Page:Sagas from the Far East; or, Kalmouk and Mongolian traditionary tales.djvu/424

400 her away. Partly out of distress and partly as a reproach she left her infant son exposed on the dunghill of the royal dwelling. A serpent-god, who was the tutelar genius of the place, took pity on the child, and was found winding its body round the basket in which it was cradled, holding its head raised over the same and spreading out its hood (it was the Cobra di capello species of serpent, which was the object of divine honours) to protect him from the sun. The people drove away the serpent-god (Nâga) with the cry of ''Shu! Shu!'' whence they gave the name of Shishunâga to the child, who, on opening the basket, was found to be endowed with qualities promising his future greatness. In this case, however, the serpent-god seems to have borne his serpent-shape, and in that of Vikramâditja, the eight are spoken of as in human form.

1. Nirvâna. See supra, p. 330, note, p. 334, and p. 343. The word is sometimes used however poetically, simply as an equivalent for death.

2. Kütschün Tschindaktschi = "One provided with might." (Jülg.)

3. "The custom of requiring women to go abroad veiled was only introduced after the Mussulman invasion, and was nearly the only important circumstance in which Muhammedan influenced Indian manners." See Lassen, Indische Alterthumskunde, iii. p. 1157. In Mongolia, however, Abbé Huc found that women have completely preserved their independence. "Far from being kept down as among other Asiatic nations they come and go at pleasure, ride out on horseback, and pay visits to each other from tent to tent. In place of the soft languishing physiognomy of the Chinese women, they present in their bearing and manners a sense of power and free will in accordance with their active life and nomad habits. Their attire augments the effect of their masculine haughty mien."

In chapter v. of vol. ii., however, he tells of a custom prevailing in part of Tibet of a much more objectionable nature than the use of a veil:—"Nearly 200 years ago the Nome-Khan, who ruled over Hither-Tibet, was a man of rigid manners. To meet the libertinism prevailing at his day he published an edict prohibiting women from appearing in public otherwise than with their faces bedaubed with a hideous black varnish.  The most extraordinary circumstance connected with it is that the women are perfectly resigned to it The women who bedaub their faces most disgustingly are deemed the most pious.  In country