Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 2.djvu/202

 messenger. With the images of Buddha from Ava, were also presented to me four leaves of the palmyra-tree, twenty-three inches in length by two and a half in breadth, on both sides of which are engraved with a stile the religious doctrines of the Burmese. The leaves are held together by two pieces of ribbon passed through holes in them, and are a portion of a work of about three or four inches in thickness. In the plate entitled "Pūja of the Tūlsī," the Brahman is reading from palmyra leaves of the same description.

10. KALKI?], OR THE HORSE.

The Kalkī, or final avatar, is yet to come; in which Vishn[)u] will appear incarnate in a human form, for the purpose of dissolving the universe. The Kalkī will be incarnate in the house of the Brahman Bishenjun, the apparent offspring of the sage by his wife Awejsedenee, and will be born in the city of Sambal, towards the close of the Kalī period or Yug, in the month Vaisach, the scorpion. In one hand he is represented bearing aloft a "cimetar, blazing like a comet," to destroy all the impure, who shall then inhabit the earth; and in the other he displays a circular ornament or ring, the emblem of cycles perpetually revolving, and of which the existing one is on the point of being finally terminated. The Kalkī is represented leading a white horse, richly caparisoned, adorned with jewels, and furnished with wings. The horse is represented standing on three feet only, holding up, without intermission, the right fore-*leg; with which, say the Brahmans, when he stamps with fury upon the earth, the present period shall close, and the dissolution of nature take place. Jayadeva thus describes the tenth avatar: "For the destruction of all the impure thou drawest thy cimetar, blazing like a comet: (how tremendous!) O Cesava, assuming the body of Kalkī: Be victorious, O Heri, lord of the universe!"

End of the Kalī-yug, or fourth Indian period, and of the history of the ten avatars.

THE DESCENT OF VISHN[)U] AS KRISHNA.

The Preserver appeared on earth in the form of Krishna,