478 



Proceedings of the Asiatic Society. 



[No. 4, 



graphs* representing the principal characters of a mystery play wit- 

 nessed by him at the Hisnis Monastery between Leh and Ladak. 



The following letter accompanied the presentation : — 



" Dehra DJioon, August 20th, 1864. 



My deae Sib, — In the beginning of 1863, as we were marching 

 up through Ladak towards the Pungong Lake, where our survey 

 operations for that year were to be carried on, we were delayed 

 several days by rain at the village below the celebrated Boodhisfc 

 monastery of Hisnis, which is situated in a lateral ravine about two 

 marches up the left bank of the river Indus above Leh. While 

 encamped here, we got information from one of our guides about the 

 religious mystery plays performed by the monks on certain religious 

 festivals. They are mentioned in Moorcroft's Travels, Vol. I. page 

 345. By means of a present to the Abbot, we persuaded him to 

 give us a private performance. Luckily, having photographic appa- 

 ratus with me, I arranged to take negatives of ten of the principal 

 characters, prints of which I now enclose. I have put the names I 

 obtained on the back of each, 



I was greatly struck with the resemblance of this play to the 

 Burmese poeys (or Nautch,) that I saw in 1853, particularly as to 

 the masks and demons introduced, and I have been informed by an 

 officer who assisted at the reception of the Burmese Ambassadors in 

 Calcutta, that the head dress shown in No. 6 is almost identical with 

 some of the head dresses then worn by the Burmese. It struck me 

 also that there was a very strong resemblance between this play and 

 the old Eoman Catholic feast of Unreason or All Fool's Day, so well 

 described in one of Sir Walter Scott's novels, either the Abbot or the 

 Monastery. The Band shown in No. 10, throughout the whole of the 

 performance, kept up a low monotonous music, accompanied by a low 

 chant of monks. The figures came in, generally in groups of 5 and 6, 

 and after dancing a short time, retired into the monastery, and were 

 replaced by others : occasionally a jester and a sort of harlequin, with 

 him, came in with the other characters, and played practical jokes on 

 each other. 



* Endeavours will be made to reproduce these for publication in a future 

 number of the Journal, in conjunction with a more detailed description of the 

 play, communicated by Captian H. H. Godwin Austen Eds, 



