glowing metaphor in the sutras devoted to it,[1] has doubtless stirred to emulation many of the later Taoist writers. A parallel to the magic fungus is found in its gigantic tree that gives immunity from all the ills of the flesh. Further, it agrees with the Chinese island Elysium in its abundant provision for all physical needs, and in the absence of those amorous delights that figure so prominently in Western ocean paradises. The inhabitants of Sukhavātī live for ages, but not for ever, because they are candidates for Buddhahood. Neither are they translated thither in the bodies tenanted on earth, but are born from lotuses within the paradise.
Very similar is the Hindu northern paradise of Uttera-kuru, peopled by beings who have acquired perfection by the magic means of yoga, and in them we see a resemblance to hsien. They reach this inaccessible land by being dropped from the skies. The same miraculous tree exempts them from disease and decay, and they live the same round of sensuous pleasures. At length, after many centuries, they die, and their corpses are removed to mountain caves by fabulous birds.[2] One account gives a sexual side to the joys of Uttera-kuru.[3]
The Grecian version of this northern paradise is inhabited by the Hyperboreans. Here again death ends long years of blissful existence; for, when surfeited with the joys of life, the Hyperboreans leap from a rock into the sea.[4]
The foregoing examples all differ from the Far Eastern paradise in their association with death. In ancient Greece and Ireland are to be found notions more nearly resembling the Chinese, because they are linked inseparably with carnate immortality, and are devoid of ethical or religious
