5. The number five is a favourite number in Buddhistic teaching,
ritual and ceremonies. (Wassiljew, quoted by Jülg.) To Bodhidsarma,
the last Indian patriarch, on his removal to China, is ascribed this
sentence: "I came to this country to make known the law and to free
men from their passions. Every blossom that brings forth fruit hath
five petals, and thus have I fulfilled my undertaking." (Abel Remusat,
Mel. As. p. 125.) One of Buddha, or at least, Âdi-Buddha's titles,
particularly in Tibet, is Pankagnânâtmaka, or "him possessed of five
kinds of gnâna" or knowledge (Notices of the Religion of the Bouddhas,
by B. Hodgson), and this formed the basis of the complicated system
of the later Buddhists.
The Brahmans, too, had five sacred observances which they aimed
at exercising; the study of their sacred books, to offer sacrifice
to the manes, the gods and all creatures, hospitality, and thereby
increase as well their own virtue and renown as that of their fathers
and mothers. The five necessary things are clothes, food, drink,
coverlets for sleeping, and medicine.
The five colours are blue, white, green, yellow, and red. (Köppen,
ii. 307, note 3.)
6. Baling-cakes are figures made of dough or rice paste, generally
pyramidal in form, covered with cotton wool or some inflammable
material smeared over with brown colour and then set fire to. (Jülg.)
7. Râkschasas, Bopp (note to his translation of the Ramajana) calls
them giants. In the mythology they are evil demons inimical to man;
vampires in human form, generally of hideous aspect, but capable of
assuming beautiful appearances in order to tempt and deceive.
There is no doubt, however, it was the Raxasas, the wild people
inhabiting the country south of the Vindhja range at the time of
the immigration of the Aryan Indians, whose fierce disposition, and
cruel treatment of the Brahmans gave rise to the above conception of
the word. Consult Lassen, Ind. Altert. i. 535, where passages giving
them this character are quoted; also pp. 582, 583.