CHAP. VII.] 



THE FINE ARTS. 



485 



Sacred Lake." Hence, according to the Rajavali, 

 the lion was pre-eminent amongst beasts, "the hanza 

 was king over all the feathered tribes." 1 In one of 

 the Jatakas, which contains the legend of Buddha's 

 apotheosis, his hair, when suspended in the sky, is de- 

 scribed as resembling "the beautiful Kala hanza." 2 

 The goose is, at the present day, the national emblem 

 emblazoned on the standard of Burmah, and the brass 

 weights of the Burmese are 

 generally cut in the shape 

 of the sacred bird, just as 

 the Egyptians formed their 

 weights of stone after the 

 same model. 3 



AUGUSTINE, in his Civitas 

 Dei, traces the respect for 

 the goose, displayed by the 

 Romans, to gratitude for the 

 preservation of the capitol; 

 when the vigilance of this 

 bird defeated the midnight attack by the Goths. The 

 adulation of the citizens, he says, degenerated afterwards 

 almost to Egyptian superstition, in the rites instituted 

 in honour of their preservers on that occasion. 4 But 

 the very fact that the geese which saved the citadel 

 were already sacred to Juno, and domesticated in her 

 temple, demonstrates the error of Augustine, and shows 

 that they had acquired mythological eminence, before 



FROM THE BURMESE STANDARD. 



1 Rajavali, p. 149. The Maha- 

 wanso, ch. xxx. p. 179, also speaks of 

 the " hanza" as amongst the decora- 

 tions chased on the stem of a bo- 

 tree, modelled in gold, which was 

 deposited by Dutugaimunu when 

 building the Ruanwelle" dagoba at 

 Anarajapoora in the 2nd century be- 

 fore Chnst. 



2 HARDY'S Buddhism, ch. vii. p. 

 161. 



3 See StME's Embassy to Ava, p. 

 330; YULE'S Narrative of the British 



Mission to Ava in 1855, p. 110. I 

 have seen a stone in the form of a 

 goose, found in the ruins of Nineveh, 

 which appears to have been used as a 

 weight. 



4 " And hereupon did Rome fall 

 almost into the superstition of the 

 ^Egyptians that worship birds and 

 beasts, for they henceforth kept a 

 holy day which they call the goose's 

 feast. ' ' ATJGTJSTINE. Civitas Dei, $c. 

 book ii. ch. 22 : Englished by F. H. 

 Icond. 1610. 



