Part 89 (1/2)

[Ill.u.s.tration: From the Burmese standard.]

Augustine, in his _Civitas Dei_, traces the respect for the goose, displayed by the Romans, to their grat.i.tude for the safety of the capital; when the vigilance of this bird defeated the midnight attack by the Goths. The adulation of the citizens, he says, degenerated afterwards almost to Egyptian superst.i.tion, in the rites inst.i.tuted in honour of their preservers on that occasion.[1] But the very fact that the geese which saved the citadel were already sacred to Juno, and domesticated in her temple, demonstrates the error of Augustine, and shows that they had acquired mythological eminence, before achieving political renown. It must be observed, too, that the birds which rendered that memorable service, were the ordinary white geese of Europe[2], and not the red goose of the Nile (the [Greek: chenalopex] of Herodotus), which, ages before, had been enrolled amongst the animals held sacred in Egypt, and which formed the emblem of Seb, the father of Osiris.[3] HORAPOLLO, endeavouring to account for this predilection of the Egyptians (who employed the goose hieroglyphically to denote _a son_), ascribes it to their appreciation of the love evinced by it for its offspring, in exposing itself to divert the attention of the fowler from its young.[4] This opinion was shared by the Greeks and the Romans.

Aristotle praises its sagacity; aelian dilates on the courage and cunning of the ”vulpanser,” and its singular attachment to man[5]; and Ovid ranks the goose as superior to the dog in the scale of intelligence,--

”Soliciti canes canibusve sagacior anser.”

OVID, _Met_. xi. 399.

[Footnote 1: ”And hereupon did Rome fall almost into the superst.i.tion of the aegyptians that wors.h.i.+p birds and beasts, for they _henceforth_ kept a holy day which they call the _goose's feast_.”--AUGUSTINE, _Civitas Dei, &c._ book ii. ch. 22: Englished by F.H. Icond. 1610.]

[Footnote 2: This appears from a line of Lucretius:

”Romulidarum arcis servator _candidus_ anser.”

_De Rer. Nat._ I. iv. 687.]

[Footnote 3: SIR GARDNER WILKINSON'S _Manners and Customs, &c._, 2nd Ser. pl. 31, fig. 2, vol. i. p. 312; vol. ii. p. 227. Mr. Birch of the British Museum informs me that throughout the ritual or hermetic books of the ancient Egyptians a mystical notion is attached to the goose as one of the creatures into which the dead had to undergo a transmigration. That it was actually wors.h.i.+pped is attested by a sepulchral tablet of the 26th dynasty, about 700 B.C., in which it is figured standing on a small chapel over which are the hieroglyphic words, ”_The good goose greatly beloved;_” and on the lower part of the tablet the dedicator makes an offering of fire and water to ”_Ammon and the Goose._”--_Revue Archaeo._, vol. ii. pl. 27.]

[Footnote 4: HORAPOLLO, _Hieroglyphica_, lib. i. 23.]

[Footnote 5: aeLIAN, _Nat. Hist._, lib. v. c. 29, 30, 50. aelian says that the Romans in recognition of the superior vigilance of the goose on the occasion of the a.s.sault on the Capitol, inst.i.tuted a procession in the Forum in honour of the goose, whose watchfulness was incorruptible; but held an annual denunciation of the inferior fidelity of the dogs, which allowed themselves to be silenced by meat flung to them by the Gauls.--_Nat. Hist._ lib. xii. ch. x.x.xiii.]

The feeling appears to have spread westward at an early period; the ancient Britons, according to Caesar, held it impious to eat the flesh of the goose[1], and the followers of the first crusade which issued from England, France, and Flanders, adored a goat and _a goose_, which they believed to be filled by the Holy Spirit.[2]

[Footnote 1: ”Anserem gustare fas non patant.”--CaeSAR, _Bell Gall._, lib. v. ch xii.]

[Footnote 2: MILL'S _Hist. of the Crusades_, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 75.

Forster has suggested that it was a species of goose (which annually migrates from the Black Sea towards the south) that fed the Israelites in the desert of Sinai, and that the ”winged fowls” meant by the word _salu_, which has been heretofore translated ”quails,” were ”red geese,”

resembling those of Egypt and India. He renders one of the mysterious inscriptions which abound in the Wady Mokatteb (_the Valley of Writings_), ”the red geese ascend from the sea,--l.u.s.ting the people eat to repletion;” thus presenting a striking concurrence with the pa.s.sage in Numb. xi. 31, ”there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails (_salu_) from the sea.”--FORSTER'S _One Primeval Language_, vol.

i. p. 90.]

It is remarkable that the same word appears to designate the goose in the most remote quarters of the globe. The Pali term ”_hanza_” by which it was known to the Buddhists of Ceylon, is still the ”_henza_” of the Burmese and the ”_gangsa_” of the Malays, and is to be traced in the [Greek: ”chen”] of the Greeks, the ”_anser_” of the Romans, the ”_ganso_” of the Portuguese, the ”_ansar_” of the Spaniards, the ”_gans_” of the Germans (who, PLINY says, called the white geese _ganza_), the ”_gas_” of the Swedes, and the ”_gander_” of the English.[1]

[Footnote 1: HARDY observes that the ibis of the Nile is called ”_Abou-Hansa_” by the Arabs, (_Buddhism_, ch. i. p. 17); but BRUCE (_Trav_. vol. v. p. 172) says the name is _Abou Hannes_ or _Father John_, and that the bird always appears on St. John's day: he implies, however, that this is probably a corruption of an ancient name now lost.]

In the princ.i.p.al apartment of the royal palace at Kandy, now the official residence of the chief civil officer in charge of the province, the sacred bird occurs amongst the decorations, but in such shape as to resemble the dodo rather than the Brahmanee goose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: IN THE PALACE AT KANDY]

In the generality of the examples of ancient Singhalese carvings that have come down to us, the characteristic which most strongly recommends them, is their careful preservation of the outline and form of the article decorated, notwithstanding the richness and profusion of the ornaments applied. The subjects engraved are selected with so much judgment, that whilst elaborately covering the surface, they in no degree mar the configuration. Even in later times this principle has been preserved, and the chasings in silver and tortoise sh.e.l.l on the scabbards of the swords of state, worn by the Kandyan kings and their attendants, are not surpa.s.sed by any specimens of similar workmans.h.i.+p in India.

_Temples_.--The temples of Buddha were at first as unpretending as the residences of the priesthood. No mention is made of them during the infancy of Buddhism in Ceylon; at which period caves and natural grottoes were the only places of devotion. In the sacred books these are spoken of as ”stone houses”[1] to distinguish them from the ”houses of earth”[2] and other materials used in the construction of the first buildings for the wors.h.i.+p of Buddha; such temples having been originally confined to a single chamber of the humblest dimensions, within which it became the custom at a later period to place a statue of the divine teacher reclining in dim seclusion, the gloom being increased to heighten the scenic effect of the ever-burning lamps by which the chambers are imperfectly lighted.

[Footnote 1: The King, Walagambahu, who in his exile had been living amongst the rocks in the wilderness, ascended the throne after defeating the Malabars (B.C. 104), and ”caused _the of stone or caves of the rocks_ in which he had taken refuge to be made more commodious.”--_Rajavali_, p. 224.]

[Footnote 2: _Rajavali_, p. 222.]

The construction of both these descriptions of temples was improved in later times, but no examples remain of the ancient chaityas or built temples in Ceylon, and those of the rock temples still existing exhibit a very slight advance beyond the rudest attempts at excavation.