Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt:...but what this kernel of history may be is most uncertain. In the author's view they and the Asuras are hostile tribes who opposed the Aryan invaders, and the heavenly Nagas, or demi-gods, are the deified ancestors of the N:ga people on earth. He has, I think, failed to establish this thesis, simply because the notices of the Nagas in early literature are so vague that it is impossible to say how much is folklore and how much history. It is useful to have these passages collected; but they are arranged without any semblance of order, and thongh there is a classified table of contents, the book is destitute of an index. The best part of the book is that based not on literary speculation, but on the writer's owu observations. He is well acquainted with the country along the Himalaya. He examined many of the shrines, and the book is well equipped with excellent illustrations of them. We know, of course, from the diaries of the Bnddhist pilgrims and later observers that this region was a centre of serpent-worship. But when Dr. Oldham attempts to investigate the very tangled ethnology of these people, we find him but slenderly equipped for the task. He seems to have little acquaintance with the recent literature of the subject, and even Mr. Kisley's great report on the last census is not quoted. But when he gets rid of speculations on ethnology and totemism his account of what he has himself observed is interesting and useful. Thus, he brings out that here the snake cult is not phallic, and he gives a good account of the inspired prophet of the snake shrines, who works himself up into a state of ecstacy by whipping himself with a terrible scourge and inhaling the smoke of the sacred cedar tree. If he had described this curious worship and these quaint shrines in...