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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[AUGUST, 1906.
1. Thagya Nat. Thagya Nat is the Thagya [Ruler) of the Tawadênth Heaven. In the festival of this Nat the medium wears a pas loin cloth] fringed with a border of foreign manufacture, a jacket with broad sleeves, and a white shawl round the neck. He holds a conch-shell in the left hand. and thabye twigs in the right. Holding the twigs, put together in the form of a yal-fan, and pacing gently and gracefully, he chaunts an ode, in which he admonishes all his worshippers to ehun evil and do only good, threatening evil-doers with punishment and promising rewards to the righteous.
2. Mah&girt Nat. Mahagiri Nnt is the spirit of Nga Tindè, son of Nga Tindaw, a blacksmith of Tagaung. Being apprehensive of his strength and valour, the king of Tagaung tried to arrest him. He baffled such attempts by hiding himself in the woods. The king resorted to a stratagem, and made his sister, Swêmi, a queer, with the title of Thirichandâ, and made her inveigle her brother to the palace. He was then captured, tied to a sagà tree in front of the palace and burnt alive with the aid of bellows.
In the festival to this Nat the medium wears a pasó and & jacket, both fringed with a border of foreign manufacture, and a reddish brown gilt hat. He holds a fan in his right hand and thabye twigs and a sword in bis left. He fans himself three times and chaunts an ode, in which he bewails his own fate and the treachery of the king. After this he throws down the fan and the sword on the ground and dances.
3. Hnemadaw Taung-gyishin Nat. She was the daughter of Nga Tindaw of Tagaung. When her brother was being burnt alive, she asked the king's permission to pay her last respects to her brother. She then went to where he was, and, under the pretence of paying her respects, jumped into the fire and thus met her death. The attendants only just succeeded in saving her head, over which were afterwards performed the rites of cremation. After their death, both brother and sister became Nats on the sagà tree. They did much barm to the people by afflicting them with ailments and disease, and eventually the evil became so intolerable that the tree itself was uprooted and thrown into the Irrawaddy. It drifted down and was stranded on the shore of Pagån, near the Thàppâyànka Gate, during the reign of King Thinlègyaung. They then related their story to the king in a dream, and he mad their images and placed them in a Nat shrine on the top of Mount Pôpå.
In this fes-ival, the medium wears a skirt fringed with a border of foreign manufacture, a long jacket, and a shawl embroidered with gold and silver. The shawl is worn over the head. Sho holds a cup of betel-leaves in the left hand and a water-jug with a lid in the right hand. She lays down the jng after raising it three times, and then, holding thabye twigs in both hands, she dances and chaunts an ode, in which she recounts her old happy days and bewails her fate and that of her brother, and the treachery of the king.
4. Shwe Nabo Nat. Shwe Nabê Nat was, according to the usual story, a resident of Mindôn. She was married to a sea-serpent and gave birth to two sons, Taungmàgy and Myaukmin Sinbyushin. Being deserted by the sea-serpent she died of a broken-heart.
According to another story, she was the relative of a certain nagd or sea-serpent. On a visit to her relative at Namantå Settawya, she brought her three daughters Shwêchů,
• I avoid explanations of the text, as they will be found in detail in the works already referred to.
