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The priest asked how he was to know their mother, when they described her to him, and gave him a certain root,* by which he would acquire the power of seeing the pr6tas. On entering the city he saw many thousands of these beings, so that his progress through the city was greatly impeded, as he had to step on one * The roots of certain trees are generally regarded as haying gre^t power over demons. The root baaras was supposed by the Jews to driTe them aw^j from the sick. — Josephus, De Bell. Jud. yii. 6. n. ORDERS OF SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 61 side oontinnally to let the pr^tas pass him. At last he met the mother, who was seeking offal in the street of the butchers, and he delivered to her the message from her sons. On hearing it, she enquired how he could see her, when he informed her of the root ; but out of compassion she snatched it from his hand, as she knew that by its influence he would see so many pr6tas as to be preyented from seeking alms, and thus have to return home without food. 12. The Inhabitants of the Narakas. The beings who seize upon the damned have bodies twelve miles in size ; they take a flame in their right hand, and strike their victim, after which they lash him with an equal flame, held in the left hand. If he has taken life in a former birth, or committed any other great crime, he must remain in the naraka until he has received the entire punishment that is dae. The tormentors throw him down on the iron floor, and cleave him with an axe. They fasten him with his feet upwards and head downwards to a chariot of fire, and urge him onward with a red-hot goad. He ascends in the flame, and is then cast down ; he is enclosed in the Lohokumba hell; he is covered all over with foam, like a grain of rice in the oven ; he is now up, now down, and now on one side ; and he dies not until the punish- ment he must receive for his demerit is complete. (Bala- pandkita^sutra-sanne. ) . It was declared by Budha, that if any one were to attempt to describe all the misery of all the narakas, more than a hundred, or even a hundred thousand years, would be required for the recital. The beings in the narakas endure much sorrow ; they suffer much pain ; every member of the body, throughout all its parts, is exposed to an intense fire ; they weep, and send forth a dole&l lamentation; their mouths and faces are covered with saliva; they are crushed by an insupportable affliction ; they have no help ; their misery is incessant ; and they live in the midst of a fire that is fiercer than the sun-beam, raging continually, casting forth flames above, below, and on the four sides, to the distance of 100 yojanas. Yet even these miserable beings are afraid of death, although 62 A MANUAL OF BUDHISM. this fear arises from no love they have to the place of torment ; from this thej wish to be released. In what way, is it asked ? A man is exposed to danger from a snake, an elephant, or a lion, or some punishment awarded by the king ; from this he wishes to be released, and yet at the same time he fears death. A^in, a man has a dangerous tamonr, which the surgeon is prepared to remove by the application of caustic or the use of some sharp instrument ; this man wishes to be relieved from the pain of the tumour, but still dreads the operation. Again, a poor man in prison is sent for by some great ruler, and is ushered into his presence that he may be set at liberty ; this man wishes for liberty, but trembles when entering a place of so much splen- dour. Again, a man is bitten by a poisonous serpent ; he falls to the ground, and tosses himself violently from side to side ; another man who sees his danger pronounces over him a charm, that the force of the poison may be overcome ; when coming to himself, and on the point of being cured, he is afraid, and trem- bles; nevertheless he wishes that the cure may be effected. In like manner the beings in the narakas, though they have no satisfaction in the situation in which they are placed, like all other beings, fear death. {Milinda Prasna), Upon one occasion Milinda said to Ndgasena, *'You affirm that the fire of the narakas is intensely more powerful than the natural fire of this world ; if a small stone be here cast into the fire, it will remain a whole day without being consumed ; but if a rock as large as a house be cast into the fire of a naraka, you say it will be consumed in a moment : this I cannot believe. You say again, that if a being is cast into a naraka, he will re- main there many ages without coming to destruction : this also I cannot believe." N^gas^ua replied, " How so ? There is the sword-fish, the alligator, the tortoise, the peacock, and the pigeon ; these all eat stones and gravel ; but by the power of the digestive fire within the body these hard substances are decomposed ; but if the females of any of these reptiles or birds become pregnant, is the embryo destroyed from the same cause ? " MUinda : " No." Ndgae^na : " Why ? " Milinda : " By means of their individual karma they are preserved." Milinda : *' So also, the beings in the narakas are preserved by their individaal karma during many ages ; they are there bom, arrive at maturity, and die. Budha has said. Priests, so long as the n. ORDEBS OF SENTIENT EXISTENCE. 63 karma of a being in a naraka continnes to exist, that being mnst exist." There were fiye persons who lived in the time of Qdtama Bndha, of whom it is recorded that they went to a naraka : — 1. The noble Bhagineyja, who violated the chastity of the priestess, IJpnlwan. 2. The brahman M^gandhi, who reviled Bndha during seven days. 8. Ghinchi, the female who was instigated by the tirttakas to bring a false accusation against Bndha, in the presence of the fonr orders of the priesthood. 4. Sapra Bndha, the father-in-law of Bndha. 5. D^wadatta, the son of Supra Bndha, who tempted some of the followers of Badha to forsake him, and fell into heresy. III. THE PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH ; THEIR FALL FROM PURITY ; AND THEIR DIVISION INTO FOUR CASTES. THB BSA.HMA8 COMB TO IVHABIT THB BABTH. — THBIB BPLBKDOITB. — ITS LOBS. — THB POSMATION OF THB SUN AND MOON. — THB DBOBNBBAOT OP THB BBAHMAS. — THB ORIOIN OF THB FOUB CASTB8. Nearly all the ancient nations of the world, of whom we have any record, carry back their origin to a period im- mensely remote ; nor is this to be wondered at, when we con- sider that the traditions of the diluvian age must then have been fresh in the memories of men. Noah lived three hun- dred and fifty years, and Shem five hundred years after the flood. Nimrod, from whom was " the beginning of the kingdom of Babel," was the great grandson of Noah : and the^M^OM of Egypt i. s„p%Tl..ve W ■ origin from Mizraim, the son of Ham. The founders of these kingdoms, therefore, conversed with men who had seen the flood, and who had been witnesses of the most fearful mun- dane convulsion that had taken place since the formation of our species. Who, in the days of his childhood, when the mind yearns after information relative to the past, and the strangest fiction is received as sober truth, has ever listened to the tales that none are so ready to tell as the aged, whether grandsire or gammer, without the receiving of impressions which the experience of future years can never entirely ob- literate ? It is then that the spirit leaves the narrow bound that in infancy was its world, and breaks away into other re- gions: where it sees that which was before invisible, and hears that which was before inaudible, and enters upon a new existence. But the wildest romance ever heard in our day, from lips all garrulous, must be poor and spiritless when III. PRIMITIVE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH. 65 compared with the wondrous revelations that the members of the Noachic family could impart ; and when the children to whom they told them grew up into manhood, and wan- dered into the lands where they founded dynasties and esta- blished kingdoms, all these tales and traditions would be cherished in the memory, increasing in extravagance as they went on, until some superior mind would arise, and reduce them to order. Thus, from that which in its origin was the simple truth, would arise the legend, the myth, and the cnro- nological cycle almost limitless, of the times succeeding the deluge. The traditions of the Budhists are in unison with this order of development.