DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.649#0351
THK SQUARE TORTOISE. 305
bolizing some part or direction of the universe. The
tortoise is considered by the Tibetan Buddhists to support
the universe; and it is in allusion to this belief that it
is generally drawn surrounded by water, signifying the
ocean which washes the shores of the different continents.
The legend having reference hereto, and which Pallas1
also found to be spread amongst the Mongolian tribes,
is this: As often as the universe, after its destruction,
has to be re-moulded, the chaos, a fluid and incoherent
mass, is somewhat dried by the winds, and the liquid
ingredients separated from the solid. At the time of
the creation of the present world, Manjusri caused a tor-
toise of enormous size to emanate from him and to float
in this chaos. Then considering, as god of wisdom, that
the continents to be formed needed a solid basis, he rose
up into the atmosphere and discharged a golden arrow,
which struck the tortoise in its right side causing it to
turn over and sink down through the chaotic mass, drop-
ping blood from its wound, leaving behind its excrements,
and vomiting fire, thus increasing the elementary parts
dissolved in the waters; and when the consolidation took
place, it furnished the basis of the universe, which now
rests upon the flat under side of its shell.
This surface is quite distinctly characterised, in all
representations I have before me, as the under shell, not
as the back of the tortoise. The head is turned upwards
to show the face, and what makes it more evident still,
1 Compare Pallas, "Mongol. Volkerschaften," Vol. II., p. 21. The fullest
account of it was told by the Lamas to stand in the Tibetan book Shecha
rabsal "history of science."
20
bolizing some part or direction of the universe. The
tortoise is considered by the Tibetan Buddhists to support
the universe; and it is in allusion to this belief that it
is generally drawn surrounded by water, signifying the
ocean which washes the shores of the different continents.
The legend having reference hereto, and which Pallas1
also found to be spread amongst the Mongolian tribes,
is this: As often as the universe, after its destruction,
has to be re-moulded, the chaos, a fluid and incoherent
mass, is somewhat dried by the winds, and the liquid
ingredients separated from the solid. At the time of
the creation of the present world, Manjusri caused a tor-
toise of enormous size to emanate from him and to float
in this chaos. Then considering, as god of wisdom, that
the continents to be formed needed a solid basis, he rose
up into the atmosphere and discharged a golden arrow,
which struck the tortoise in its right side causing it to
turn over and sink down through the chaotic mass, drop-
ping blood from its wound, leaving behind its excrements,
and vomiting fire, thus increasing the elementary parts
dissolved in the waters; and when the consolidation took
place, it furnished the basis of the universe, which now
rests upon the flat under side of its shell.
This surface is quite distinctly characterised, in all
representations I have before me, as the under shell, not
as the back of the tortoise. The head is turned upwards
to show the face, and what makes it more evident still,
1 Compare Pallas, "Mongol. Volkerschaften," Vol. II., p. 21. The fullest
account of it was told by the Lamas to stand in the Tibetan book Shecha
rabsal "history of science."
20