And When The Father Saw Dead Before
Him That Son Whom He Loved Better Than Himself, He Was Near Going
Distraught With Sorrow.
And he caused an image in the similitude of his
son to be wrought in gold and precious stones, and caused all his people
to adore it.
And they all declared him to be a god; and so they still say.
[NOTE 4]
They tell moreover that he hath died fourscore and four times. The first
time he died as a man, and came to life again as an ox; and then he died
as an ox and came to life again as a horse, and so on until he had died
fourscore and four times; and every time he became some kind of animal.
But when he died the eighty-fourth time they say he became a god. And they
do hold him for the greatest of all their gods. And they tell that the
aforesaid image of him was the first idol that the Idolaters ever had; and
from that have originated all the other idols. And this befel in the
Island of Seilan in India.
The Idolaters come thither on pilgrimage from very long distances and with
great devotion, just as Christians go to the shrine of Messer Saint James
in Gallicia. And they maintain that the monument on the mountain is that
of the king's son, according to the story I have been telling you; and
that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish that are there were those of
the same king's son, whose name was Sagamoni Borcan, or Sagamoni the
Saint.
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