Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 edition. Excerpt: ... or medium) is not considered respectable, and he married her to a young Burman. The Nat became enraged and the newly-married husband sickened and died, and the guardian was obliged to celebrate the marriage between the widow and the Nat. The lady thus became a nat-kadazu and her oracular utterances were highly esteemed. Whenever she was possessed, she would drain off jars of toddy and four or five bottles of gin or brandy, and would be quite sober when she regained consciousness. She would even smoke ganja a hemp intoxicant in her cigars. After the expiry of about six months the Nat apparently got tired of his lady-love and left her for 'pastures new.' She then lost the power of seeing into the past and future and, to hide her shame, she betook herself to Maiibin, where she died of cholera, perhaps with the approval or connivance of her celestial husband." Unlike Burmese astrology, Burmese magic seems not to have been greatly subjected to indigenous influences and to be still mainly Indian in origin, the Nats connected with it being chiefly Burmanised representatives of Indian Buddhist personages, 2/ia'e Taw Sein Ko's description of Ponnaka Nat, involed for the purpose of doing harm by invisible agency. " Ponnaka is the name of a Nat in the Vidura /zitaka, who took the wise minister Vidura to the Queen of the Nagas Serpents. The Queen had heard of the wisdom and virtue of Vidura and was eager to hear him preach, and Ponnaka was commissioned by her daughter to fetch him. He did so most effectually by tying him to the tail of his horse. The Ponnaka Nat is capable of doing three things in an invisible manner: --throwing stones at a house, heating people with a stick, burning a house or village. " It is necessary, ...
