522
NOTES AND QUERIES. [IIS.IV.DEC.SO.IQII.
while, to imitate the style and general effect
of Gilbert's drawings.
That Gilbert really felt a sentimental loyalty to George Stiff I have always believed; and I feel convinced that, but for the final change of proprietorship, he would have stayed on with the journal for a few years longer. After 1863 he very seldom returned to wood-drawing ; and even his paintings appear to have been undertaken chiefly for amusement. Most of his later pictures were presented by himself to various public institutions and galleries in London and the provinces. HERBERT B. CLAYTON.
39, Renfrew Road, Lower Kennirigton Lane.
WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT:
EASTERN VARIANTS.
(Concluded from p. 505.)
THE paucity of books now at my hand prevents me from ascertaining what manner of morals was attributed to the rat and the cat by the Indians before the 'Buddha's advent. All that I know is that the Code of Manu, which is said to have been composed about B.C. 900 or 1000 (J. F. Clarke, ' Ten Great Religions,' Boston and New York, 1889, p. 101), attests the then proverbial existence of the fable of the cunning, penitent cat (Gubernatis, * Zoological Myth- ology,' 1872, vol. ii. p. 54), which is often reiterated in the Buddhist scriptures (e.g., ' Mula - sarvasti - vada - vinaya - sangha- bhe- daka-vastu,' Chinese translation by I-tsing, torn. xx. ; ' Thah-pau-tsang-king,' torn, iii., wherein the cat is made to attempt to devour a cock after enticing him to marry her). Tavernier, ' Les Six Voyages,' Paris, 1676, torn. i. p. 442, states that the Zoroastrians abhor snakes, vipers, frogs, toads, emmets, crawfish, rats, mice, &c., but above all they loathe the cat as a very devilish animal, so that they never keep it in their dwellings, choosing rather to suffer the rats and mice to make disorder therein. And I believe the same tolerance and abhorrence were shown respectively towards rats and cats by the ancient Indians, whose creed, Brahmanism, possessed so many points of agreement with Zoroastrianism both having descended from the primitive Aryan folk- religion. So the modern Indian witch is said to have a cat familiar (' Encyc. Brit.,' llth ed., vol. xxviii. p. 755); and I remember having read, in either Victor Jacquemont, ' Voyage dans 1'Inde,' Paris, 1841, or F. E. Younghusband, ' The Heart of a Continent,' London, 1896, a graphic account of how
differently the cat is received by the Hindus
and the Indian Mohammedans.
Buddhism, though fundamentally opposite- to Brahmanism in its doctrines, has never- theless adopted a legion of usages and legends from it, not excepting the com- miseration of rats and mice and the ab- horrence of their deadly foe. Further, the Buddha's teaching of universal love, which involves the strong reproof of the destruction of any life, would seem to have greatly enhanced both of these feelings. Thus it is a Buddhist belief that a miser or a double- tongued man would be reborn as a cat ( ' Ta- yung - pu - sah - fan - pieh- nieh - pau - lioh - king, ' trans. Chung-kai, c. 433-41 A.D.), and that the cat is a recipient of a false teacher's soul (' Mula-sarvasti-vada-nikaya-nidana,' torn, xlvi.). The Japanese specifically exclude the cat from a group of animals which they represent as surrounding and mourning the dying Buddha, saying it was the only creature that rejoiced on that catastrophic occasion. Also they hold that its approach causes a human corpse to become possessed and start to dance. (For allied European superstitions see Tozer, ' Researches in the Highlands of Turkey,' 1869, vol. ii. p. 85.) Probably these notions had their origin in India, whence the cat is reputed to have been introduced to Japan ('Neko no Soshi/ written c. 1602, reprint Tokyo, 1901, p. 5). According to the Confucianist ' Books of Rites,' chap, xi., near the end of every year the ancient Chinese offered feasts to tigers and cats in token of thanks for their freeing plantations from wild hogs and rats respectively. But later on the cat, primsevally looked up to as godlike, was degraded to a diabolical being under the influence of Indian folk-lore that had been brought in with Buddhism. For instance, in the sixth and seventh centuries general persecutions ravaged China, capitally punish- ing several thousands of families because of their having practised unlawful arts by means of the worship of a cat's spirit (' Yuen- kien-lui-han,' 1703, torn, cdxxxvi. fol. 65). Filippo de Marini, in his ' Historia et Rela- tione del Tunchino e del Giapone,' Roma, 1665, mentions a Tonquinese usage on the- final day of the year, namely, to picture above the threshold the Buddha with cats in order to repel the evil spirits that try to enter the house. Apparently this is partly the survival of their forefathers' cat worship, and perhaps serves to strengthen Dr. Nehring's view that the domesticated cat has a dual parentage, one stock coming from South-Eastern Asia and the other from
