bodies are interred. The Pretas, hunger for food, and hence the custom so prevalent in China of feeding the hungry ghosts both of relatives and of others. The Maras are enemies of Buddha's doctrine. On this account they are considered as demons, although they inhabit one of the lokas or "heavens" of the Hindoo cosmogony. The king of the "Maras" (Mo-kwei) is called Po-siun and Mo-(Ma) wang. The word Mara is explained, "he who kills," also "the culprit." The kwei are, in some instances, of a good disposition. Among such are reckoned--as a Buddhist work quoted in the Fa-yuen-chu-lin informs us--the shen or "genii" of mountains, seas, and other natural objects. The word shen is also used generically for the eight classes of beings before mentioned, from the dragons downwards, and is very frequently employed by the Buddhists for the soul of man, perhaps more than in any other sense. The early Buddhist apologists, in pleading for the immortality of the soul as a part of the doctrine of metempsychosis, constantly used shen for "soul."

The king of the kwei or "demons" is Yama, in Hindoo mythology the ruler of the dead. From his office as judge of future punishments, his name constantly occurs in the conversation of the common people in China. He is called Yen-mo-lo-she (formerly Jam-ma-la-ja), which is abbreviated to Yen-lo. The usual Hindoo name may be recognised in Yen-ma and Yem-ma, which are other designations applied to him in Chinese books. Jam-ma-raja means the "Royal pair," a brother and sister, who judge men and women respectively. Associated with Yen-lo are nine kings who preside together over the state of the dead. His image is placed with theirs in temples, accompanied with various representations suited to remind the spectator of the world of torment. In the Ti-tsang Sutra, he is described as coming from the iron mountain wall where the Buddhist hell is situated, to the Tau-li heaven, to hear Shakyamuni Buddha deliver a Sutra there. He is classed among the sons of Devas, and is attended by many thousand

kings of demons. He may be pointed to as the most remarkable example of the influence of Hindoo mythology on the popular mind of China. The common people all expect to meet Yen-lo-wang (Yama) after death, and be judged by him with the strictest impartiality. They believe that he fixes the hour of dissolution, and that the decision once made, nothing can alter or postpone it.