatterton’s Sailing Ships and their Story, pp. 7 and 31,
and illustration opposite page 8.
[41] Sailing Ships and their Story, pp. 32–3.
[42] Polynesian Researches, First Edition, 1829, Vol. I, p. 169.
[43] Ancient Ships, p. 78.
[44] Polynesian Researches, First Edition, 1829, Vol. I, pp. 181, 2.
The crescent-shaped vessel is quite Egyptian in character.
[45] Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 50, 51.
[46] Book II, 67.
[47] 1 Kings, x, 22.
[48] 1 Kings, ix, 26–8.
[49] 1 Kings, x, 2.
[50] Breasted’s A History of Egypt, p. 274.
[51] Breasted’s Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 279.
[52] Quoted from a Chinese work by Dr. W. M. W. de Visser in The Dragon
in China and Japan (Amsterdam, 1913).
[53] Muir’s Sanskrit Texts, Vol. I, p. 516 (1890).
[54] Dr. W. M. W. de Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 69.
[55] Ibid., p. 223.
[56] Shi i ki, chap. ii.
[57] Religious System of China, Vol. V, p. 867.
[58] This is the name of the Indian Naga king.
[59] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 139.
[60] Chinese-English Dictionary, p. 1092.
[61] Chine Ancienne, pp. 94 et seq.
[62] Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, pp. 216 et seq.
[63] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 109.
[64] Quoted by Prof. G. Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, p.
160.
[65] Ellis, Polynesian Researches, First Edition, Vol. I, p. 178.
[66] Rev. George Turner’s Nineteen Years in Polynesia (1861), pp.
238–9. The god emerging from the shell-fish is found in Mexico.
Jackson’s Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture, p. 52.
[67] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 88.
[68] Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe, pp. 306–7. Pierced fish
vertebræ have been found in Malta, Italy, the south-east of Spain, and
Troy. See Malta and the Mediterranean Race, R. N. Bradley (London,
1912), p. 136.
[69] Manuel d’Archéologie Américaine, Fig. 21, p. 114.
[70] Ibid., p. 169.
[71] Ibid., p. 169.
[72] This mammal belongs to the order Sirenia, which includes manatees.
It is native to Indian seas. A variety has been found in the Red Sea.
[73] Legends of Gods and Ghosts (Hawaiian Mythology), 1915, pp. 255–6.
[74] A form of the mother-goddess.
[75] The Religious System of China, Vol. III, p. 1143.
[76] Hibbert Lectures, pp. 280–84.
[77] Legends of Babylonia and Egypt, Leonard W. King, pp. 116–7 (1918).
[78] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 20.
[79] Ibid., p. 26.
[80] The Voice of Africa, Vol. II, p. 467.
[81] The Evolution of the Dragon, p. 130.
[82] See illustration of the serpent enclosing the waters in the shrine
of the Nile, from a bas-relief in the small temple of Philæ. Maspero’s
The Dawn of Civilization, p. 39.
[83] Breasted, op. cit., p. 38.
[84] A kiao-lung is a dragon with fish scales.
[85] A horned dragon.
[86] A dragon with wings.
[87] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, pp. 72 et seq.
[88] Horus while alive, and Osiris after he died, as Dr. Gardiner
insists.
[89] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 42.
[90] Nehemiah, ii, 13.
[91] Æschylus, Prometheus Vinctus, 351–72.
[92] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 46.
[93] Dr. A. Carmichael, Carmina Gadelica, Vol. I, p. 169.
[94] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 89.
[95] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, pp. 99 et seq.
[96] The Religious System of China, Vol. VI, p. 1087.
[97] See English translation by Walter Gorn Old (London, 1904).
[98] The Religious System of China, Vol. IV, p. 26.
[99] De Visser, The Dragon in Japan and China, p. 62.
[100] Breasted’s Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 21.
[101] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 67.
[102] De Groot’s The Religious System of China, Vol. I, p. 369.
[103] Chats on Oriental China (London, 1908).
[104] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 79.
[105] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 112.
[106] A dragon appeared at the birth of Confucius.
[107] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 145.
[108] Legends of Gods and Ghosts (Hawaiian Mythology, 1915), p. 258.
[109] Melanesians and Polynesians (London, 1910), pp. 334–5.
[110] Ibid., p. 364.
[111] Indo-China and its Primitive People, London (trans.), p. 192.
[112] Hawaiian Mythology, p. 257.
[113] Buddhist India, pp. 222–3.
[114] Manual of Indian Buddhism, pp. 593 et seq.
[115] Iliad, Book XII (Lang’s, Leaf’s, and Dyer’s Trans.), p. 236.
[116] The Natural History of Animals (Gresham, London), Vol. III, p.
176 and pp. 46 et seq.
[117] Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I, p. 481.
[118] Chavannes’ Contes et Apologues.
[119] Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 314–5.
[120] Laufer, The Diamond: a study in Chinese and Hellenistic
Folk-lore, p. 7 (Chicago, 1915).
[121] Açwamedha Parva, Section XC, Sloka 5.
[122] Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. II, p. 107.
[123] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 120.
[124] Ibid., p. 62.
[125] The Evolution of the Dragon, G. Elliot Smith, pp. 83 et seq.
[126] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 130.
[127] Westervelt’s Legends of Gods and Ghosts, p. 258.
[128] Buddhist India, pp. 224–5.
[129] Teutonic Myth and Legend, p. 174 et seq.
[130] Teutonic Myth and Legend, p. 286.
[131] The Irish term sed (pronounced “shade”), the old form of which is
set, signified a cow, a measure of value, property, and “a pearl, a
precious stone, or a gem of any kind”. Joyce, Irish Names of Places, p.
355 (Dublin, 1875).
[132] Breasted, A History of Egypt, p. 357.
[133] Egyptian Myth and Legend, pp. 341, 342.
[134] Seven Tablets of Creation.
[135] The belief that the cat has nine lives may be cited, and also the
belief that if an eel or a serpent is cut in two it will come to life
again. A Chinese dragon may revive after being cut up and buried. The
story is told in Japan of a man who killed a snake-dragon, cut it into
three pieces, and buried them, but thirteen years later, on the same
day of the year on which he slew the dragon, he cried out “I drink
water,” choked, and died. His death was caused by the dragon he had
endeavoured to kill (de Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 195).
