To appreciate the legend of the Birman, one must first visualise the beautiful temples in ancient Burma. The magnitude of the Buddah idols help to impress upon us the deep religious faith the people of this land have. Their belief in the reincarnation of souls and their deep respect and love for their Priests. The watchful and loving care of the one hundred white temple cats is due to their belief that the Priests are returned in the form of the Sacred Cats of Burma after death. Centuries ago the Khmer people of Asia built beautiful temples of worship to pay homage to their gods. One such temple built many centuries ago was the temple called Lao-Tsun built in honor of Tsu-Kyan-Kse their beautiful goddess. One night the temple was raided by bandits, and in trying to protect the golden statue of their goddess, the High Priest Mun-Ha suffered a heart attack. As his master lay dying the priests white cat, Sinh sprung to his aid and hissed in defiance at the intruders, the junior priests seeing this were heartened and managed to repel the bandits. Sinh relaxed and gazed up at the statue, as he did the perfect soul of his master suffered the miracle of transmutation and passed into the body of the cat. As the transfer took place, the cat´s body changed to reflect the pale gold of the statue of Tsu-Kyan-Kse, his face legs and tail became the color of the earth and his yellow eyes turned a brilliant sapphire blue. Only his four white feet still resting on his masters body remained unchanged signifying his masters purity. On the seventh day Sinh also died, carrying with him the perfect soul of his master to Tsun-Kyan-Kse. As peace returned, the remaining priests gathered before the statue to decide who would become the successor, and were amazed to see that the one hundred white temple cats had all taken on the same coloring of Sinh. In complete silence the cats now surrounded the youngest priest, thereby indicating the will of the goddess. From that time onwards, when a priest died, his soul was transmigrated into the body of one of the temple cats, upon the death of the cat the transmutation of the priest became complete.
Posted on: Mon, 10 Jun 2013 09:27:29 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015