"And Jugglers Cause
Cups Of Gold Full Of Good Wine To Fly Through The Air, And To Offer
Themselves To All Who List To Drink." (Cathay, P. 143.) In The Note On
That Passage I Have Referred To A Somewhat Similar Story In The Life Of
Apollonius.
"Such feats," says Mr. Jaeschke, "are often mentioned in
ancient as well as modern legends of Buddha and other
Saints; and our
Lamas have heard of things very similar performed by conjuring Bonpos."
(See p. 323.) The moving of cups and the like is one of the sorceries
ascribed in old legends to Simon Magus: "He made statues to walk; leapt
into the fire without being burnt; flew in the air; made bread of stones;
changed his shape; assumed two faces at once; converted himself into a
pillar; caused closed doors to fly open spontaneously; made the vessels in
a house seem to move of themselves," etc. The Jesuit Delrio laments that
credulous princes, otherwise of pious repute, should have allowed diabolic
tricks to be played before them, "as, for example, things of iron, and
silver goblets, or other heavy articles, to be moved by bounds from one
end of a table to the other, without the use of a magnet or of any
attachment." The pious prince appears to have been Charles IX., and the
conjuror a certain Cesare Maltesio. Another Jesuit author describes the
veritable mango-trick, speaking of persons who "within three hours' space
did cause a genuine shrub of a span in length to grow out of the table,
besides other trees that produced both leaves and fruit."
In a letter dated 1st December, 1875, written by Mr. R. B. Shaw, after his
last return from Kashgar and Lahore, this distinguished traveller says; "I
have heard stories related regarding a Buddhist high priest whose temple
is said to be not far to the east of Lanchau, which reminds me of Marco
Polo and Kublai Khan. This high priest is said to have the magic power of
attracting cups and plates to him from a distance, so that things fly
through the air into his hands." (MS. Note. - H. Y.)
The profession and practice of exorcism and magic in general is greatly
more prominent in Lamaism or Tibetan Buddhism than in any other known form
of that religion. Indeed, the old form of Lamaism as it existed in our
traveller's day, and till the reforms of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), and as it
is still professed by the Red sect in Tibet, seems to be a kind of
compromise between Indian Buddhism and the old indigenous Shamanism. Even
the reformed doctrine of the Yellow sect recognises an orthodox kind of
magic, which is due in great measure to the combination of Sivaism with
the Buddhist doctrines, and of which the institutes are contained in the
vast collection of the Jud or Tantras, recognised among the holy books.
The magic arts of this code open even a short road to the Buddhahood
itself.
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