The “Deathless Snake” in an ancient Egyptian story comes to life until
the severed parts are buried separately.
[136] Legends of Gods and Ghosts (Hawaiian Mythology), pp. 256–7.
[137] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 127. See also the Egyptian Bata
story, Egyptian Myth and Legend, pp. 49–56.
[138] Egyptian Myth and Legend, p. 55.
[139] The Dragon’s Kupuas.
[140] The odour of the herb was the body odour of the dragon. It helped
to restore vitality, as did incense, when burned before an Egyptian
mummy. Gods were similarly “fed” by offerings of incense. The
Babylonian Noah burned incense, and the gods smelt the sweet savour.
The gods gathered like flies about him that offered the
sacrifice.—King, Babylonian Religion, p. 136.
[141] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 63. Kwan Chung died
in 645 B.C.
[142] Polynesian Mythology, Sir George Grey, p. 33.
[143] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 174.
[144] A Galloway herbalist who was searching for herbs to cure a
consumptive girl, named May, saw a mermaid rising in the sea. According
to the folk-story, the mermaid recommended mugwort (southernwood) as a
cure by singing:
Would you let bonnie May die in your hand,
And the mugwort flowering in the land?
[145] Jade disks, decorated with the rush pattern, were in China images
of Heaven and badges of rank. The rain-dragon in human form carries in
his right hand a blue rush. The rush was connected with water—the water
below the firmament and the water above the firmament. Reeds were
likewise connected with the deities. In Babylonia, priests had visions
in reed huts and the dead lay on reed mats. The reed and river-mud were
used by Marduk when he created man. Apparently, the reed was an avatar
of the water deity: it contained “soul substance”. Linen made from flax
was sacred and inspiring. It was wrapped round the dead, instead of
animal skins, in pre-Dynastic Egypt. The linen ephod was inspiring;
like the “prophet’s mantle” it gave the wearer power to foretell
events.
[146] S. Baring-Gould’s Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 471 et
seq.
[147] A similar belief regarding supernatural beings prevailed in
India. See story of Nala in Indian Myth and Legend.
[148] The appearance of four servants (the gods of the four quarters)
with the dragon-god, indicates that the coming storm is to be one of
exceptional violence.
[149] The deep slumberer in a folk-tale is usually engaged “working a
spell”. As will be gathered from the story, the boy received his
knowledge and power from his grandmother. She resembles the Norse Vala
and the Witch of Endor.
[150] The Norse Vala makes similar complaint when awakened by Odin. It
looks as if this Chinese story is based on one about consulting a
spirit of a “wise woman” who sleeps in her tomb.
[151] An interesting glimpse of the connection between colour symbolism
and magic. Everything is yellow because a yellow dragon is being
invoked.
[152] This sleep appears to be as necessary as that of the grandmother.
[153] The latest spell had been worked, and it was not necessary that
the father should sleep any longer.
[154] Indian fairy girl. There are apsaras in the Paradise of Indra.
[155] Indian Fairy Stories (London, 1915), pp. 47 et seq.
[156] Egyptian Tales (first series), W. H. Flinders Petrie (London,
1899), pp. 81 et seq.
[157] Folk Lore Journal, Vol. V, p. 257.
[158] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 177 et seq.
[159] L. W. King, Legends of Babylonia and Egypt (London, 1918), p.
146.
[160] See references in Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 184 et seq.
[161] Indian Myth and Legend, p. 256 and p. 381.
[162] Book III.
[163] Tennyson’s The Passing of Arthur.
[164] Like the Indian god Vishnu, who lies asleep on the Naga. This
sleep, like that of magicians, is a spell-working or power-accumulating
sleep.
[165] Like the Egyptian hero who slays the river serpent which guards
the box containing magic spells. Sigurd, Siegfried, and other
dragon-slaying heroes may be compared with this Far-Eastern hero.
[166] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan.
[167] Jade: A Study in Chinese Archæology and Religion, Berthold Laufer
(Chicago, 1912), pp. 209–10.
[168] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Egypt, pp. 133–7.
[169] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Egypt, p. 102.
[170] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 181–3.
[171] Mémoires Historiques de Se-ma Tsʼien (1895–1905).
[172] He figures as a character (not a real one) in the writings of
Kwang-tze, who was born in the fourth century B.C.
[173] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 145.
[174] Dr. J. Legge, Chinese Classics, Vol. III, Part I, p. 240, and
Part II, p. 554.
[175] In Scottish giant-lore giants sit on mountains in like manner and
fish for whales, using trees as fishing-rods.
[176] Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan.
[177] Genesis, ii, 8.
[178] Navarrette, Coll. de Documents, I, p. 244, quoted in Curious
Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 525.
[179] William Ellis, Polynesian Researches (1st edition, London, 1829),
Vol. II, pp. 47 et seq.
[180] Campbell, Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Vol. III, Tale
LXXXVI.
[181] Legends of Gods and Ghosts, p. 246.
[182] Nineteen Years in Polynesia, p. 353.
[183] Swarga-rohanika Parva, Section III (Roy’s translation), p. 9. The
chief of the gods says to Yudhishthira: “Here is the celestial
river.... Plunging into it, thou wilt go to thine own regions
(Paradise).” Having bathed, the hero “cast off his human body” and
“assumed a celestial form”.
[184] Odyssey, XV (Butcher and Lang’s trans.), p. 253.
[185] S. H. O’Grady, Silva Gadelica, Vol. II, pp. 393–4.
[186] Ibid., Vol. II, p. 113.
[187] The Voyage of Bran.
[188] Ancient Irish Poetry, p. 8.
[189] The Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great, trans. by E. Walter
Budge, pp. 11 et seq., and 167 et seq.
[190] “Vana Parva” of Mahábhárata, and Indian Myth and Legend, pp.
105–9.
[191] Description of Sukhāvatī, the Land of Bliss, in Buddhist Mahayana
Texts (Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XLIX), pp. 16, 17.
[192] Ibid., p. 35.
[193] Ibid., p. 56.
[194] Ibid., p. 174.
[195] Ibid., p. 180.
[196] Ibid., p. 50.
