Essays Lectures on Religion of Hindu Vol 02

Author(s): H H Wilson
Publisher: Trubner and Company London

Page 36

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NOTICE OF
number of inferior divinities, both male and female, that are not borrowed from either the Saiva or Säkta sects.
It is a subject of important inquiry, in what degree these divinities are peculiar to Nepal, and whether they are acknowledged by the Bauddhas in other countries. There can be little doubt, that they are recognised by the Bauddhas of Tibet and Chinese Tartary, and some of them are traceable in China. It is very doubtful, however, if they form part of the theocracy of Ceylon, Ava, and Siam. In the first of these we find inferior divinities, some of them females, worshipped; but they do not, as far as any description enables us to judge, offer any analogy to the similar beings reverenced in Nepal. In Aya and Siam nothing of the kind apparently occurs, although in the existence of Nats, it is admitted, that other animated creatures than man and animals exist. It has already been observed, that nothing analogous to the Metaphysical, or Dhyuni Buddhas occurs in the Buddhism of Southern India.
There is, however, some evidence to shew, that the whole of the Nepal hierarchy of heaven, even of the Swábhávika class, is not confined to the nations of the North. In the vocabulary of HEMACHANDRA * we have the names of sixteen goddesses, at a little distance from the synonymes of the Buddhas, entitled the Vidyádevis, who are unknown to the Brahmanical system. One of these is Prajnaptí, who may be the
* [239. 240.]