File:Shans at home. With two chapters on Shan history and literature (1910) (14577646008).jpg

Identifier: shansathomewitht00miln (find matches)
Title: Shans at home. With two chapters on Shan history and literature
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Milne, Leslie, Mrs., 1860-1952 Cochrane, Wilbur Willis
Subjects: Shan (Asian people)
Publisher: London : John Murray
Contributing Library: University of British Columbia Library
Digitizing Sponsor: University of British Columbia Library

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ll of their origin is as follows : When the great Lord Buddha was alive, a poorwidow heard that he was to pass through the villagewhere she lived. Her friends were busy preparing togive him offerings of food or clothes for himself andhis disciples. The widow was very poor, having onlyone or two little copper coins, but she longed to givesomething to the great Teacher. She was able to buyonly a few bolls of cotton, which she teazed, cleaned,and spun, and with the thread thus made she wovea narrow piece of cloth. When the Buddha arrivedthe villagers crowded round him with their gifts. Atfirst the poor woman waited on the outskirts of thecrowd, then she took courage, and pushing throughthe people offered her little strip of cloth. Thesurrounding disciples laughed at the uselessnessof her gift, but the Buddha received it graciously,telling his followers that of all the gifts that he hadreceived that of the poor widow was the greatest, asshe had given him all that she possessed. This, they
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EMBROIDERED BANNER. p. 122) 1 I THE AUTUMN FESTIVAL 123 say, is the reason why narrow strips of cloth may beseen, near Buddhist temples, in memory of the poorwidow and her offering. Sometimes the streamers are not white, but areembroidered with elaborate designs. Pagodas andbirds are represented ; there is generally a boat, inwhich a passenger is being rowed across a river byone or more boatmen, and the water is full of fish.Women who do this needlework explain that a monkis in the boat; but it is quite possible that the boat,boatman, and passenger may be a survival of pre-Buddhist ideas, representing the passage of the soulacross the River of Death. The poles and streamersare raised in memory of the dead, and it is believedthat they will in some way benefit by this remembranceof them. When the bamboo, with its streamer attached, is tobe raised on the day of the festival it is carried by mento an open space near a monastery; women walkbehind and assist by supporting the streamer. They

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