Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 12 (Egyptian and Indo-Chinese).djvu/381

Rh Another legend, told by the people of Hanoi to glorify their temple, gives a quite different account of the end of the two sisters. According to it the sisters did not die on the field of battle, but escaped and afterward drowned themselves in the Day River out of pure despair. This is the reason, they say, for the building of the temple which stands at the junction of the Day and the Red rivers.

This temple to the sisters is of considerable size, but is not, externally at least, in very good preservation. It stands a little way off the road to Hue. The main shrine has a number of outbuildings attached to it, and the remains of an ancient paved way led from the high propylaea to the temple door. One of these propylaea now lies on the ground, and so does a stone pillar with a rounded top, which was evidently intended to receive an inscription that was never carved. The column clearly stood on the back of a stone tortoise, which is now half hidden in the grass. Inside the quadrangle are two clay figures of elephants, painted black and large enough to be able to carry real tusks. The shrine stands in the centre of the quadrilateral formed by the main building and its annexes, and the sanctuary is carefully curtained off with red hangings. The statues of the two sisters stand on a stone platform about three feet high, and to the right and left are low chapels, shut off with mats, these shrines being filled with representations of the figures of the servants of the two Trungs. The whole is richly decorated and is kept in admirable order by the nuns who are in charge of the building. The abbess is usually the widow of some high official, and it is only by her permission that the tapestries are raised and access is obtained to the sanctuary. The statues represent the sisters as considerably over life size and as kneeling with both hands raised in supplication to heaven. They are dressed in the garments of their sex, Trung-trac in a yellow silk and Trung-nhi in a red silk robe. Both of them wear a gilt head-dress of the most elaborate kind, decked out with hibiscus flowers of gilded paper. The tables for offerings are