[197] B. Laufer, The Diamond (A Study in Chinese and Hellenistic
Folk-lore) (Chicago, 1915).
[198] L. W. King, Babylonian Religion (London, 1903), p. 171.
[199] L. W. King, Legends of Babylon and Egypt (London, 1918), p. 136.
[200] Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 130.
[201] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 71.
[202] Westervelt, Legends of Gods and Ghosts (Hawaiian Mythology), p.
245.
[203] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, pp. 120 et seq.
[204] Ibid., p. 134.
[205] G. Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, pp. 23 et seq.
[206] Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, Vol. III, pp. 14, 30; Cook,
Zeus, Vol. I, p. 537.
[207] Westervelt, Legends of Old Honolulu, pp. 22 et seq., and p. 29.
[208] Teutonic Myth and Legend, pp. 424–32.
[209] Westminster Review, November, 1892, p. 523.
[210] When, some years ago, an ass was acquired by a tenant on a
Hebridean island, a native, on seeing this animal for the first time,
exclaimed, “It is the father of all the hares”.
[211] Dr. Joseph Edkins, Religion in China, p. 151.
[212] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 185 et seq.
[213] Laufer, Sino Iranica (Chicago, 1919), pp. 539 et seq.
[214] Laufer, Sino-Iranica, p. 543.
[215] Transactions Am. Phil. Association, Vol. XXIII, 1892, p. 115.
[216] Sino-Iranica, pp. 542–3.
[217] G. Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, pp. 36 et seq.
[218] Religious System of China, Vol. IV, pp. 272–6: and Elliot Smith,
The Evolution of the Dragon, pp. 38–9.
[219] The Jack and Jill of the nursery rhyme.
[220] Teutonic Myth and Legend, pp. 22 et seq.
[221] Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 190 et seq.
[222] Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. II, p. 104.
[223] Babylonian Myth and Legend, p. 126–7.
[224] Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 173 et seq., and 192–94.
[225] Egyptian Myth and Legend, p. 19 et seq.
[226] Teutonic Myth and Legend, pp. 352 (n.), 376, 383, 389, 391, 446.
[227] For beliefs connected with pearls and shells, see Shells as
Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture, I. Wilfrid Jackson
(London, 1917).
[228] Some thunder birds are dark as thunder-clouds.
[229] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 63.
[230] G. A. Reisner, Early Dynastic Cemeteries of Naga-ad-Dêr, Vol. I,
1908, Plates 6 and 7, and Shells as Evidence of the Migrations of Early
Culture, 1917, p. xxi.
[231] Jade, p. 1.
[232] The Norse gods grew old when the apples of immortality, kept by
the goddess Idun, were carried away. After the apples were restored,
they ate of them and grew young again.—Teutonic Myth and Legend, p. 57.
[233] De Groot, The Religious System of China, Vol. I, p. 300.
[234] De Groot, The Religious System of China, Vol. I, p. 295.
[235] Shrieks like mandrakes torn out of the earth.—Romeo and Juliet,
iv, 3.
Give me to drink mandragora ...
That I may sleep out the great gap of time
My Anthony is away.—Anthony and Cleopatra.
[236] The Ascent of Olympus, pp. 107 et seq.
[237] Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, p. 184; Rendel Harris,
The Ascent of Olympus, p. 73.
[238] The Ascent of Olympus, p. 126.
[239] Artemis, as goddess of birth, was a specialized form of the Great
Mother, who was herself the goddess of love and birth, of treasure,
&c.—the All-mother.
[240] The Ascent of Olympus, p. 87.
[241] Ibid., p. 86.
[242] Joly, Legend in Japanese Art, p. 165.
[243] Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, pp. 183, 199 et seq.
[244] The Ascent of Olympus, 79–80.
[245] The Chinese Traveller (London, 1772), Vol. I, p. 247.
[246] The Ascent of Olympus, p. 82.
[247] The Chinese Traveller, Vol. I, p. 239.
[248] The Chinese Traveller, Vol. I, pp. 237 et seq.
[249] Genesis, xlix, 11.
[250] The Ascent of Olympus (note on Ivy and Mugwort in Siberia), pp.
96 et seq.
[251] Sino-Iranica (Chicago, 1919), pp. 385 et seq.
[252] Ibid., p. 386.
[253] Indian Myth and Legend, p. 100.
[254] Sino-Iranica, pp. 339–42.
[255] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 234–5.
[256] Perry, Megalithic Culture of Indonesia, p. 68.
[257] Megalithic Culture of Indonesia, p. 92.
[258] Legend in Japanese Art, p. 195.
[259] Religions of Ancient China, pp. 24–5.
[260] Ibid., pp. 38–9.
[261] See Chapter XIII re shining gems, jade, coral, &c.
[262] The Dragon in China and Japan, pp. 39 and 64.
[263] Laufer, Sino-Iranica, p. 568.
[264] Elliot Smith, The Migration of Early Culture (London, 1915), and
The Evolution of the Dragon (London, 1919).
[265] The other names are Jăta-rūpa, Su-varna, Harita, and Hiranya.
[266] Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index of Names and Subjects (London,
1912), Vol. II, p. 504. See also for moon and gold, Vol. I, 254.
[267] Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (London, 1703 Edition),
p. 243.
[268] History of Sumer and Akkad, pp. 326–7.
[269] Breasted, A History of Egypt, p. 48.
[270] Breasted, A History of Egypt, p. 190.
[271] Ibid., p. 48.
[272] L. W. King, A History of Sumer and Akkad, pp. 74, 75.
[273] British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, p. 10.
[274] British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, p. 9.
[275] Ibid., p. 9.
[276] A History of the Babylonians and Assyrians, p. 74.
[277] In the Tell-el-Amarna letters, Western-Asian monarchs are
eloquent in their requests for gold from Egypt. In one a Babylonian
king “asks for much gold” and complains that the last supply was base,
and that there was “much loss in melting”.
[278] Sino-Iranica: Chinese Contributions to the History of
Civilization in Ancient Iran. Chicago, 1919.
[279] Ibid., p. 185.
[280] The Relationship between the Geographical Distribution of
Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Times. Manchester, 1915.
[281] Mrs. Hawes, Gournia, p. 33.
[282] The Dawn of Mediterranean Civilization, pp. 62–3.
