BURMESE OATH.

Waikato Times, Volume VII, Issue 389, 10 November 1874, Page 2

BURMESE OATH.

The Friend of India gives the form of an oath taken by a Burman in Court : — " I will speak the truth. If I do not speak the truth, may it be through the influence of the laws of demerit — passion, anger, folly, pride, false opinion, immodesty, hard-heartedness, and scepticism — so that when I and my relations wo on land, and animals — such as tigers, elephants*, buffaloes, poisonous serpents, scorpions — shall seize, crush and bite us, so that we shall certainly die. Let tho calamaties occasioned by fire, waters, rulers, theives and enemies, oppress and destroy us till we perish and come to utter destruction. Let us bo subject to all the calamaties that ai'e without the body. May we bo seized with madness, dumbness, deafness, leprosy, and hydrophobia. May we be struck with thunderbolts and lightning, and come to sudden death. In the midst of not speaking truth may I bo taken with voiniting clotted black blood, and suddenly dio before the assembled people. When 1 am going by water, may the spirit assaulfc mo, tho boat bo upset and

property losO ; and may alligators, porpoises, sharks and other sea monsters seize and cnish me to death ; and when 1 change worlds, may I not arrive among men or angels-, but suffer unmixed punishment and .regret, in the utmost wretchednes among the four states of punishment, Hell, Prota, Beasts, and Athuraki."