* As these legends generally are based upon something which Europeans would designate a vile pun, I turned to the Sanscrit Lexicon (Monier Williams), first to ascertain the names of "the arm;" and, secondly, if there were any words allied to it, however remotely, which had a certain meaning. Amongst others, I find that _buja_ signifies "an arm," and _bhaga_ is a name of Siva--one of whose epithets, _bhagan- dara_ = "rending the vulva." _Dosha_ also means "the arm" and "night." Another word having the same meaning, is _praveshta_, and this not only signifies the arm, but one "who covers over." We can then, I think, see why the device of the churning, referred to in the text, made a process available for the production of a child. The legend is a clumsy one, but not more so than that in Exodus xxxiii. 23, wherein we are told that Jehovah showed to Moses "His back parts,"--Vulgate, _posteriora mea_--inasmuch as no one could see His face and live! A still more curious story is related in the same dictionary, p. 451, under the word _ayonijeswara_. This appellative is one belonging to a sacred place of pilgrimage sacred to _Ayonija_, whose miraculous birth was thus brought about. A very learned Muni, though making a commendable use of the proper nasal way of reading sacred scripture in his own person, yet associated with individuals who did not give the orthodox twang.* The good man remained, in consequence of this, in a sonless condition, but the legend does not condescend to explain why toleration of tones in religious ceremony should make a husband infertile and his wife barren. At any rate, the Muni, named Vidyananda, feeling the punishment a great one, travelled, apparently alone, from one holy place to another without being nearer paternity. At length he met with a _yogin_ or male anchoret, hermit, devotee, or saint, corresponding to the _yoginis_, who are represented by Moor (H. P., p. 235) as being sometimes very lovely and alluring; and he, taking pity upon the Muni, gave him a wonderful fruit, which, he informed him, if eaten by his wife, would have the effect of procuring for Vidyananda the birth of a son. But the Muni, like many another character in mythological and fairy tales, seems suddenly to have lost his sense of hope deferred and a certain prospect of relief, for instead of hurrying home he sought repose under a tree on a river's brink, and whilst there ate the fruit himself. He at once became pregnant. When the new state of things was evident, he confessed all that had happened to the Yogin, and the latter, by means of his supernatural power, introduced a stick into the body of Yidyananda, and relieved him of the infant. The creature was a beautiful boy, radiant like the disc of the sun, and endowed with divine lustre, and on account of the mode in which he was born his father called him _Ayonija_, which signifies, "not born from the womb." The