[283] Elliot Smith, The Ancient Egyptians, pp. 41 et seq.
[284] It seems ridiculous to suggest that irrigation had origin in
mid-Asia and not in areas like the deltas of Egypt and Sumeria.
[285] British Museum Guide to the Babylonian and Assyrian Antiquities,
p. 157.
[286] Peter, Nippur II, p. 134.
[287] Scythians and Greeks (1913), p. 280.
[288] Chapter V.
[289] Religion in China (London 1878, 2nd Ed.), p. 38.
[290] British Museum Guide to the Antiquities of the Bronze Age, p.
107.
[291] Archæologia, p. 276.
[292] Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. XLII, p.
279.
[293] Religion in China, p. 6.
[294] Jade and other stone mirrors are referred to in ancient texts. No
doubt these were religious symbols. None survives. Jade shoes are
mentioned too, but there are no surviving specimens. In Ireland bronze
shoes were worn in ancient times—perhaps in connection with religious
ceremonies. Obsidian mirrors were used in Mexico for purposes of
divination, and there were stone mirrors in Peru.
[295] Jade: A Study in Chinese Archæology and Religion, Berthold Laufer
(Field Museum of Natural History, Publication 154, Anthropological
Series, Vol. X, Chicago, 1912, p. 23).
[296] Laufer notes that yu included nephrite, jadeite, bowenite, and
sometimes “beautiful kinds of serpentine, agalmatolite, and
marble”.—Jade, p. 22.
[297] Ibid., p. 29.
[298] De Groot, The Religious System of China, Book I, pp. 275 et seq.
[299] Jade, p. 299.
[300] The Religious System of China, Book I, pp. 274 et seq.
[301] Pronounced muk’ăra.
[302] See illustrations in Professor Elliot Smith’s The Evolution of
the Dragon, pp. 88, 89.
[303] Like the ginseng (mandrake) in the Kang-ge mountains in northern
Korea. (See Chapter XVII.)
[304] De Groot, The Religious System of China, Book I, Vol. I, pp.
272–3.
[305] The Diamond, pp. 55, 56, n.
[306] She is thus the divine spinner as the god Ptah of Egypt is the
divine potter.
[307] The Syrian Goddess, Strong and Garstang (London, 1913), pp. 71,
72.
[308] Chicago, 1915, p. 58.
[309] The Diamond, p. 7. Lesser Fu-lin was Syria, and Greater Fu-lin
the Byzantine Empire.
[310] Ibid., pp. 55, n. 2, 56.
[311] The Religious System of China, Book I, Vol. I, pp. 277–8.
[312] Laufer, The Diamond, p. 22 and n. 3, and p. 69 and n. 7.
[313] Ibid., pp. 68–9.
[314] Laufer, Chinese Clay Figures, pp. 138, 151.
[315] The Diamond, p. 71.
[316] Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, p. 157, n. 1. Laufer,
Sino-Iranica, pp. 520 and 525.
[317] The Religious System of China, Book II, Vol. IV, p. 331.
[318] The Religious System of China, Book I, pp. 278–9.
[319] Legend in Japanese Art, pp. 354, 355.
[320] Legend in Japanese Art, pp. 355–6.
[321] Ibid., p. 355.
[322] Jade, p. 21, n. 4.
[323] Breasted, A History of Egypt, p. 357.
[324] Laufer, Jade, p. 299, n. 1.
[325] Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I, pp. 357–8.
[326] Jade, p. 301 and n. 1.
[327] Ibid., p. 310.
[328] Jade, pp. 306–7.
[329] The Religious System of China, Book I, p. 284.
[330] The Religious System of China, Book I, p. 284.
[331] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 332.
[332] Legge, The Shih King, p. 395.
[333] Ibid., p. 338.
[334] Joly, Legend in Japanese Art, p. 297.
[335] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 100.
[336] The Religious System of China, Book I, Vol. III, p. 962.
[337] De Groot, op. cit., Book I, Vol. III, p. 983.
[338] Legge, The Yi King, pp. 43–44.
[339] The Religious System of China, Book I, p. 327.
[340] Op. cit., p. 327.
[341] De Groot, op. cit., p. 317.
[342] Legge, Texts of Taoism, Vol. II, p. 265.
[343] Legge, The Shu King, pp. 38, 39.
[344] Teutonic Myth and Legend, p. 5.
[345] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 330, 331.
[346] Religion in China (London, 1878), p. 109.
[347] Religion in China, p. 107.
[348] Quoted by De Groot, The Religious System of China, Book I, Vol.
III, p. 983.
[349] Green and blue are interchangeable in China.
[350] Biot, Vol. I, pp. 434, 435, quoted by Laufer in Jade, p. 120.
[351] The Religious System of China, Book I, Part III, p. 935.
[352] Ibid., Book I, Vol. III, p. 949.
[353] In Scotland south-flowing water is specially good and
influential.
[354] The Religious System of China, Book I, Vol. III, pp. 949, 950.
[355] Jade, pp. 182–3.
[356] Journal of Hellenic Studies, Vol. XXI, pp. 128–9.
[357] See Egyptian Myth and Legend, Myths of Babylonia and Assyria,
Myths of Crete and Pre-Hellenic Europe, and Indian Myth and Legend.
[358] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 130.
[359] See terra-cotta image of pig marked with stars in Schliemann’s
Troy and its Remains (translation by Smith, London, 1875), p. 232.
[360] Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, p. 96.
[361] Laufer, Jade (for illustrations of tigers with thunder pattern),
pp. 180–4.
[362] De Groot, Religious System of China, Vol. I, Book I, pp. 94 and
110; Book II, pp. 5 et seq.
[363] The Religious System of China, Book I, Vol. I, p. 226, n. 2.
[364] De Groot, op. cit., Book I, p. 72.
[365] The Religious System of China, Book I, Vol. I, pp. 241 et seq.
[366] See references in Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 69, 70, and
70 n.
[367] Mrs. Bishop, Korea and Her Neighbours, Vol. II, pp. 84–5.
[368] The Evolution of the Dragon, p. 50.
[369] The Evolution of the Dragon, pp. 51–2.
[370] De Groot, op. cit., p. 396, and Elliot Smith, op. cit., p. 48,
and n. 1.
