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132 Symbolism of the East and West
the emblems of that god. A new light, however, would appear
to have been thrown upon it by Japanese symbolic art. In
a paper on Netsukes, by Mr Mortimer Mempes [Magazine of
Art. 1889), is an illustration of a snake goddess, accompanied
by the following legend :— High up, overlooking Lake Buva
in Japan, stands the monastery of Mi-i-deva. There was a
village beauty called Kiya Lume. Anchin, her admirer,
was a priest of Mi-i-deva. After a time he bestowed his
attentions on another lady ;
he
forsook Kiya Lume, and she
in her rage and disappointment applied to the spirits of
evil, entreating them to give her power to avenge herself
on the perfidious Anchin. They granted her request, en-
abling her to take at will the form of a dragon. Assuming
this shape, she went straight to the monastery where Anchin
lived : he, fearing impending evil, had hidden himself under
the great bell which was the fame and the pride of the
monastery. Kiya Lume soon discovered his hiding-place,
and coiling her snake-like tail round the bell, proceeded
to hammer it until it melted by the heat generated by
her repeated blows ;
thus
both Kiya Lume and Anchin
perished together in the mass of molten metal.
The fancied resemblance of some natural objects, such as
a mountain, a rock, or a grassy mound, to animals or other
things which the natives of India venerate or hold sacred,
has caused them to give simple names to certain spots, as,
for instance, a small lake in Kashmir is called Nil nag, and
an alp or mountain pasture Nag marg. Again Nag kanda,
or the shoulder of the snake, is the name given to a grassy
knoll about thirty miles north of Simla. Nature, assisted
possibly by art, has given this a likeness to a coiled snake.