SIGNS AND WONDERS
THE DESCENT OF THE GOD. By Maurice Collis. Faber. English price, 12/6. DIVINE visitant to a remote island in the Bay of Bengal in the mig-16th Century caused the inhabitants of the kingdom of Arakan (Burmese by blood) the most delicious consternation. The divinity was vague; he left much to the imagination. Imagination was not, lacking among the Arakanese, a gracious, gentle race whose sense of the divine could be harmonised with discreet personal ambition. A blue monster rising from a lake, a tame white dove, rice of a@ peculiar sweetness, and a hill which exuded a lovely scent-except, awkwardly enough, on two special occasions -all these showed which, way the wind was blowing when the Personage, never seen, only apprehended, came down among men. The heavenly wind bloweth where it listeth, and the revelation was not meant for the grovelling farmers of Manaung Island, not for the shrewd Southern Lord, not for the Arch-abbot of the Eighty Thousand, not certainly for Captain Gaspar da Silva, the Portuguese artilleryman, not even for great King Minbin himself, who desired it so passionately and died of the disappointment of not receiving it, but for the Centre Queen, that subtle, beautiful, and cunning woman who so skilfully manipulated the affairs of the kingdom to be ready to receive the special benison from on high intended for her alone. This is a delightful page from Burmese history which Maurice Collis has already several times rummaged to excellent. effect. The Descent of the God has something of the spirit, though not the style, of Pater’s Marius the Epicurean; Collis writes though with a delicacy of touch which can only be envied. His sensitive awareness of Burmese character and religious outlook make everything he writes about Burma memorable, strange, and beautiful. This book has a slighter theme than She Was a Queen, but is just as graceful and enthralling. Maurice Collis himself, a civil servant, who fell in love with the country he’ was sent to servé, once many years ago smelt the perfume of the sacred hill , where the god appeared on Manaung. It is typical of his sympathy for the new Burma that this book is dedicated to U Tin Tut. ae
David
Hall
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 504, 18 February 1949, Page 12
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373SIGNS AND WONDERS New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 504, 18 February 1949, Page 12
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