[371] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 19.
[372] Biot, Vol. I, p. 125.
[373] Laufer, Jade, pp. 296 et seq.
[374] Ibid., p. 1.
[375] Ibid., p. 296.
[376] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 23.
[377] Laufer, Jade, p. 1.
[378] Legends of Babylonia and Egypt in relation to Hebrew Tradition
(The Schweich Lectures), London, 1918, pp. 56 et seq. and pp. 88 et
seq.
[379] The Babylonian Noah, who became an immortal and lived on an
“Island of the Blest” and near the island on which were the Plant of
Life and the Well of Life.
[380] Elliot Smith, The Evolution of the Dragon, p. 205.
[381] The Ascent of Olympus, pp. 120–1.
[382] History of the Rhinoceros in Chinese clay figures (Field Museum
of Natural History, Publication 177), Chicago, 1914, pp. 73 et seq.
[383] Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. II, p. 281.
[384] Laufer, op. cit., pp. 160–1.
[385] Op. cit., p. 161.
[386] Legge, Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XXVII, p. 158, and Laufer,
Chinese Clay Images, p. 172.
[387] Rhys David, Buddhism (London, 1903), p. 183.
[388] Laufer, op. cit., p. 138.
[389] Chinese Clay Images, pp. 150 et seq.
[390] Like the “golden sun”.
[391] Chinese Clay Images, pp. 152–3 and p. 153 n. 2.
[392] The Chinese Commercial Guide, p. 95 (Hong-Kong, 1863).
[393] Chinese Clay Images, p. 139.
[394] Ibid., p. 108.
[395] Referred to by the philosopher Wang Chʼung in his work Lun heng
(A.D. 82 or 83), quoted by Laufer, op. cit., p. 171 n. 3.
[396] Schliemann’s Ilios, p. 242.
[397] Letter to the Times, 18th December, 1879.
[398] Laufer’s Jade, p. 2.
[399] Jade, pp. 4–5.
[400] Laufer’s Jade, p. 196.
[401] Ibid., pp. 186–9.
[402] Athenæus Deipnos, Book III, chap. xlvi; and Jackson, Shells as
Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture, p. 77.
[403] Like rhinoceros horn.
[404] Heber R. Bishop, Investigations and Studies in Jade (New York,
1906), Vol. I, p. 47; and A. Wylie, Notes on Chinese Literature
(Shanghai, 1901), p. 194.
[405] The Migration of Early Culture: A Study of the Significance of
the Geographical Distribution of the Practice of Mummification, &c.,
pp. 20 et seq.
[406] Recollections of a Journey through Tartary, Tibet, and China, by
M. Huc (English translation, London, 1852), pp. 219–20.
[407] Budge, Gods of the Egyptians, Vol. I, p. 500 et seq.
[408] The Elder Edda, translation by O. Bray, p. 19.
[409] Ibid., p. 51.
[410] Ibid., p. 277.
[411] In Norse mythology the earth trembles when Loki moves.
[412] The “breath” which is “soul substance”.
[413] Quoted by Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, pp.
21–2.
[414] Babylonian Myth and Legend, pp. 146–7.
[415] Indian Myth and Legend, p. 95.
[416] James Legge, The Texts of Confucianism, Part II, p. 430 (Sacred
Books of the East).
[417] Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. III, Part I, p. 108.
[418] This reference to the use of personal ornaments is highly
significant.
[419] King, Babylonian Religion, p. 136.
[420] Religions of Ancient China, pp. 43–44.
[421] For a discussion on “Early Biological Theories” in this
connection see Professor G. Elliot Smith’s The Evolution of the Dragon,
pp. 26 et seq., and pp. 178 et seq.
[422] Wells Williams, Chinese-English Dictionary, p. 1092.
[423] The Dragon in China and Japan, pp. 83–4.
[424] De Groot, The Religious System of China; and De Visser, The
Dragon in China and Japan, p. 85.
[425] Chinese Literature, p. 52.
[426] King, Legends of Babylonia and Egypt (1916), p. 56.
[427] Like the mountain-goddess of Crete.
[428] Chinese Literature, pp. 52, 53.
[429] Legge, Shu King, Shih King, Hsiao King (Sacred Books of the
East), Vol. III, pp. 396, 397.
[430] Religions of Ancient China, pp. 21–3.
[431] Religion in China (London, 1878, second edition), pp. 99 et seq.
[432] The season controlled by the White Tiger-god of the west.
[433] Religion in China, p. 104.
[434] The Religious System of China, Book I, p. 959.
[435] Indian Myth and Legend, p. 107.
[436] Legge, The Texts of Taoism, Vol. I, pp. 370–1.
[437] Legge, The Shu King (Sacred Books of the East), Vol. III, p. 255
and n. 1.
[438] Giles, Religions of Ancient China, p. 22.
[439] Three Irish Glossaries, Whitley Stokes (London, 1862), p. lxxiii.
[440] Legge, The Chinese Classics, Vol. III, Part I, p. 117.
[441] Legge, The Shu King (Sacred Books of the East), pp. 64 et seq.
[442] Boats, carriages, sledges, and spiked boots.
[443] W. G. Old, The Shu King (London, 1904), pp. 36–7.
[444] Legge, The Shu King, p. 139.
[445] Legge, Ibid., p. 309.
[446] The sky is the “dark sphere”, and the mace is therefore a
sky-mace.
[447] Legge, The Annals of the Bamboo Book, pp. 128, 129 (The Chinese
Classics, Vol. III, Part 1).
[448] Legge, The Shu King, n. 5, p. 269 (The Chinese Classics, Vol.
III, p. 1). Herodotus tells (Book II, chapter 122) that Pharaoh
Rhampsinitus (? Rameses) of Egypt descended to Hades and played dice
with Ceres (Isis), “sometimes winning and sometimes suffering defeat”.
A curious festival celebrated the event.
[449] Pinkerton, A General Collection of the Best and Most Interesting
Voyages and Travels (London, 1814), XVI, 696.
[450] Legge, The Shih King, p. 397.
[451] Legge, The Shih King, p. 398, n.
[452] Legge, The Annals of the Bamboo Books, p. 143.
