Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/398

374 "lightning;" also abhêdja, "infrangible." It would appear, however, that the Muhammedans were not the first to despoil the Eastern treasuries, for Pliny (book ix.) tells us that Lollia, wife of Claudius, was wont to show herself, on all public occasions, literally covered from head to foot with jewels, which her father, Marcus Lollius, had taken from the kings of the East, and which were valued at forty million sesterces. He adds, however, this noteworthy instance of retribution of rapacity, that he ended by taking his own life to appease the Emperor's animosity, which he had thereby incurred.

Hiuen Thsang, the Chinese pilgrim who visited India about A.D. 640, particularly mentions that in Maláva and Magadha were chief seats of learned studies.

2. Abaraschika; magic word of no meaning. (Jülg.)

3. Astrologers. Colebrooke ("Miscellaneous Essays," ii. 440) is of opinion that astrology was a late introduction into India. Divination by the relative position of the planets seems to have been in part at least of foreign growth and comparatively recent introduction among the Hindus; (he explains this to refer to the Alexandrian Greeks). "The belief in the influence of the planets and stars upon human affairs is with them indeed remotely ancient, and was a natural consequence of their early creed making the sun and planets gods. But the notion that the tendency of that supposed influence and the manner in which it is to be exerted, may be foreseen by man, and the effect to be produced by it foretold through a knowledge of the position of the planets at a given moment, is no necessary result of that belief; for it takes from beings believed divine their free agency." See also Weber, "Geschichte der Indische Astrologie," in his Indische Studien, ii. 236 et seq.

1. Tabun Minggan = "containing five thousand." (Jülg.) The tale-repeater again gives a name of his own language to a town which he places in India.

2. Cows and oxen were always held in high estimation by the ancient Indians. The same word that stood for "cow" expressed also "the earth," and both stand equally in the Vêda for symbols of fruitfulness and patient labouring for the benefit of others. The ox stands in the Manu for "uprightness" and "obedience to the laws." In