In an interesting paper on Walrus and Narwhal Ivory, Dr. Laufer (T’oung Pao, July, 1916, p. 357) refers to dog-headed men with women of human shape, from a report from the Mongols received by King Hethum of Armenia.

XIV., p. 313.  “The people [of Ceylon] are Idolaters, and go quite naked except that they cover the middle....  The King of this Island possesses a ruby which is the finest and biggest in the world; I will tell you what it is like.  It is about a palm in length, and as thick as a man’s arm; to look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth; it is quite free from flaw and as red as fire.  Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be named at all.”

Chau Ju-kwa, p. 73, has:  “The King holds in his hand a jewel five inches in diameter, which cannot be burnt by fire, and which shines in (the darkness of) night like a torch.  The King rubs his face with it daily, and though he were passed ninety he would retain his youthful looks.

“The people of the country are very dark-skinned, they wrap a sarong round their bodies, go bare-headed and bare-footed.”

XIV., p. 314 n.

THE ISLAND OF CEYLON.

The native kings of this period were Pandita Prakama Bahu II., who reigned from 1267 to 1301 at Dambadenia, about 40 miles north-north-east of Columbo (Marco Polo’s time); Vijaya Bahu IV. (1301-1303); Bhuwaneka Bahu I. (1303-1314); Prakama Bahu III. (1314-1319); Bhuwaneka Bahu II. (1319).

SAGAMONI BORCAN.

= Sakya Muni Burkhan.

XV., p. 319.  Seilan-History of Sagamoni Borcan.  “And they maintain ... that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish that are there were those of the same king’s son, whose name was Sagamoni Borcan, or Sagamoni the Saint.”

See J.F.  FLEET, The Tradition about the corporeal Relics of Buddha. (Jour.  R. As.  Soc., 1906, and April, 1907, pp. 341-363.)

XV., p. 320.

In a paper on Burkhan printed in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, XXXVI., 1917, pp. 390-395, Dr. Berthold Laufer has come to the following conclusion:  “Burkhan in Mongol by no means conveys exclusively the limited notion of Buddha, but, first of all, signifies ’deity, god, gods,’ and secondly ‘representation or image of a god.’  This general significance neither inheres in the term Buddha nor in Chinese Fo; neither do the latter signify ‘image of Buddha’; only Mongol burkhan has this force, because originally it conveyed the meaning of a shamanistic image.  From what has been observed on the use of the word burkhan in the shamanistic or pre-Buddhistic religions of the Tungusians, Mongols and Turks, it is manifest that the word well existed there before the arrival of Buddhism, fixed in its form and meaning, and was but subsequently transferred to the name of Buddha.”

XV., pp. 323 seq.

BARLAAM AND JOSAPHAT.