[453] Giles, Religions of Ancient China, p. 20.
[454] The Annals of the Bamboo Books, p. 147.
[455] Geographical Journal, XXII, 1904, pp. 24, 176, 331, 772.
[456] Sailing Ships and their Story, p. 310.
[457] In Yūn-nan
[458] Sino-Iranica, p. 469.
[459] Pliny, XV, 11, 13, and Sino-Iranica, p. 539.
[460] Sino-Iranica, p. 185.
[461] King, Babylonian Religion, p. 165.
[462] One of his names during his lifetime was Li Po-Yang: after his
death he was Li Tan.
[463] Journal of Egyptian Archæology.
[464] Macbeth, Act v, scene 7.
[465] As has been stated, tea was an elixir.
[466] “King” signifies “classic”.
[467] Breasted, A History of Egypt, p. 357.
[468] Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, pp. 46–7.
[469] In Egypt the “rays” were the creative tears of the sun-god.
[470] The Speculations in Metaphysics, Polity, and Morality of “The Old
Philosopher”.
[471] The Modern Speech New Testament (London, 1903): John, Chap. i,
verse 1 et seq.
[472] The Ancient Faiths of China, p. 49.
[473] History of Religions (Edinburgh, 1914), p. 49.
[474] Christ and Other Masters, Vol. II, p. 67.
[475] Language and Languages, pp. 184–5. Jowett, in a letter to Mrs.
Asquith in 1893, wrote, “I think also that you might put religion in
another way, as absolute resignation to the Will of God and the order
of Nature” (Autobiography of Mrs. Asquith).
[476] The Texts of Taoism p. 13 (Sacred Books of the East).
[477] Ibid., p. 15.
[478] The Religious System of China, Book I, p. 936.
[479] Rigveda, X, 129.
[480] Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 97–9.
[481] The Bhagavad-Gita, Book 18.
[482] The Texts of Taoism, p. 19.
[483] The beginnings of Alchemy can be traced back to the early
dynastic period in ancient Egypt.
[484] The Egyptian gods Ra and Ptah similarly emerged from cosmic eggs.
[485] Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 100–2.
[486] Dr. Legge, Taoist Texts, p. 47.
[487] Ibid., p. 85.
[488] Ibid., pp. 74, 75.
[489] Dr. Legge, Taoist Texts, p. 51.
[490] Ascent of Olympus, p. 73.
[491] For discussions on these gates see Elliot Smith in Journal of the
Manchester and Oriental Society (1916), and The Evolution of the
Dragon, pp. 184, 185.
[492] Dr. Legge, Taoist Texts, p. 52.
[493] Ibid., p. 104.
[494] Ibid., p. 87.
[495] Dr. Legge, Taoist Texts, pp. 94, 95.
[496] Ibid., pp. 67–9.
[497] Ibid., p. 82.
[498] Ibid., p. 94.
[499] The Texts of Taoism, p. 96.
[500] Ibid., p. 95.
[501] Ibid., pp. 53, 54.
[502] Herbert A. Giles, Religions of Ancient China, p. 47.
[503] The Texts of Taoism, p. 59.
[504] Giles, Chuang Tzu, Mystic, Moralist, and Social Reformer.
[505] The Texts of Taoism, pp. 92, 93.
[506] The Texts of Taoism, p. 60.
[507] Kwang Tze, Book VI, par. 7 (Balfour’s translation).
[508] Analects VII, 1.
[509] The Texts of Taoism, p. 167 n.
[510] The Texts of Taoism (The Writings of Kwang Tze), p. 245.
[511] The Texts of Taoism, pp. 244 et seq.
[512] Ibid., p. 245.
[513] The Texts of Taoism, p. 364.
[514] Ibid., pp. 364–5.
[515] Customs of the World, p. 380.
[516] The terraced mound tombs of the Emperors of Japan appear to be
survivals of the ancient tombs. Although true dolmens have been found
in Korea, they do not, so far as is known, occur in Japan (Journal
Anthrop. Inst., xxiv, p. 330, and 1907, pp. 10 et seq.).
[517] Chinese Clay Figures, p. 265, n. 3.
[518] Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. X
(supplement), p. xxxvi.
[519] Chinese Clay Figures (Chicago, 1914), p. 265, n. 3.
[520] Ibid., p. 271 and n. 3, p. 272 and n. 1.
[521] In their own language Ainu-utara: “utara” is the plural suffix.
Their Japanese name is Yemishi; the Chinese came to know of them first
in A.D. 659, and called them Hia-i. A later Chinese name is Ku-hi.
[522] Pira, “cliff”; toru, “to stay”.
[523] Turesh, “younger sister”; machi, “wife”.
[524] For other versions, see Hartland, The Science of Fairy Tales
(London, 1891), pp. 71 et seq.
[525] See Index under “Melusina”.
[526] Genesis, chapter xxxv, 4.
[527] Elliot Smith, Distribution of Mummification: Manchester Memories,
Vol. LIX (1915), pp. 90 et seq.
[528] Laufer, Chinese Clay Figures, p. 269.
[529] Rendel Harris, The Ascent of Olympus, pp. 56 et seq., with its
Note on Ivy and Mugwort in Siberia, pp. 96 et seq.
[530] Rendel Harris, op. cit., pp. 101–2.
[531] Egyptian Myth and Legend, pp. 6 et seq.
[532] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 143–4.
[533] Batchelor, The Ainu and their Folk-lore. Batchelor, Notes on the
Ainu (Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan), Vol. X, pp. 206 et
seq. Milne, Notes on the Koro-pok-guru (Transactions of the Asiatic
Society of Japan), Vol. X, pp. 187 et seq. Chamberlain, Ainu Folk-tales
(Folk-lore Society’s Publications, Vol. XXII, 1888).
[534] Note on Ivy and Mugwort in Siberia in The Ascent of Olympus, pp.
99–100.
[535] The god Ea of the Sumero-Babylonians.
[536] Zipangu and Cipangu are renderings of the Chinese Jih-pên (“the
place the sun comes from”), with the word Kuo, “country”, added. The
Japanese Nihon or Nippon, and our Japan, are other renderings of the
Chinese name which was first used officially in Japan in the seventh
century A.D. Earlier Japanese names include Yamato and Ō-mi-kuni, “the
great dragon (mi) land”, &c.
