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JULY, 1878.]
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
179
ponne. Planché, in his Pursuivant of Arms, tika " is the Manji badge of the Hachisuka says of it: "It is a mystic figure called in the family, Daimiôs of Ava, sometimes drawn it, Greek Church gammadion. It is very early and sometimes, but less frequently, 457It is seen in heraldry, and appeared in the paintings taken from a Chinese character meaning 'ten in the old palace of Westminster. Its significa- thousand,' and is a Buddhist symbol supposed tion, is at present unknown." It was constantly to be emblematic of good luck. It is frequently introduced in ecclesiastical vestments, and, to be seen on Buddhist temples as a sign of doubtless with a belief in its talismanic efficacy, Fudô Sama, or the motionless Buddha.' It is is often found on ancient bells in parish church- often marked upon the lids of coffins, being supes, --so keeping up its connection with the posed to act as a charm to protect the corpse air, our forefathers, firmly believing that de- against the attack of a demon in the shape of a mons--the powers of the air-were driven cat, called Kin'asha, which is said to seize and away by the clang of church bells. In our mangle the dead bodies of human beings." In own day it has become a favourite ornamental China it is common, enters largely into ornament, device-we may be sure with no thought of and is often worn as a charm. It is curious insymbolism,--and the archæologist returning deed to find the same symbol used with a mystic from India may observe it covering ceilings, meaning both in English and Japanese heraldry, cornices, fenders, and other iron-work.
and, for the same office of repelling demons, In India the svastika is found on Buddhist on Japanese coffins and English church-bells ! coins referred by Mr. E. Thomas to about 330 But, whatever may have been the origin of this B.C., and also appears in Prinsep's engrav- most archaic and wondrously wide-spread symings of Hindu coins. It is a sacred Buddhist bol, there seems little to support the theories of emblem in Tibet, is the chinha or device of Messrs. Emile Burnouf and Westropp. Mr. E. Suparáva, the seventh Tirthankara of the Jains, Thomas (Jour. R. As. Soc. N.S. Vol. I. p. 486) and is said to be used by the Vaishnavas also as a thinks it may have been a mere ornamental mark on their sacred jar. (Moor's Hindu Pan- variation of the simple cross, that might have theon.) But probably its most remarkable exist- suggested itself anywhere, without any definite ing use is in China and Japan, respecting meaning, but singular enough in outline to which we will quote a passage from a very attract professors of magic and cabalistic rites. interesting article on Japanese Heraldry in Still this hardly explains its adoption in Volume V. of the Transactions of the Asiatic countries so widely separated as Norway and Society of Japan, premising that heraldry has Japan, and its strange defect in the far older existed in Japan from a period far earlier than intermediate lands of Egypt and Mesopo900 A.D., and every daimió family had its own tamia, the very nurseries of magic and mysti. cognizances. At page 12 we read that the svas- | cism.
CORRESPONDENCE AND MISCELLANEA.
PARSI FUNERAL AND INITIATORY RITES. term for Dasturs and Mobeds. The title of Her
SIR, -Allow me to correct a few errors in the bad is affixed to the name of one who has passed valuable paper that appears in the Indian Anti- the NÂvar ceremony, to distinguish him from Osta quary, vol. VI. pp. 311-315, on " Pârst funeral and (in or non-Herbad. Thus, a Dastur as well as initiatory rites, and the P&raf religion," by Prof. a Mobed is a Herbad, which is not, as Professor Monier Williams.
Williams says, the name of the lowest order of It appears that the learned professor was wrongly priests. Parsis are divided into Herbad and informed that the priestly race among the Parsis is | Ost A, according as they have or have not perdivided into three classes of Dasturs, Mobeds, formed the ceremony called Ndvar (192). Again, and Herbads. Herbad, or Erwad Herbads are either Dasturs or Mobeds by virtue (296) as it is more commonly called, is no of their office, the former being superior to the separate division of priests, but a mere generic latter. But these divisions do not engender any
. Poor worshippers in Jaina temples may often be seen laying down a few gtains of rice before the image, and arranging them into the form of the svastika while repeat
ing a mantra.-ED.
Some Herbads are neither Dasturs nor Mobeds, for they do not choose to enter the holy order.
