Page:Journal of American Folklore vol. 12.djvu/75

 Folk- Lore Scrap-Book. 67

said : 'Why do you desire his injury ? Shang Ti has decreed that he shall be a Grand Secretary, and you cannot injure him.' "

Edict of the President of the Sixth Hall of Judgment i?i Hades (p. 345). — " Those who grumble at heaven and earth, wind, thunder, cold, heat, rain, or clear heavens, who cry or commit nuisance toward the north ; persons who destroy idols and steal their souls and intestines or scrape the gold leaf off the idols, or who use the names of the gods frivolously ; who- soever destroys characters or books, who shoots rubbish near a temple, or worships an idol in a dirty kitchen ; persons who treasure up obscene books, but gladly destroy good books and tracts ; those who engrave or paint on any kind of crockery or furniture the sign of the dual principles of nature, or the Pa-kwa, the eight signs, or sun, moon, stars, gods, the eight genii, or the constellation of mother Wang, or embroider the sacred sign of Buddha upon clothes ; persons who write the name of the owner of furniture upon the seats of chairs or the tops of stools, thus defiling the character by sitting upon it (it is proper to write or paste the owner's name underneath) ; people who wear clothes with a dragon upon them ; who trample upon grain and spoil it, or hoard up grain until high prices may be had, — whoever is guilty of the above crimes shall pass a preliminary examination at this hall, and then be passed to their proper hell for punish- ment ; when their time is expired, to be sent to the seventh hall.

" Persons guilty of the above crimes, if they will abstain from animal food on the third day of the eighth moon, and will on the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth of the fifth moon, the third of the eighth moon, and the tenth of the tenth moon, not quarrel with any person, shall escape all the torments of hell."

This proclamation is supplemented as follows : " A new decree. The unrepentant of the above crimes shall first suffer for five years in the great hell, and then three years in the hell for flaying. At the expiration of this period they are to be passed to the seventh hall. The souls of those who live in lonely places and rob and murder travellers, of innkeepers who put poison in food to injure their guests, of banditti, and those who assault women — when they arrive in this hall shall be cut in halves and after- wards be sent to the great hell and suffer for sixteen years, and then five years in each of the sixteen hells ; at the expiration of this period they shall go the boundless hell and pass through fifteen hundred various calamities, and after this be born as animals."

The translator remarks : " When an idol of any value is finished, there is the ceremony of giving it a soul in order to make it have life, i. e. power to be efficacious ; the soul is placed in a small box or hole between the shoulders. I once extracted a soul ; there were several bits of metal to represent the heart, liver, and lungs, the bones of a sparrow and mouse, a bag of cereals, some silk threads, and a paper giving an account of the putting in of the soul. In valuable idols gold and silver are put in, and then the idols are well guarded."

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