[537] Yule, The Book of Ser Marco Polo (Book III, chapter iii), Vol.
III, p. 200. Kunz, Folk-lore of Precious Stones (Memoirs Internat.
Congr. Anthrop., Chicago, 1894), pp. 147 et seq. G. A. Cooke, System of
Universal Geography, Vol. I (1801), p. 574. J. W. Jackson, Shells as
Evidence of the Migrations of Early Culture (London, 1917), pp. 106 et
seq.
[538] Korea and her Neighbours (London, 1898), Vol. II, pp. 95 et seq.
[539] The Chinese dragon, K’üh-lung, originated from a sea-plant called
hai-lü. De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 72.
[540] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 137.
[541] The temple of the Mexican dragon- and rain-god, Tlaloc, was
called “Ep-coatl”, which signifies “pearl-serpent” or “serpent-pearl”.
Young children sacrificed to Tlaloc by being thrown into the whirlpool
(pan tit lan) of the lake of Mexico, were also called “Ep-coatl”. This
sacrifice took place at the water festival in the first month of the
Mexican year. The infants were sacrificed at several points, some being
butchered on holy hills, including the “place of mugwort”, sacred to
the mugwort and gem-goddess Chalchihuitlicue, wife of Tlaloc. But only
the children thrown into the lake were called “Ep-coatl”.
[542] Shinto (London, 1905), pp. 27 et seq.
[543] This does not seem to be the reason for the sanctity of a round
object.
[544] Or shaped like the teeth of tigers or bears.
[545] Archæologia, 1897 (The Dolmens and Burial Mounds in Japan), p.
478.
[546] Legend in Japanese Art, pp. 354–6.
[547] Ancestor of the Mikado.
[548] Goddess of the Sun.
[549] Legend in Japanese Art, pp. 350–1.
[550] The Maga-tama and the Kuda-tama.
[551] Jade, pp. 353–4.
[552] Ise is the name of a province, and the nearest town to the
“Mecca” is Yamada.
[553] Shinto (1905), pp. 231–2.
[554] See Index under Artemis.
[555] The temple of the sun-goddess is called Naiku, and that of the
food-goddess Geku. These temples are of wood, with thatched roofs.
Every twenty years the buildings are renewed.
[556] Shinto, p. 38.
[557] Shinto (1907), pp. 15–6.
[558] King, Babylonian Religion and Mythology, pp. 35, and 174 et seq.
[559] Myths of Babylonia and Assyria, pp. 72–3.
[560] Ibid., p. 95.
[561] Aston, Shinto (1907), p. 14.
[562] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, pp. 99 et seq.
[563] Shinto (1907), p. 6.
[564] Here we have the sanctity of jewels and other so-called
“ornaments” brought out very clearly.
[565] Aston, Shinto (1907), pp. 6–7.
[566] The Dragon in China and Japan.
[567] See Chapter XX.
[568] Breasted, Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 26. The Texts
referred to are: “His brother Set felled him to the earth in Nedyt....
Osiris was drowned in his new water (the inundation).”
[569] De Dea Syria, Chapter VIII.
[570] Breasted, op. cit., p. 20. Osiris was addressed: “Thou art great,
thou art green, in thy name of Great Green (Sea); lo, thou art round as
the Great Circle (Okeanos); lo, thou art turned about, thou art round
as the circle that encircles the Haunebu (Ægeans)”.
[571] Ibid., 22–3.
[572] For various versions of this legend see Hartland, Legend of
Perseus and River deities in Index.
[573] King, Babylonian Religion, p. 77.
[574] See Index under Ymir and Pʼan Ku.
[575] A translation into English of the Ko-ji-ki, by Professor B. H.
Chamberlain, was printed as a supplement to Vol. X of the Transactions
of the Asiatic Society of Japan (1893). The Nihon-gi was translated
into English by Dr. Aston, and printed in the Transactions of the Japan
Society for 1896.
[576] Grey, Polynesian Mythology, pp. 1 et seq.
[577] Like the Floating Island or Islands of the Blest.
[578] “Hid their persons” signifies, according to some commentators,
that they died. But certain Egyptian deities were “hidden”; their
influence remained: the Japanese hidden deity had a “mi-tama” (soul).
[579] Eight is a sacred number in Japan.
[580] See Myths of Crete and pre-Hellenic Europe, pp. 305–9.
[581] Shinto (1905), p. 90.
[582] He is the green falcon of the Morning Star in the Pyramid Texts.
[583] The Dawn of Astronomy (London, 1894), pp. 383 et seq.
[584] Shinto (1905), p. 132.
[585] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 137.
[586] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, pp. 136–7; and Florenz,
Japanische Mythologie, Chap. III, p. 33.
[587] Japanische Mythologie, p. 46.
[588] De Visser, op. cit., pp. 135–6.
[589] Shinto (1905), p. 73.
[590] See Index under wani.
[591] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 140.
[592] Ibid., pp. 141–2.
[593] De Visser, op. cit., pp. 139–40.
[594] De Visser, op. cit., pp. 147 et seq.
[595] Aston, Shinto (1905), p. 56 and pp. 219–20.
[596] The Dragon in China and Japan, pp. 231 et seq.
[597] Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. X
(supplement), p. 34.
[598] The spirits of disease, decay, destruction, and darkness.
[599] This phallic symbol had, apparently, like jade, rhinoceros-horn,
&c., nocturnal luminosity.
[600] Transactions of Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. VI, Part III, pp.
455–6.
[601] For representative versions in various lands, see Andrew Lang’s
Custom and Myth (A Far-travelled Tale), pp. 87 et seq.
[602] Or “Flat Hill of Hades”, the frontier line between the land of
the living and the land of the dead.
[603] In the Ainu story about the man who visited the Underworld and
was transformed into a snake, a pine tree, inhabited by a goddess,
occupies the spot on which grows the peach tree in this Japanese myth.
[604] The Japanese Persephone.
[605] “Susa-no-wo” for short.
[606] Things Japanese, p. 145.
[607] Shinto (1905), p. 141.
[608] Shinto (1905), p. 137.
[609] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, pp. 153–4.
