The Strong Horse

There once existed a very old gold trade route to the mountains and over the years many people had set off to journey on that path and not returned home. It so happened that at one time five hundred merchants set out to follow the path to the mountains on business.

Some days into their journey they came upon a forest and in that forest they choose to stay with the local women. They stayed in the woman’s house and fell asleep. When they were sleeping a ghost appeared and told the leader of the merchants that the women were not human and that they have captured many travellers of the past tied a rope around them and locked them in a building. Also that when new travellers arrive they capture them and then kill and eat the old ones they already have.

The leader awoke and told the rest of the merchants that they must leave the house, but two hundred and fifty said that they did not believe the leader and that they would stay. So in the night two hundred and fifty left and started for home leaving from the other side of the forest, but their path was blocked by a giant river. They are become very worried for their lives.

At that time there were three known parts of earth Junbudip, Suaarnadip and Tamrapurnidip. A large white horse that travelled between the lands came to the river and said that he was crossing the river to Junbudip and that if the people wanted to cross with him then they could ride on his back.

The people did this, but the woman of the forest followed and called from the bank for them to stay. Every man that turned his head fell into the water and drowned until only the leader was left. He returned home with only his life and lived to become king of Kathmandu.

All was not over however and some-time later a woman from far away arrived in the city with a child claiming that she was the Kings bride from the mountains. The King denied all knowledge of the woman and tied the woman to a rock.

To avenge the King’s action the ghost women came to the city and killed the king.
(This story has been kindly adapted from evening with Sareeta Sanu, Patan and an afternoon with Kesar Lall, Kathmandu. 2012).
This story relates to the legend which is illustrated in a picture kept and only displayed for two weeks a year in Durba Square, Temple, Kathmandu. The people of Kathmandu still bring rice water to the temple of the woman that brought her child from the mountains. The strong horse with a wide back appears in a similar story where the merchant travellers are told of impending doom not by a ghost, but by a pre-incarnation of the Lord Buddha that appears inside a burning oil lamp that will not extinguish. The three known realms of the earth Junbudip, Suaarnadip and Tamrapurnidip correspond to Nepal/Tibet/India, Malaysia and Thailand. The strong horse may relate to the symbol of Lung ta, a horse that bears special powers and appears through-out the region, from Buddhist prayer flags to the emblem of Mongolia.