[610] Shinto (1905), p. 140.
[611] Indian Myth and Legend, pp. 14, 15, 24, 64, 65.
[612] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, pp. 83 et seq.
[613] Ibid., p. 15.
[614] The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 121.
[615] Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, pp. 156 et seq.
[616] De Visser, The Dragon in China and Japan, p. 13.
[617] The modern Omi, Afumi (Aha-humi), “Fresh-water Lake”:
Chamberlain, Transactions of Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. X
(supplement), p. 45, n. 12.
[618] That is, the elder brother of her family. He was really younger
than herself.
[619] As the Babylonian Nergal wrested Hades from Eresh-ki-gal
(Persephone).
[620] The so-called “comma-shaped” beads, which represented the claws
of tigers or bears, or a cut sea-shell.
[621] The “Milky Way” by night, also called the “Heavenly River of
Eight currents (or ‘reaches’)”.
[622] The ancient Egyptian Celestial Pool of the Gods.
[623] Each jewel was eight feet long.
[624] The “hohi of Heaven”. What “hohi” signifies is a puzzle.
[625] Shinto (1905), p. 172.
[626] Religion and Thought in Ancient Egypt, p. 23.
[627] Shinto (1905), p. 174. Professor Benoy K. Sarkar compares Shiva
to Osiris. See The Folk-Element in Hindu Culture (London, 1917), p. 7.
[628] In Ancient Egypt the mountain that splits when the sun emerges at
dawn.
[629] The tree Sakaki (Cleyera japonica) planted beside Shinto shrines.
[630] The dance was a gross and indelicate one.
[631] This rope (shime-naha) is tied round trees at Shinto shrines. At
Ise it stretches across a ravine, through which the sun is seen and
adored at dawn. The straw is pulled up by the roots.
[632] The modern hohodzuki (Physalis Alkekengi).
[633] De Groot refers to a “venerable” Chinese dragon living in a pond;
it had nine heads and eighteen tails, and “ate nothing but fever
demons”. The Religious System of China, Vol. VI, p. 1053. Another
dragon is 1000 miles long; his breath causes wind; when he opens his
eyes it is day, and when he closes them it is night. De Visser, The
Dragon in China and Japan, p. 62.
[634] In the Nihon-gi this sword is called Ama no-hawe-giri (the
heavenly fly-cutter).
[635] Idzumo is the next holiest place to Ise. The god had other names
including Oho-kuni-nushi (“Great Land Master”).
[636] An incident that recalls the Diarmid story in Scottish and Irish
Gaelic folk-tales.
[637] One of the first three deities, the children of Heaven and Earth.
[638] The Arca inflata.
[639] The Cytherea meretrix.
[640] Chamberlain, in his translation of the Ko-ji-ki (p. 70), says
“the meaning is that a paste like milk was made of the triturated and
calcined shell mixed with water”. Mother (omo) may be read as “nurse”
too. Mrs. Carmichael, widow of Dr. Alexander Carmichael, the Scottish
folk-lorist, informs me that in the Outer Hebrides women burn and grind
cockle-shells to make a “lime water” for delicate children. The clam is
likewise used. The ancient Japanese and ancient Hebrideans may have
received this folk-medicine from the ancient seafarers who searched for
shells and metals.
[641] This was a magical act. He rendered himself invisible.
[642] The “sounding arrow” with a whistling contrivance made of bone.
It was known in China during the Tʼang Dynasty, and was used by hunters
to make birds rise, and by soldiers to scare enemies. Laufer thinks the
Japanese sounding arrows were of Chinese origin.—Chinese Clay Figures,
p. 224, n. 4.
[643] Or a rat.
[644] Here one is tempted to see mouse-Apollo, or the mouse of the
Homeric Apollo who shoots the arrows of disease. The mice that strip
the arrows of their feathers may be the arresters of disease. Mouse
medicine is of great antiquity in Egypt.
[645] “Divine messages,” says Chamberlain, “were conveyed through a
person playing on the lute.” The language of the “lute” was thus like
the “language of birds”.
[646] This is a Far Eastern version of the Jack-and-the-Beanstalk
story.
[647] Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. X
(supplement), p. 81.
[648] Native commentators say “goose” or “wren”; some consider that
owing to a copyist’s error “insect” has been changed to bird, and that
the reading should be “moth” or “silk-worm moth” or “fire insect”.
[649] Some think this plant is one that bears a berry three or four
inches long, and that the boat was a scooped-out berry.
[650] This is not Yomi, but either the Chinese Paradise of the West or
the Paradise of the Buddhists.
[651] A Chinese phrase signifying anciently the Chinese world or
empire. The “Crumbling Deity” may be the “leech-child”, or the
caterpillar worshipped by a Japanese cult.
[652] See Index.
[653] This is his posthumous name. During his life he was
Kamu-Yamato-Iware-Biko.
[654] The golden crow of the sun had three legs. In the moon was the
jewelled hare.
[655] Transactions of the Asiatic Society of Japan, Vol. X
(supplement), p. 199, n. 5.
[656] Chamberlain, Things Japanese, p. 57.
[657] Polynesian Researches (First Edition, 1829), p. 327.
[658] Turner, Nineteen Years in Polynesia (1861), p. 237.
[659] Batchelor, Notes on the Ainu (Transactions of the Asiatic Society
of Japan, Vol. X), p. 218.
[660] Nira, the Allium odorum.
[661] Tilia cordata. See Chamberlain’s Ko-ji-ki, pp. 102 n. 26, and
215.
[662] An evil rain which did harm like the evil rain sent by a sick or
an angry and destroying dragon.
[663] The moor of the waterfall of the River Yoro in Mino.
[664] Apparently the sword would have protected him against the fatal
enchantment wrought by the white boar-god of Mount Ibuki.
[665] Chidori, a dotteril, plover, or sandpiper.
[666] As a god’s mi-tama rests in a temple to be worshipped.
[667] His posthumous title. During life he was called Hachiman.
[668] Customs of the World (Japan), pp. 380 et seq.
[669] Chinese Clay Figures, Part I, p. 272 (Field Museum of Natural
History, Publication 177; Anthropological Series, Vol. XIII, No. 2).
Chicago, 1914.
[670] Jade, p. 57.
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